3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives
3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives 3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives
As Heaton's letter illustrates, Williams won support at home and abroad, from white and non-white alike. For example, ten thousand Japanese, from different prefectures all over the Japanese mainland, joined in a signature campaign to petition President Nixon for Williams' fair treatment in early 1972 . By that time, Williams had become more celebrated overseas than at home : numerous, non-English periodicals, from Sweden to Tanzania, published front-page exposEs about his plight . In the United States, outside Afro-American circles, Williams remained either relatively unknown or infamously reviled . Those students of history who remember Williams and his activism in Monroe generally tend to remember him "as a transitory phenomenon, a mere glitch in the chronology of those years--the exception to the rule ." s9 More specialized monographs in recent years have been kinder to him~° Such revisionist scholarship should secure Williams' rightful place in the pantheon of twentieth-century civil rights leaders 9i 'Fred Powledge, Free at Last? , 311 . General histories of the civil rights movement tend to marginalize Williams . For example, Harvard Sitkoff has provided an accurate synopsis of Williams' activism, describing both his counterpoint to King and his fearful image in the media; however, Sitkoff, like most civil rights historians, treats him as tangential to the larger movement . See Sitkoff, The Struggle for Bl~k Ea~~y . 1954- 141, 143 . '°A close examination of the Williams case, such as that found in Andrew Myers' Masters thesis, forces both a rc-consideration of Williams' role in the civil rights movement and a rctvaluation of prevailing assumptions about this early phase of the movement. Myers has pointed out that Williams' militant image in the press caused more moderate civil rights leaders to define their own limits ofacceptable protest, and that the waves Williams sent through the international community as a dissident helped to "shame" the United States government into confronting the problem of the color line . 7 0
Whatever his place in prevailing histories, Williams' contribution to the struggle for black equality is undeniable. His example inspired the formation of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in 1965, as well as a policy shift by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from nonviolence to armed self-defense . He, along with Malcolm X, provided the inspiration for subsequent organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, in addition to the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Republic of New Africa, and countless other black militant groups . Williams saw the quest for civil rights by his fellow black Southerners as complementary to his own, quixotic cnrsade against white supremacy . He believed civil liberties would come only after white racists had been compelled to sce the error of their ways . His was a more visceral stnrggle : a gritty, tooth-and-nail war waged in violent terms violent whites could understand . Undoubtedly, he was enormously threatening to white supremacists because his own quest ballooned beyond the scope of the civil rights struggle of the 1950's and 1960's : he sought not simply equality, but also respect ; not an end to segregation, but an end to racism . Most importantly, he seemed less concerned See Myers, "When Violence Met Violence ;' 82, 86 . 9~The soon-to-be-published study of Williams by Professor Timothy Tyson promises to be the most comprehensive study of Williams yet . Tyson characterizes Williams as the founding father of Black Power. See Timothy B. Tyson, "Robert F . Williams, NAACP Warrior and Rebel," Crisis (Daember/January 1998): 14-18, and TimothyB. Tyson, "Robert F. Williams, `Black Power,' and the Roots of the African-American Freedom Struggle," Journal of American History 85 n 2 (September 1998): 540-570 . 71
- Page 41 and 42: (toughmindedness) and love (tenderh
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Whatever his place in prevailing histories, Williams' contribution to the struggle<br />
for black equality is undeniable. His example inspired the formation of the Deacons for<br />
Defense <strong>and</strong> Justice in 1965, as well as a policy shift by the Student Nonviolent<br />
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from nonviolence to armed self-defense . He, along<br />
with Malcolm X, provided the inspiration for subsequent organizations such as the Black<br />
Panther Party <strong>and</strong> the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, in addition to the<br />
Revolutionary Action Movement, the Republic of New Africa, <strong>and</strong> countless other black<br />
militant groups .<br />
Williams saw the quest for civil rights by his fellow black Southerners as<br />
complementary to his own, quixotic cnrsade against white supremacy . He believed civil<br />
liberties would come only after white racists had been compelled to sce the error of their<br />
ways . His was a more visceral stnrggle : a gritty, tooth-<strong>and</strong>-nail war waged in violent<br />
terms violent whites could underst<strong>and</strong> . Undoubtedly, he was enormously threatening to<br />
white supremacists because his own quest ballooned beyond the scope of the civil rights<br />
struggle of the 1950's <strong>and</strong> 1960's : he sought not simply equality, but also respect ; not an<br />
end to segregation, but an end to racism . Most importantly, he seemed less concerned<br />
See Myers, "When Violence Met Violence ;' 82, 86 .<br />
9~The soon-to-be-published study of Williams by Professor Timothy Tyson promises<br />
to be the most comprehensive study of Williams yet . Tyson characterizes Williams as the<br />
founding father of Black Power. See Timothy B. Tyson, "Robert F . Williams, NAACP<br />
Warrior <strong>and</strong> Rebel," Crisis (Daember/January 1998): 14-18, <strong>and</strong> TimothyB. Tyson,<br />
"Robert F. Williams, `Black Power,' <strong>and</strong> the Roots of the African-American <strong>Freedom</strong><br />
Struggle," Journal of American History 85 n 2 (September 1998): 540-570 .<br />
71
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