Customer Reviews

Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power

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Tim Tyson's Radio Free Dixie is an exciting and important contribution to the ever-expanding literature on the civil rights movement, in general, and Black Power, in particular. This is no old-school yawner history text. The book, while meticulously researched and footnoted, is expertly written with a dramatic flair that is usually reserved for non-academic writing. I cannot recommend it higher.

Robert Williams, a WWII vet, organized a largely working-class chapter of the NAACP in Monroe, NC, during the mid-1950s. This chapter, which also advocated "armed self-reliance," went against the grain of the usually middle-class NAACP which preferred a measured march through established institutions to the confrontational politics of direct action. Behind Williams's leadership, the Monroe chapter challenged the local Jim Crow system with varying degrees of success. In 1961, Williams was forced to flee the country in the face of trumped up kidnapping charges. He headed South to Cuba with his family where he moved in the revolutionary circles of Castro and beamed a subversive radio show which detailed the injustices of American racism at the US mainland. Ultimately, Williams left Cuba and travelled to Maoist China where he mingled with another set of revolutionaries. Later, Williams would return to the USA to teach and live in Michigan where he died last year.

Besides elevating Williams to his rightful place in civil rights history alongside Martin, Malcolm, Ella, and others, Tyson's book challenges the notion that Black Power and armed self-defense emerged only after 1965. Rather, Tyson points out that the roots of Black Power stretch further back and often worked "in tandem and in tension" with non-violent direct action. This is an important reconceptualization of a critical era in American history.

In short, you should buy this compelling book and read it... twice! It has all the drama of a hollywood movie. It will challenge your assumptions about the movement and introduce you to a tragically neglected figure in America's continuing struggle for racial justice. I give it my highest recommendation: Five+ stars!

This is the best book on the civil rights movement that I have ever read. A gripping story of one man's battle for freedom, its lyrical prose and haunting images gave me a whole new understanding of the struggle for interracial democracy in America. Most of the other histories I have read focus on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the familiar story that runs from Montgomery to Memphis. Here we see how it really was on the local level, and the politically complex and perilous situation that black activists faced in the South. I was there, and this book really captures it. The writing, too, is poetic, riveting, and sometimes quite beautiful. Line by line, this is one of the best books on any subject that I have ever read--it reads like a great novel, but it persuades because the research is so compelling. If this book doesn't win the National Book Award for history, I don't know who they are going to give it to--it's that good.

Two Images move the reader throughout Radio Free Dixie - the book cover with the young Robert Williams, cigar in mouth and gun in hand, ready for what comes and the picture of him and his wife a few years before he died, looking like Frederick Douglass in his old age, if not serene, then banking the fire of his anger at the history of black America in his lifetime with the experience of 30 years of seeing the world as an outsider and understanding the world and himself better. Tyson's book is a tour de force, written compellingly and with a passion borne from seeing the armed aspect of the American civil rights movement and what it could mean for change. William's journey is like some made-up pilgramage from rural North Carolina to the centers of third world socialism and then, amazingly for a man on the FBI's most wanted list, quietly returning to the US and living his life out in rural quiet with his family. It is a book for all those of us who were there in those days to read and for all of those who weren't - to realize the effects of class, color, and social standing inside the civil rights movements. Think of what the country might have been with Robert Williams instead of Bayard Rustin as the most visible early leader of black civil rights.

A book that not only fills in missing history but changes your sense of what history really was.

Tyson's book focuses a long-overdue spotlight on the career of Robert F. Williams, an overlooked civil rights pioneer who indelibly stamped and shaped the movement during the '50s, '60s and beyond, but who has received precious little exposure, discussion or credit from the mainstream media. "Radio Free Dixie" goes a long way to setting the record straight.

The compelling thesis of "Radio Free Dixie" is that the civil rights struggle in the South featured a strong element of armed resistance against the forces of intimidation, led by the Klan, but legitimized by the legal structure of the southern states. Williams, from an early age, rejected the pacifist ideas and practices of Martin Luther King, arguing that blacks would never win their rights, much less any measure of respect until they were willing to demonstrate a willingness to defend themselves with arms. While most of the press and his supposed allies (King included) attempted to portray him as a violent revolutionary bent on overthrowing the government, Tyson convincingly shows that Williams was in fact a true believer in the U.S. constitution and that he never advocated initiating violence. Nor did his aggressive stance come from nowhere. Tyson shows that Williams' own family had a long history of determined and nonpacifist resistance, as did many other black families throughout the South.

This is also a stirring story of one community's fight against racism. The white community of Williams' Monroe, N.C. did everything it could to stop his efforts to integrate the town, but despite this, Williams built an extraordinary local chapter of the NAACP that relentlessly exposed the injustices daily heaped on blacks, even when the NAACP itself was refusing to recognize the activities of the chapter.

Tyson's book deserves accolades for exposing another layer of the complex history of the civil rights movement. The book is well-written and researched and full of genuine, yet balanced respect for its subject. A must-read for students of the civil rights movement and those searching for a real profile in courage.

I think it was November 1997 that I drove to Detroit for a tribute to Robert F. William. When I arrived I learned that he had succumbed to cancer two weeks earlier. Although I had spoken to Williams briefly by telephone on a few occasions, I never had the opportunity to meet him personally, a fact that I deeply regret. I did meet his wife, Mabel, and found her to be the other half of Williams' heroic story. It was at the tribute, however, that Tyson announced that his biography of Williams would soon be completed and published. Although the biography was not published for another year or two, it was well worth the wait. Tyson is to be commended for a job well done in recognizing another face of the civil rights struggle that, although well known among AfroAmericans, never has received the publicity that the nonviolent movement did, and in recognizing Williams' significant contributions to the right of AfroAmericans to defend themselves against armed, violent racists, not all of whom wore sheets. This is a book that anyone interested in America's history, especially in what I consider its hidden or secret history that has only lately begun to be revealed, must have in their library.

My only criticism of the book is that Tyson did not offer more information about the details of Williams' sojourn in China and the agreement that ultimately allowed his return to the United States with his wife and children and free of the persecution of the FBI and local and state authorities. I'm sure that is a story by itself that is waiting to be told.

Read this book and William Ivy Hair's "Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles And The New Orleans Race Riot of 1900" available from the University of Louisiana Press. Get a new take on American history.

Essential reading for anyone that wants to understand the post-slavery "free" society racism and oppression suffered by African-Americans in the south and in America. Robt. F. Williams stood by his principles and dedicated himself to the day to day struggles of the common man, which put him in opposition with the KKK, The United States Government and the NAACP. In response to his actions in saving a white couple from harm in a black neighborhood in a time of racial upheavel, he ended up labeled as a dangerous and violent schizophrenic and on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. He sucessfully escaped the U.S. and soon found himself living in Cuba as an esteemed guest of Fidel Castro where his radio show "Radio Free Dixie" was broadcast at a signal that carried it to the Canadian border. Later, he went to Vietnam, as an esteemed guest of Ho Chi Minh (who credited Robt. F. Williams newsletter as being influencial in the North Vietnamese urban warfare strategy) and later, lived in China as an esteemed guest of Mao Zedung... only to return to the U.S. on a chartered flight as an high level consultant to the CIA, FBI and the Nixon Administration. Williams' insights into the politics, personality of it's leaders and culture served as the most primary and highly valued information for the Nixon administrations centerpiece legacy, Foreign Policy, with emphasis on China. The Value of Williams resulted in his being pardoned for all prior actions and all charges dropped. Amazingly, this man died of more or less natural causes. All of the above, makes Robt. F. Williams one of the greatest freedom fighters and American's and human beings who ever lived. Timothy Tyson, the author, strikes the perfect chord in his story telling, which is factual, well-researched and devoid of abrasive opinions. Much like a holocaust narrative, he aims not for hyperbole or dramatization rather, a re-telling of the facts, all of which serve to make this a book that is written at a perfect pitch for the life and times of Robt. F. Williams.
Although this review touches on the major aspects of the case, it barely scratches the surface of the information contained therin. I found that it was difficult to read more than 3 pages without the urge to jot something down, reflect in contemplation, or call someone to relate something that seemed beyond belief and yet, unknown in popular culture.

Excellent book! An important reminder of the fact that the history books left out a lot of important events and people. I had the privelege of once meeting a lady who knew Robert Williams as a child in Monroe NC and I was greatly inspired by this.

I hope this book encourages those who read it to seek out older peple who remember the Civil Rights movement so that they can learn more about what the history books "forgot" to mention.

A compelling look at a fascinating figure of the modern American civil rights movement whose story continues to be relevant. Particularly interesting is the nuanced and thoughtful treatment of the complex dialogue and tension between "nonviolence" and "self-defense" in the history of the Black freedom struggle in the US.

The period of Williams's life following his exile is only very tersely outlined (as the author himself admits), giving the book a bit of an abrupt end. More analysis of Williams's decision to renounce public life, of his scepticism about the later direction of the "Black Power" movement that had claimed him as one of its icons, and of his decision to seek an "understanding" with the US gov't enabling his return from exile, would probably make for most interesting reading.

The civil rights movement was not created by, lead by, or moved forward by the dozen or so media heros whose names we all now know. The civil rights movement succeed because so many ordinary people decided that they could no longer stand to live in the midst of injustice, and decided to step out of their daily lives and do something about it.

Robert Williams did just that. An ordinary working class guy, he used his people skills to form a network of working class black people who did not have the patience of the old line leaders of the local NAACP chapter in his hometown. He got himself elected president of the chapter, and backed by dozens of local people, formed one of the most activist chapters in the country. The national NAACP never was comfortable with Williams or the work of his chapter, and at best held them at arms length.

Inevitably, Williams' hard pressure on local structures of racism lead to a backlash. When he was attacked and his family threatened with death, the local police did nothing. When he and his community defended themselves, by taking up arms to combat the armed violence of the white racists, he was charged with murder, and became the subject of a massive FBI hunt. Escaping to Cuba, he operated a radio station, beaming the "truth" along with progressive jazz and blues which would never be played on corporate radio in the south, to Dixie.

Ultimately, Williams' stance of self-defense was taken up by Stokley Carmichael in the South, and by the Black Panther Party in Oakland, and is now well known as the "Black Power" movement. But at the time, it was simply a slightly more hardline version of the NAACP. Local chapters of the NAACP, building on long traditions of mutual support in black communities throughout the south, supported by thousands of ordinary people, formed the backbone of the civil rights movement. Anyone who thinks otherwise should read the statements by Bob Moses and the other SNCC organizers, who readily admitted that they could never have accomplished anything at all if not for the decades of groundwork done by the local NAACP chapters throughout the south.

Great book, which everyone interested in the history of the Civil Rights movement, or just interested in the way social changes really happen, should read.

Ultimately, the notion of white supremacy and the so-called glory of the Lost Cause always devolved to the use of violence and intimidation against black people and any one who sided with them. Williams' is an amazing story of courage and determination as he challenged the KKK and assorted white rabble of rural North Carolina in the 1940s through the 1960s in his quest for racial justice.

Williams, a soldier during WW2, came back to Monroe, NC after the war and took on the clowns and goons of the KKK and the local and state white government. When they fired on his home, he shot back, upsetting the applecart of segregation.

Tyson's book is a powerful portrayal of a man quite willing to die for his rights, a man fed up with the violence degradation inflicted on him by southern society, and a man willing to kill to protect his property, his person and his family.

Tyson's realistic and entertaining portrayal of the stupid and inane actions of white southern racists in North Carolina is another reason to read this book. The local thuggery is almost comical, until one remembers they are well armed and prone to alcholism and violence. Tyson goes into great detail about a 1958 case where two black boys, 10 and 8 were BEATEN and IMPRISONED for kissing a white girl.

Williams and his wife are not well known heroes of the Civil Rights struggle. This book gave me a greater appreciation of the vicious hatred, violence, and stupidity they were fighting, and how disciplined and determined the Civil Rights struggle had to be in the face of overwhelming white resistance.