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

ecame-in an abstract sense-a mindset: a bn~ad concept of empowerment and
self-protection .
The Deacons, as the nine days' wonder of the civil rights movement, waxed and
waned in a strikingly short period of time, but their impact was considerable . They
punctured the double standard of self-defense in America . They homed in on the lesser
amounts of protection offered blacks by southern polity and made a conscious effort to
change the discrepancy . "I think the Louisiana state law says a man can cant' a weapon
in his car as long as it is not concealed," said Sims . "We found out in Bogalusa that that
law meant for the white man, it didn't mean for the colored . Any time a colored man was
caught with a weapon in his car, they jailed him for carrying a concealed weapon. So we
can~ied them to court ."'e Sims noted that police only interfered when empowered black
men and women asserted their civil rights . For example, the police in Philadelphia,
Mississippi made no move to interfere in black-white clashes "until half a down Negroes
began to fight b~k."'~ Sims also observed, "in the southern states, the police have never
done their job when the white and the Negro arc involved--unless the Negro's getting the
best of the white man ." eo James Farmer summed it up best when he explained :
Malcolm X, "The Playb~ov Interview : Malcolm X Speaks With Alex Haley," Play,
(May 1963), reprinted in David Gallen, ed ., Malcolm X: As They Knew Him (New York :
Carnoll & Graf, 1992), 112 .
~eSims, quoted in Grant, Black Protest , 358 .
~'"Philadelphia, Miss., Whites and Negroes Trade Shots," New York Times (June 22,
1965) : 25 .
8°Sims, quoted in Grant, Black Protest, 364 .
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