3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

Panther Party, illustrates how some activists used self-defense to justify other kinds of
violence . As a reprise, the epilogue offers some conclusions and presents a new model
for conceptualizing the struggle for black equality ; it also meats Robert Williams' life in
exile, his return to the United States, and the surprising eulogy Rosa Parks delivered at
his funeral .
The central questions of this study are : How did a position of "violence ;' which to
many included the use of force in self-protection, become marginalized when in fact most
black people saw self-defense as common sense? What part did self-defense play in the
civil rights movement during the years 1955-1968? To frame this inquiry, I have
included a number of events and personalities familiar to students of black history, such
as the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, and Rosa Parks,
who courageously launched the modern-day civil rights movement in Montgomery,
Alabama, in 1955 . While they have been written about and discussed thoroughly in other
sources, these inclusions, as recognizable signposts along the circuitous path of black
equality, help to emphasize the importance of self-defense . Specifically, Parks' actions in
Montgomery in 1955 and her words forty-one years later at Robert Williams' funeral
symbolically bracket the story of civil rights and self-defense .
In addressing what this dissertation attempts, it might prove fruitful to address
what it does not attempt . It is a treatise on armed self-defense by black Americans in the
1950's and 1960's. While it deals with themes of violence and its consequences, it is not
a generalized discussion of violence in the movement : neither that done~ protestors nor
them . It is not a full-scale analysis of the doctrines and ethical dimensions of
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