Civil rights movement

=== Tactics and non-violence ===
[[File:White men and Robeson County indians (Lumbee Indians) in crowd with a car and guns (State's Exhibit No.5). Photo taken by Bill Shaw, Fayetteville Observer newspaper photographer. Photo used as state's (8223346871).jpg|thumb|Armed Lumbee Indians aggressively confronting Klansmen in the [[Battle of Hayes Pond]]]]

The Jim Crow system employed "terror as a means of social control,"<ref>Francis Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, ''[[Poor People's Movements: How They Succeed, How They Fail]]'' (Random House, 1977), 182</ref> with the most organized manifestations being the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and their collaborators in local police departments. This violence played a key role in blocking the progress of the civil rights movement in the late 1950s. Some black organizations in the South began practicing armed self-defense. The first to do so openly was the Monroe, North Carolina, chapter of the [[NAACP]] led by [[Robert F. Williams]]. Williams had rebuilt the chapter after its membership was terrorized out of public life by the Klan. He did so by encouraging a new, more working-class membership to arm itself thoroughly and defend against attack.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-1534.html|title=Timothy B. Tyson, ''Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of "Black Power"'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 79–80|access-date=September 9, 2013|archive-date=March 26, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140326100437/http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-1534.html}}</ref> When Klan nightriders attacked the home of NAACP member Albert Perry in October 1957, Williams' militia exchanged gunfire with the stunned Klansmen, who quickly retreated. The following day, the city council held an emergency session and passed an ordinance banning KKK motorcades.<ref>Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 88–89</ref> One year later, Lumbee Indians in North Carolina would have a similarly successful armed stand-off with the Klan (known as the [[Battle of Hayes Pond]]) which resulted in KKK leader James W. "Catfish" Cole being convicted of incitement to riot.<ref>Nicholas Graham, [http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-postwar/6068 "January 1958: The Lumbees face the Klan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180206071001/http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-postwar/6068 |date=February 6, 2018 }}, This Month in North Carolina History</ref>

After the acquittal of several white men charged with sexually assaulting black women in Monroe, Williams announced to United Press International reporters that he would "meet violence with violence" as a policy. Williams' declaration was quoted on the front page of ''The New York Times'', and ''The Carolina Times'' considered it "the biggest civil rights story of 1959".<ref>Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 149</ref> NAACP National chairman Roy Wilkins immediately suspended Williams from his position, but the Monroe organizer won support from numerous NAACP chapters across the country. Ultimately, Wilkins resorted to bribing influential organizer Daisy Bates to campaign against Williams at the NAACP national convention and the suspension was upheld. The convention nonetheless passed a resolution which stated: "We do not deny, but reaffirm the right of individual and collective self-defense against unlawful assaults."<ref>Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 159–164</ref> Martin Luther King Jr. argued for Williams' removal,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/williams-robert-franklin|title=Williams, Robert Franklin|date=July 13, 2017|access-date=December 3, 2019}}</ref> but [[Ella Baker]]<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SEfOhvXSvZsC&pg=PA213|title=Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision|first=Barbara|last=Ransby|author-link=Barbara Ransby|date=November 20, 2003|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-0-8078-6270-4|via=Google Books}}</ref> and [[W. E. B. Du Bois|WEB Dubois]]<ref name="history.msu.edu" /> both publicly praised the Monroe leader's position.

Williams{{mdash}}along with his wife, Mabel Williams{{mdash}}continued to play a leadership role in the Monroe movement, and to some degree, in the national movement. The Williamses published ''The Crusader'', a nationally circulated newsletter, beginning in 1960, and the influential book ''Negroes With Guns'' in 1962. Williams did not call for full militarization in this period, but "flexibility in the freedom struggle."<ref>"[http://www.lexisnexis.com/documents/academic/upa_cis/9353_BlackPowerMovemPt2.pdf The Black Power Movement, Part 2: The Papers of Robert F. Williams" A Guide to the Microfilm Editions of the Black Studies Research Sources (University Publications of America)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130108060037/http://www.lexisnexis.com/documents/academic/upa_cis/9353_BlackPowerMovemPt2.pdf |date=January 8, 2013 }}</ref> Williams was well-versed in legal tactics and publicity, which he had used successfully in the internationally known "[[Kissing Case]]" of 1958, as well as nonviolent methods, which he used at [[lunch counter]] sit-ins in Monroe{{mdash}}all with armed self-defense as a complementary tactic.

Williams led the Monroe movement in another armed stand-off with white supremacists during an August 1961 Freedom Ride; he had been invited to participate in the campaign by [[Ella Baker]] and [[James Forman]] of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The incident (along with his campaigns for peace with Cuba) resulted in him being targeted by the FBI and prosecuted for kidnapping; he was cleared of all charges in 1976.<ref name="Tyson 1998">Tyson, ''Journal of American History'' (September 1998)</ref> Meanwhile, armed self-defense continued discreetly in the Southern movement with such figures as SNCC's [[Amzie Moore]],<ref name="Tyson 1998" /> [[Hartman Turnbow]],<ref>[[Taylor Branch]], ''[[Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–1963]]'' (Simon and Schuster, 1988), 781</ref> and [[Fannie Lou Hamer]]<ref>{{Cite news |last=Marqusee |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Marqusee |date=June 17, 2004 |title=By Any Means Necessary |magazine=The Nation |language=en-US |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/any-means-necessary/ |url-status=live |access-date=October 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224101340/http://www.thenation.com/article/any-means-necessary |archive-date=February 24, 2014 |issn=0027-8378}}</ref> all willing to use arms to defend their lives from nightrides. Taking refuge from the FBI in Cuba, the Willamses broadcast the radio show ''[[Radio Free Dixie]]'' throughout the eastern United States via Radio Progresso beginning in 1962. In this period, Williams advocated guerilla warfare against racist institutions and saw the large ghetto riots of the era as a manifestation of his strategy.

[[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina]] historian Walter Rucker has written that "the emergence of Robert F Williams contributed to the marked decline in anti-black racial violence in the U.S....After centuries of anti-black violence, African Americans across the country began to defend their communities aggressively{{mdash}}employing overt force when necessary. This in turn evoked in whites real fear of black vengeance..." This opened up space for African Americans to use nonviolent demonstrations with less fear of deadly reprisal.<ref>Walter Rucker, "Crusader in Exile: Robert F. Williams and the International Struggle for Black Freedom in America" The Black Scholar 36, No. 2–3 (Summer–Fall 2006): 19–33. [https://www.academia.edu/223267/_Crusader_in_Exile_Robert_F._Williams_and_the_Internationalized_Struggle_for_Black_Freedom_in_America._2006_ URL] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170727005417/http://www.academia.edu/223267/_Crusader_in_Exile_Robert_F._Williams_and_the_Internationalized_Struggle_for_Black_Freedom_in_America._2006_ |date=July 27, 2017 }}</ref> Of the many civil rights activists who share this view, the most prominent was Rosa Parks. Parks gave the eulogy at Williams' funeral in 1996, praising him for "his courage and for his commitment to freedom," and concluding that "The sacrifices he made, and what he did, should go down in history and never be forgotten."<ref>Timothy B. Tyson, [http://investigatinghistory.ashp.cuny.edu/m11d.html "Robert Franklin Williams: A Warrior For Freedom, 1925–1996"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130708140451/http://investigatinghistory.ashp.cuny.edu/m11d.html |date=July 8, 2013 }}, Southern Exposure, Winter 1996, Investigating U.S. History (City University of New York)</ref>