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

attempted to convey the story of what happened, intermingled with my analysis and
impressions, in a straightforward, narrative style . While certain debris remains, I wst the
narrative to filter out the political biases, extraneous fluff, and nonsense that creep into
any academic writing .
Four key themes recur in each of the following chapters . First, activists expressed
self-defense as a prerogative of gender: a duty of black men . Activists consistently
Mined self-defense in gendercd-rather than political or economic-terms . In doing so,
they equated power with manhood . Self-defense, in addition to protecting one's family,
is a traditionally masculine value in many cultures ; black America in the 1960's was no
different . Second, Afro Americans associated self-defense primarily with a communalist
impulse toward social change . The word "communalist" here infers loyalty to a
sociopolitical group based on racial identity. For Americans in general it was more
associated with anti-communalist values of individualism and personal freedom ; that is,
outside Afro-American communities, self-defense carried few reformist or socially
conscious overtones . As the civil rights movement progressed, it became easier and
easier for black people to view self-defense as a gesture of protest. Third, talk of self-
defense by blacks during this time illuminated the racial double standard of self-defense
in the United States : while whites could legally defend themselves against attack, blacks
who did so risked being labeled "violent," "crazy," or aggressive, and could expect no
recourse from the law . Fourth, and finally, what little actual violence occurred in the
movement on the part of blacks (and there was very little) almost universally reflected a
response to white violence. When violence occurred during civil rights protest, white