A few weeks ago, I linked to a picture of civil rights activist John Salter being attacked by a mob during a lunch counter sit-in during the 1960s. I also linked to a newspaper op-ed in which Salter explained how he and other civil rights workers used firearms for protection from Klansmen and other terrorists—when Klansmen knew that a homicide would not be witnessed by the news media. Since that blog post seemed to draw great interest from the readers, I thought that some persons might be interested in the longer version of Salter’s history of the role of armed self-defense in the Civil Rights Movement.
The longer version is John R. Salter, Jr., “Social Justice Community Organizing and the Necessity for Protective Firearms,” which is chapter 2 of The Gun Culture and Its Enemies 19–23 (William R. Tonso, editor, Merril Press, 1990.) (Merril Press is the press for the Second Amendment Foundation.) The chapter was first published as an article by Salter in Against the Current, July/August 1988. The magazine describes itself as an “analytical journal for the broad revolutionary left.”
http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/publications
Unfortunately, neither version is available on-line, so I will provide a summary.
In the mid-1960s, Salter was a full-time community organizer for the Southern Conference Educational Fund, in the very poor and highly segregated North Carolina black belt. Klan activity was heavy, and “Local law enforcement was almost completely dominated by the United Klans of America.” Klan dues were collected at the police station in Enfield.
Having received many death threats, Salter carried a Smith & Wesson .38 special in his attaché case. One night, on a long stretch of isolated country road, a Klan vehicle tried to force Salter’s car into a high-speed chase, by tailing him nearly bumper-to-bumper. “But I continued to drive sedately, mile after mile…with my revolver in my hand.” Salter and the other community organizers had put out word on the grapevine that they were all armed, and he surmises that this was the reason that the Klansmen did not try to shoot him that night.
Soon after, “a local civil rights stalwart, Mrs. Alice Evans, of Enfield, opened fire with her double-barreled 12 gauge, sprinkling several KKKers with birdshot as they endeavored to burn a cross in her driveway one night and, simultaneously , approaching her homes with buckets of gasoline.” The Klansmen fled and went to the hospital. Mrs. Evans donated the cross to the Smithsonian Museum.
Salter then recounts the story of the armed students and teachers who protected Tougaloo College, near Jackson, Mississippi, when Salter taught there in 1961–63. That story is recounted in the op-ed to which I linked in the previous post.
In late 1964, the Klan was scheduling a state-wide rally in Halifax County, near a black residential area. Rally posters were displayed at “most law enforcement offices in the county.” Salter and his fellow organizers asked the office of Governor Terry Sanford to provide state police protection for the black residents. Sanford’s office ignored the requests, until Salter went to Sanford’s office, got a meeting with the chief of staff, and told him that if the state police did not provide protection, “our people, armed to the hilt, would have no hesitation about utilizing armed self-defense in the event of Klan violence. Visibly shaken, the aide left me and conferred with Sanford. He returned quickly to promise the state police.”
Klan rallies continued for several more months in the area, and so did state police protection.
In 1965 in North Carolina, the FBI and Justice Department told Salter than an informant inside a United Klans klavern had reported on a plan to bomb Salter’s home in Raleigh.The FBI agent told Salter and his wife that the federal government could not do anything about it. Of course, “Local law enforcement was not reliable. Fortunately, we lived in the middle of a heavily armed Black community,” and Salter’s neighbors were “very protective.” They and Salter put out the word that the community was armed for defense. Thus, “We were not surprised when the bombing effort never materialized.”
In the summer of 1970, Salter was Southside Director for the Chicago Commons Association. As such, he was a community organizer for mostly “Black, Puerto Rican, and Chicano” people. On the South/Southwest side of Chicago, the racism was “often more violent and sanguinary than the Deep South of the previous decade. The Richard Daley machine was openly antagonistic to us . . .” In some but not all districts, the police were in league with the racists.
Death threats were frequent. When they were phoned in, Salter told the callers, “that I had a ticket for them, a pass to permanent eternity via my Marlin .444.” One day while Salter was at work and his wife was at home, some men with knives came to the home, but a vigilant neighbor with a revolver frightened them away.
In Chicago in 1973, Salter’s community network of nearly 300 block clubs “set up public citizen ‘watch-dog’ patrols.” These were generally unarmed, with “primary backup from a network of armed citizenry in the neighborhoods,” with whom the patrols stayed in contact via Citizens Band radio and telephone. “The effects of this well known campaign in deterring while racial violence were consistently substantial.” Soon, and as a result, politicians “forced in effect increasingly responsible and egalitarian law enforcement practices. But the patrols and vigilance of armed neighborhoods continued.”
In conclusion, Salter writers that firearms are not an absolute guarantee of safety for community organizers; Medger W. Evers (NAACP Field Secretary for Mississippi) was murdered in June 1963, but being armed had helped him to live for nine years longer than most people expected he would when he took the job in 1954.
In sum, “I am stating categorically that the number of fatalities” was “much smaller” because “organizers and their grassroots groups” were “sensibly armed for self-defense.”
A few weeks ago, I linked to a picture of civil rights activist John Salter being attacked by a mob during a lunch counter sit-in during the 1960s. I also linked to a newspaper op-ed in which Salter explained how he and other civil rights workers used firearms for protection from Klansmen and other terrorists—when Klansmen knew that a homicide would not be witnessed by the news media. Since that blog post drew great interest from the readers, I thought that some persons might be interested in the longer version of Salter’s history of the role of armed self-defense in the Civil Rights Movement.
The longer version is John R. Salter, Jr., “Social Justice Community Organizing and the Necessity for Protective Firearms,” which is chapter 2 of The Gun Culture and Its Enemies , pp. 19–23 (William R. Tonso, editor, Merril Press, 1990.) (Merril Press is the press for the Second Amendment Foundation.) The chapter was first published as an article by Salter in Against the Current, July/August 1988. The magazine describes itself as an “analytical journal for the broad revolutionary left.” Since neither version is available on-line, I will provide a summary.
In the mid-1960s, Salter was a full-time community organizer for the Southern Conference Educational Fund, in the very poor and highly segregated North Carolina black belt. Klan activity was heavy, and “Local law enforcement was almost completely dominated by the United Klans of America.” Klan dues were collected at the police station in Enfield.
Having received many death threats, Salter carried a Smith & Wesson .38 special in his attaché case. One night, on a long stretch of isolated country road, a Klan vehicle tried to force Salter’s car into a high-speed chase, by tailing him nearly bumper-to-bumper. “But I continued to drive sedately, mile after mile…with my revolver in my hand.” Salter and the other community organizers had put out word on the grapevine that they were all armed, and he surmises that this was the reason that the Klansmen did not try to shoot him that night.
Soon after, “a local civil rights stalwart, Mrs. Alice Evans, of Enfield, opened fire with her double-barreled 12 gauge, sprinkling several KKKers with birdshot as they endeavored to burn a cross in her driveway one night and, simultaneously, approaching her home with buckets of gasoline.” The Klansmen fled and went to the hospital. Mrs. Evans donated the cross to the Smithsonian Museum.
Salter then recounts the story of the armed students and teachers who protected Tougaloo College, near Jackson, Mississippi, when Salter taught there in 1961–63. That story is recounted in the op-ed to which I linked in the previous post.
In late 1964, the Klan was scheduling a state-wide rally in Halifax County, N.C., near a black residential area. Rally posters were displayed at “most law enforcement offices in the county.” Salter and his fellow organizers asked the office of Governor Terry Sanford to provide state police protection for the black residents. Sanford’s office ignored the requests, until Salter went to Sanford’s office, got a meeting with the chief of staff, and told him that if the state police did not provide protection, “our people, armed to the hilt, would have no hesitation about utilizing armed self-defense in the event of Klan violence. Visibly shaken, the aide left me and conferred with Sanford. He returned quickly to promise the state police.”
Klan rallies continued for several more months in the area, and so did state police protection.
In 1965 in North Carolina, the FBI and Justice Department told Salter than an informant inside a United Klans klavern had reported on a plan to bomb Salter’s home in Raleigh.The FBI agent told Salter and his wife that the federal government could not do anything about it. Of course, “Local law enforcement was not reliable. Fortunately, we lived in the middle of a heavily armed Black community,” and Salter’s neighbors were “very protective.” They and Salter put out the word that the community was armed for defense. Thus, “We were not surprised when the bombing effort never materialized.”
In the summer of 1970, Salter was Southside Director for the Chicago Commons Association. As such, he was a community organizer for mostly “Black, Puerto Rican, and Chicano” people. On the South/Southwest side of Chicago, the racism was “often more violent and sanguinary than the Deep South of the previous decade. The Richard Daley machine was openly antagonistic to us . . .” In some but not all districts, the police were in league with the racists.
Death threats were frequent. When they were phoned in, Salter told the callers, “that I had a ticket for them, a pass to permanent eternity via my Marlin .444.” One day while Salter was at work and his wife was at home, some men with knives came to the home, but a vigilant neighbor with a revolver frightened them away.
In Chicago in 1973, Salter’s community network of nearly 300 block clubs “set up public citizen ‘watch-dog’ patrols.” These were generally unarmed, with “primary backup from a network of armed citizenry in the neighborhoods,” with whom the patrols stayed in contact via Citizens Band radio and telephone. “The effects of this well known campaign in deterring while racial violence were consistently substantial.” Soon, and as a result, politicians instituted “increasingly responsible and egalitarian law enforcement practices. But the patrols and vigilance of armed neighborhoods continued.”
Salter write that firearms are not an absolute guarantee of safety for community organizers; Medger W. Evers (NAACP Field Secretary for Mississippi) was murdered in June 1963, but being armed did help him to live for nine years longer than most people expected he would when he took the job in 1954.
In sum, “I am stating categorically that the number of fatalities” was “much smaller” because “organizers and their grassroots groups” were “sensibly armed for self-defense.”
Off Kilter says:
So you’re saying President Obama is not carrying on the grand tradition with regard to community organizing?
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February 22, 2010, 6:38 pmLarryA says:
Class act.
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February 22, 2010, 6:49 pmPJens says:
This is an excellent example of responsible gun ownership and use. It is a refreshing story compared to the countless tales of irresponsible gun use in the media. Guns are tools, just like hammers, knives and trucks. Used properly, they do much good.
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February 22, 2010, 6:59 pmMark N. says:
FWIW, it looks like you can pick up a used copy of that book for 1 cent (plus shipping) these days. But an online summary is nonetheless useful for those of us who are a bit lazy and have short attention spans; thanks!
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February 22, 2010, 7:09 pmRPT says:
This is a confusing post. Do you approve of what was described in these accounts, as civil rights activists were repeatedly accused of fomenting riots, revolution, violence, etc.? This carries over into the recent controversy over the failure of the DOJ to punish the “armed” black panthers at the PA polling station. Without regard to the 2A legal issues, it appears that there are multiple standards applied in the conservative community. If someone carries to an anti-Obama tea party, he is a citizen exercising his 2A rights. If the same guy had a bumper sticker at a Bush rally he would have been arrested. If the gun wielder is a D politician in Missouri photographed in a simulated firing range, or something like that, he is held up to ridicule by EV. Carry this over into Sen Brown’s comments eliciting empathy for the Texas suicide pilot because “everyone hates the IRS”.
Is there some consistent principle applicable here?
[DK: Your apparent confusion stems from your fallacious idea that every person in what you call “the conservative community” is supposed to express ideas that are consistent with the ideas expressed by every other person in that community. VC writers have no obligation to be consistent with what some Senator says, or with what is said by any one of the tens of millions of American conservatives. Nor do VC writers have any obligation to be consistent with other VC writers. I am certain you can’t find any instance of a VC writer saying that someone with an anti-Bush bumper sticker should be arrested. Presumably if a political rally were a closed event, a politician could choose to exclude political opponents, but that’s different from an arrest for the display of a political slogan in a public place. Ridiculing a politician who attempts to demonstrate his supposed firearms expertise by using a gun in a patently dangerous way, in violation of elementary safety rules, is not inconsistent with any of the other items you’ve provided.
Comparing Salter’s community groups to the Black Panthers seems to me extremely inapt. The former are American citizens peacefully exercising their First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment rights, and exercising their Second Amendment rights to carry guns for protection against terrorist organizations or other criminals who would attack them for exercising their 1st/14th/15th rights. The Black Panthers have often engaged in violent criminal and terrorist activity, and have carried weapons in order to intimidate other people from exercising their constitutional rights–as they Panthers appear to have done in Philadelphia. Carrying weapons in order to defend voter registrars is in no way comparable to carrying weapons in order to scare political opponents away from the polls.]
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February 22, 2010, 7:11 pmruufles says:
Yes: IOKIYAR
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February 22, 2010, 7:18 pmA. Dawson says:
Mr. Kopel... is there anything on the subject of firearms use by protesters in Sacramento, CA?
I have a vague recollection (that someone one told me) that the CA state legislature turned aggressively towards gun control when armed minorities started showing up at the state capitol grounds.
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February 22, 2010, 7:33 pmMatthew Carberry says:
Well, when a a politician, of any political affiliation, who regularly votes against gun rights gets a press release out showing them shooting or hunting it is criticized as being hypocritical and, given the ability to track such votes, blatant pandering which insults the intelligence of the audience. You don’t get to say “I support the Second Amendment” and then vote against any reasonable exercise of the enumerated freedoms and right without being laughed at.
I don’t know if Carnahan has such a history. I think that post was more about the failings of journalists to learn some basic, easily checked facts about what they report. When it comes to guns, many journalists are not only ignorent but apparently deliberately so.
As for the Black Panther story, which I didn’t really care about at the time and still don’t, it wasn’t the fact they were armed, it was that they were armed and standing in front of a polling place which is intimidating in a place where weapons are not allowed and, notably, no political statements are suposed to be expressed (other than in the booth of course). The reason given, “guarding the polling site” seemed spurious as they didn’t guard all the polls.
Carrying to a public rally in a public place where such carrying is legal, especially when gun rights is a political topic, has a different context. Carrying a gun in such circumstances is like carrying a political sign. Something I note is not allowed in front of polling places even though it is also merely expressive speech.
The arresting for a bumper sticker? Blatant violation of speech in my view.
I rather like that the President and the SS didn’t make a big deal about the weapons lawfully carried to his event in NH, it showed maturity and class. I’m pretty sure a lot of Repubs wouldn’t have been as sanguine and grown-up about it.
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February 22, 2010, 7:50 pmMark N. says:
I believe the state capitol incident happened in the middle of the controversy rather than being what precipitated it, but yeah it was part of the attempt to use gun control to suppress the Black Panthers. According to this guy (pp. 121–122), the timeline was roughly:
1966: Black Panthers form, invoking a 2nd-amendment right to arm themselves in defense of black neighborhoods
Early 1967: The California legislature considers a gun-control bill, fairly openly aimed at disarming the BP
June 1967: Armed Black-Panther activists disrupt a session of the state legislature in protest at the gun-control law
June 1967: Ronald Reagan signs the Mulford Act, outlawing firearm possession in public places or vehicles (effectively, anywhere outside the home)
The politics of it do make for interesting bedfellows. The Marxist, revolutionary Black Panthers defending the 2nd amendment, and conservative activists led by Ronald Reagan banning guns as part of a law-and-order agenda!
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February 22, 2010, 7:56 pmRPT says:
DK:
Thanks. Perhaps my connections were not made as aptly as they could have been. Of course there is no uniform conservative position on all issues. But it still seems to me that “liberals” or “leftists” or whatever pejorative term the average R/Con commentator chooses to adopt will be given no slack for their exercise of 2A rights by anyone not in the R/Con camp. Put more crudely, “libs” with guns are always likened to poseurs, terrorists or criminals.
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February 22, 2010, 7:57 pmButters says:
So there’s no uniform conservative position, but liberals with guns are “always” likened to poseurs, terrorists or criminals (by conservatives)? Sounds pretty uniform.
Indulge in baseless self-pity much?
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February 22, 2010, 8:15 pmMatthew Carberry says:
Given that gun rights are fundamentally civil rights, supporting them against infringement by government is a classically liberal position. Which explains the numbers of self-described liberals in and out of politics who support gun rights.
It’s an authoritarian/libertarian issue, not conservative/liberal. The fact that the Dems have gun control in their platform has to do with the culture of the party leadership, not the fundamental beliefs of the members.
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February 22, 2010, 8:36 pmBenjamin Davis says:
My elderly neighbor from North Carolina recounted to me his childhood in the 30’s/40’s when the Klan would announce when they would march through black areas. His father would put all the kids under the house with rifles and put the word out to the Klan that if they stepped on his property they would be shot. So the word in the Klan in that area was “don’t go on “Coon” White’s land”.
Best,
Ben
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February 22, 2010, 9:36 pmrpt says:
DK:
Let me be clear that, notwithstanding my thoughts about other conservatives’ positions on this issue, you are admirably consistent. These are stories that should be told. Are there other examples of gun control regulations passed in order to deprive citizen groups of self-defense rights? Perhaps in the context of the labor movement, for example, to make sure that only the Pinkertons were armed?
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February 22, 2010, 10:00 pmgeokstr says:
The confusion is perfectly understandable.
“Diversity” to liberals means a mix of every shade, height, weight, look, and sexual preference, but does not include diversity of opinion, as evidenced by PC, campus speech codes, variants of the Fairness Doctrine and other similar policies they favor. It is incomprehensible to them that “conservatives” actually are free to believe whatever they choose to within a very broad framework, since that option is not available to them in their own religion.
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February 22, 2010, 10:25 pmrpt says:
What?
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February 22, 2010, 10:35 pmPatHMV says:
RPT, the Black Panthers whom the DOJ saw fit to not prosecute were not simply carrying weapons (and it was a nightstick, not a gun). They were “security” (self-described) standing outside a polling place. I don’t think it’s in the slightest hypocritical to have no problem with somebody carrying a rifle at a political protest but to have a big problem with somebody practically brandishing a nightstick outside a polling place, while ordering a certified poll watcher to not take pictures. Second Amendment activists oppose laws that criminalize guns themselves, not laws that criminalize wrongful actions taken with guns or other weapons. If the Black Panther guy wants to stroll down the street with his nightstick, more power to him, I will happily support his right to do so. If he wants to brandish the nightstick while issuing orders to citizens at a polling place, well, that’s criminal, and should be.
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February 22, 2010, 10:54 pmButters says:
“Are there other examples of gun control regulations passed in order to deprive citizen groups of self-defense rights? Perhaps in the context of the labor movement, for example, to make sure that only the Pinkertons were armed?”
http://www.guncite.com/journals/gun_control_wtr8512.html
http://www.lizmichael.com/tahmasse.htm
http://www.guncite.com/journals/cd-reg.html
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February 22, 2010, 11:19 pmGene Hoffman says:
There are actually two historical examples. First the National Firearms Act barred individuals from owning machine guns, short barreled shotguns, and short barreled rifles without paying the then confiscatory tax of $200. Individuals had to get sign off from your local sheriff/chief. Corporations (like the Ford Motor Company and the Pinkertons for which the exception seems certainly to have been created) didn’t need that signature.
Earlier, Presser v. Illinois which the 7th Circuit partially relied upon to rule against McDonald was a case about labor unions. Stealing form wikipedia but knowing the history to be accurate, “Herman Presser was part of a citizen militia group, the Lehr und Wehr Verein (Instruct and Defend Association), a group of armed ethnic German workers, associated with the Socialist Labor Party. The group had been formed to counter the armed private armies of companies in Chicago.”
The Supreme Court found that Illinois could make it a crime to parade with arms — a particular restriction that likely remains constitutional under the separate actual militia power in the Constitution.
–Gene
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February 22, 2010, 11:36 pmRealist says:
Negros with Guns is also very instructive on the role of firearms in that era. The author lost some cred with me when he defected to Cuba–however the basic story was that he was a former Marine Corps NCO.
He came home to leadership of the NAACP chapter. White forces thought it would be a good idea to do drivebys on his people, he got rifles and training materials from the NRA and trained his troops. Rifle fire drove off drivebys and a small plane on a fire bombing run.
His forces captured a white couple that may or may not have been sent in to disrupt operations.
State law enforecment forces took the chance to disarm the blacks. Several of the rifles were WWII german surplus, which the state used as evidence that the blacks were nazi communists.
Turns out at least the leader was, because he then fled to cuba to align himself with Castro.
The book is VERY hard to find. I found one in a library that has a large police higher officer training program, in their special stacks. Very interesting indeed.
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February 22, 2010, 11:37 pmMatthew Carberry says:
The very worst kind of communists...
or Nazis for that matter.
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February 22, 2010, 11:43 pmThe story of the armed community organizers | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] is the original post: The story of the armed community organizers [...]
rpt says:
Thank you. This is very interesting history.
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February 22, 2010, 11:56 pmrpt says:
Thank you as well. This history is consistent with my guess.
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February 22, 2010, 11:58 pmRealist says:
My mistake, the rifles were BOTH Soviet Army and Wehrmacht. Williams, the author, says they got in more trouble for being commies than for being nazis.
I just reread the ending of the reprint. After he got tired of Cuba he came back home, and NAACP and Kuntsler got the charges dropped, and the author went to work in the Chinese studies department at the University of Michigan.
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February 23, 2010, 12:10 amsubpatre says:
Negroes With Guns† is instructive, but a painful reading. That the NRA provided a few firearms and training helped overall. Nobody —but nobody— was there to help the blacks in Monroe NC. Not lefties, not righties, not R or D; the black population was on its own in a sea of seething Klan hatred. Except for Conrad Lynn, a commie lawyer who took on the racist establishment and made a (legal) mockery of Jim Crow.
One hard lesson is that Communism made enormous inroads because nobody else —no other group, party, or position— was willing to support blacks’ rights. Commies were the only game in town, and that influence still echoes today.
Williams’ story is a real tragedy. He was a great man, a great patriot; caught in the machinations of the state that left him with no possible good choices.
.
† Negroes With Guns is a 1962 book by Williams. A 2004 PBS video uses the same name.
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February 23, 2010, 1:35 amNick42 says:
I haven’t read it, but Deacons of Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement has been on my wishlist for a while.
Regarding the earlier comment about being illegal to parade under arms — I believe there were several cases of militas parading in front of state or town governmental bodies to indicate their preference for a particular course of action. I’m fairly sure I read that in To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement
What amazes me about these stories is the ability to challenge local police without interference from other jurisdictions. I guess it’s largely a difference of modern policing and technology on one hand and the political and moral issues on the other.
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February 23, 2010, 8:03 amGun Rights and Civil Rights « Daniel Joseph Smith says:
[...] Gun Rights and Civil Rights By Daniel J. Smith http://volokh.com/2010/02/22/the-story-of-the-armed-community-organizers/ [...]
Charles says:
wow DK, you really need to examine your history of the black panthers and guns. Your comments seem to come from the same place that liberal comments come from when they are scared of the latest gun sit-ins. Either it is acceptable for everyone to carry guns or it isn’t. You can’t say that the way someone else carries a gun is offensive because you don’t like what they stand for, while being an advocate for guns for all.
I’m a little surprised that you would be so quick to jump to conclusions.
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February 23, 2010, 10:10 amD Gorton says:
I knew John Salter in Mississippi and have run across his writings since then. He is a complete, blithering, lunatic. He is now called Running Bear or something, having discovered his Indian heritage, or so he says. He was also kidnapped by aliens from outer space at one point, though he says it was one of the great experiences of his life. My point is this: why rely on this nutcake? It is true that he was in the center of the Civil Rights movement in the deep south. It is also true that he engaged in lengthy litigation to not have his records released from the State Soverignty Commission, an outfit that spied on civil rights workers. And finally, the SCEF outfit in Kentucky was Communist. Not that there is anything wrong with that......I mean, just saying.
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February 23, 2010, 10:10 amDonald Kilmer says:
I’m 3/4 of the way through this book. It appears to be pretty well documented with footnotes. Almost reads like movie script, so thumbs up.
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February 23, 2010, 10:16 amJ says:
My mother, a native of MA, lived down in Florida in the 1920’s. She would tell me stories of seeing the head of the police marching, openly, in the ku klux clan parades held weekly in the town. She also mentioned that the catholic priest kept a gun on the altar when he said mass.
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February 23, 2010, 10:32 amRowerinVA says:
The self-defense actions of blacks with guns in the civil rights movement are quite credible. They speak to a truth about the civil rights era, and any era, including today’s.
If the blacks were facing a military situation involving hundreds of vigilantes and a backup force of the police, arming the blacks would have been pointless or even counterproductive. But that’s not how oppression and police failure usually works. The violent oppressors are usually few in number (as well as young, male, disorganized, and stupid). Where police are not doing their jobs of protecting oppressed group, it is usually a passive failure — acting, essentially, as if the oppressed group is on its own — rather than an active support of the bad guys. That leaves the small group of oppressors on its own as well; the police aren’t actively backing up the bad guys. In that context, arming the oppressed group can make a real difference. Nothing kills the thrill of oppression, and the fragile cohesion / power dynamic of an oppressive gang, so much as having a few failures and finding out that the rest of society isn’t backing your sorry ass.
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February 23, 2010, 10:42 ammikeyes says:
Sheriff departments in the rural deep South during the ‘60s were more likely than not to be affiliated with the Klan and be corrupt. In Tennessee, where I grew up, the sheriff was elected and his deputies were the last of the non-civil service spoils system left. If you went against the Klan, you went against the sheriff and because the Klan was involved in many illegal activities the sheriff did not want an investigation at any level. I suspect that the local politics were such that the sheriff didn’t want to bring in the state police force for fear of becoming the subject of an investigation themselves. Sheriffs and governors were often at odds and the sheriff was usually the sole arbitrator of justice at the county level. Bringing in the state police meant a loss of power.
In addition, white sheriffs usually had a relationship with black citizens who often had some voting privileges especially in the Upper South and certainly had some influence by other means (bootlegging payoffs, for example.) The relationship between the sheriff and blacks was never simple in the rural county I lived in.
If WWII veterans decided to fight back as they did in LA and NC then the sheriff, who only had a limited number of deputies and incentives to not expand the investigation to the state level, had to compromise. This could take form in not harrassing armed individuals or even protecting them from the Klan. The same thing happened with bootleggers and gamblers, especially if they bribed the sheriff.
If you look at the Know Nothing movement in the 1850s you will find similar incidents. Catholic churches were burnt down in Philadelphia and threats made in NYC. The bishop of NYC mentioned that a lot of Protestant churches would have been burnt and riots occured if something like that occured in NYC. It did not.
One of the reasons was the fact that the bishop was serious and had the forces (and the history of riots) to back him up. In the South there was a history of slave insurrection that still lived in the memories of some. The sheriffs knew what could have happened and they knew that there was no way that they could have supressed such an event because they were outnumbered, even with the Klan who would have had to protect their own families if things “got out of hand.”
When these good people fought back as a group there were consequences. The corrupt local law enforcement usually came to the conclusion that it was not worth doing business as usual and the Klan realized that they no longer had the power (look at the Notre Dame/Klan incident in Indiana)when people fought back.
In this country it is now a civil right to be able to defend yourself with a gun so I guess that we can say that the final act of the Civil Rights movement occured with Heller. (After all, William Kuntsler was the lawyer who got Robert Williams his rights back.)
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February 23, 2010, 10:44 amLazarus Long says:
1.) Don’t forget that the first gun control laws were aimed at armed black right after the Civil War.
2.)The KKK was the terrorist arm of the Democratic party.
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February 23, 2010, 10:51 amLocomotive Breath says:
And now, instead of using guns in self defense against the Klan, black people are mostly using the guns against each other in criminal offense. I’m not sure that’s progress.
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February 23, 2010, 10:54 amThe Anchoress | A First Things Blog says:
[...] cover these, of course Yoo and Bybee and ethics vs Holder’s DOJ ethics Holder stonewalls The armed community organizers Comments [...]
Civil Rights and Guns « The Republican Heretic says:
[...] Rights and Guns Tue 23 Feb 2010 The Republican Heretic Leave a comment Go to comments David Kopel at the Volokh Conspiracy follows up a previous post on the importance of gun rights in the civil rights struggle in the [...]
losantiville says:
Don Kates also packed as a white civil rights worker in the south.
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February 23, 2010, 11:58 amFederal Farmer says:
Armed New Blank Panther party members protested near Bush in 2000 with no arrests.
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February 23, 2010, 12:51 pmOrder of the Coif says:
I was once one of them there white “outside agitator” fellows.
My interest in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms started at dusk on a lonely two-lane road through the piney woods of Franklin County, NC in the summer of 1967. I had a summer job as a “community organizer” for OEO. (Gasp, just like Obama.) This was only three years after Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were killed with the help of the police in Mississippi. I got harassed and bumped by some folks in a pickup. Eventually I outraced them back to Durham. The next day at work my partner says “you need a gun.” So we drove out to a rural bar and he got one for me (they’d have never sold to me). I loaded it up, dropped it in my suit pocket and carried it all summer. I had to display it twice too but that worked to stop my assailants.
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February 23, 2010, 1:37 pmA. Dawson says:
Thanks for the tidbits. Your observation about how politics makes strange bedfellows is dead on. I believe it is precisely because of these inconsistencies that we have problems / conflicts we have today.
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February 23, 2010, 2:22 pmMike says:
Charles, that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. There is an enormous difference between criminalizing (or objecting to) what someone DOES with a gun vs. the mere act of possessing one. Are you saying that, to be consistent, I must support a murderer’s right to use a gun if I want to support a victim’s right to defend himself with a gun?
As PatHMV said, if someone wants to carry a nightstick (or a gun) when walking down the street, fine. If, however, they want to use said nightstick or gun to intimidate voters at a polling place, I’m going to have to object. I fail to see the conflict between the two positions.
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February 23, 2010, 2:40 pmwooga says:
Excellent point. Citizens need to have guns to protect themselves from actual criminals, because — in many neighborhoods — the police are not interested in doing their jobs. Calling 911 is not a defense to home robbery; a shotgun is. The straw man argument that “small arms won’t protect you from the all powerful US military, so the 2nd Amendment is outdated” misses this point. The 2nd Amendment is not simply to protect us from the military, but is necessary to have a well ordered citizenry.
If anyone wants to see what happens when gun control advocates get their way, just look at Mexico City, Tijuana, Juarez, or pretty much any part of Mexico. When the people are disarmed, the criminal gangs run wild. The police can barely defend themselves, let alone the general population (although the police still manage to make time to collude with the gangs and shake down the locals for bribes).
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February 23, 2010, 2:42 pmButters says:
@Order of the Coif: Good for you, sir, and thank you.
@losantiville: Good point. Kate’s account is compelling, at least in my view. It’s in this book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0884270335/?tag=thevolocons0d-20
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February 23, 2010, 3:03 pmLarryA says:
Agree. The hilarious part was the folks who whined, “Guns don’t belong at presidential rallies,” forgetting the dozens of firearms that come with the president.
In Texas, for the same reason including Black Panthers, firearms are outlawed within 1000 feet of a place of execution on the day of an execution.
Here’s the Deacons for Defense movie.
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February 23, 2010, 3:30 pmJSL says:
I was just a kid during the civil rights struggle in the 60’s. My grandmother was a Professor at a college in MS. Almost all my relatives are from south MS. I grew up in Lousiana, less than thirty miles from the site of one of the state’s most notorious Klan killings. I was raised around kids whose parents and grandparents still belonged to the Klan, some of them with blood on their hands. I’ve met David Duke when he appeared at a community function I was at to overwhelming approval of all present. I’ve seen the burnt crosses.
In the bad old days where I was raised, and where my family was from, local law enforcement was commonly complicit in the persecution of blacks. In my view, this is exactly what the second amendment was written for. If you find yourself in a situation where people are apt to kill you, and the only agents of the law you have access to are wrongfully on your persecutor’s side, then hell yes! Shoot back! If the local police department will stand by and watch someone hang you, whip you or kill your family because of the color of your skin, then what is more American: shrug your shoulders and give up? Or fight back with a gun? I’m white, but can you guess what will happen if the Klan came to burn a cross on my lawn? Same thing that would have happened if they did it on my father’s lawn — some dead people in white robes and hoods would have been the result.
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February 23, 2010, 3:33 pmBobDoyle says:
What pejorative term other than “liberals” or “leftists” would you prefer?
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February 23, 2010, 11:33 pmAardvark says:
Not any more! The prices are $11.95 t0 $36 not including shipping.
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February 24, 2010, 7:32 amAl Dolce says:
RPT:
You are not only confused, but if you actually believe the Panthers were guarding the poll-disillusion. And Dems who support anti 2A legislation and then take photo ops near election time, they really are posers. I marvel politicians like Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein keeping a straight face when they both have concealed carry.
Regarding the article, I thought it was well done. I found nothing in your comments that did anything remotely to refute what was printed.
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February 26, 2010, 3:10 pmDave Kopel’s Second Amendment Newsletter | The American Jingoist says:
[...] David Kopel The Volokh Conspiracy February 22, 2010 http://volokh.com/2010/02/22/the-story-of-the-armed-community-organizers/ [...]