{"product_id":"the-deacons-for-defense-armed-resistance-and-the-civil-rights-movement","title":"The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement","description":"In 1964 a small group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana, defied the nonviolence policy of the mainstream civil rights movement and formed an armed self-defense organization — the Deacons for Defense and Justice — to protect movement workers from vigilante and police violence. With their largest and most famous chapter at the center of a bloody campaign in the Ku Klux Klan stronghold of Bogalusa, Louisiana, the Deacons became a popular symbol of the growing frustration with Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent strategy and a rallying point for a militant working-class movement in the South.\n\nLance Hill offers the first detailed history of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, who grew to several hundred members and twenty-one chapters in the Deep South and led some of the most successful local campaigns in the civil rights movement. In his analysis of this important yet long-overlooked organization, Hill challenges what he calls “the myth of nonviolence” — the idea that a united civil rights movement achieved its goals through nonviolent direct action led by middle-class and religious leaders. In contrast, Hill constructs a compelling historical narrative of a working-class armed self-defense movement that defied the entrenched nonviolent leadership and played a crucial role in compelling the federal government to neutralize the Klan and uphold civil rights and liberties.\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0807857025\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: HBSV.0807857025.A\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Acceptable\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Hill, Lance\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: The book likely has writing, underlining, and or highlighting throughout. Book cover also may have cosmetic wear to the cover.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"The Happy Book Stack ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52196816814381,"sku":"HBSV.0807857025.A","price":18.02,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0855\/6799\/6205\/files\/0807857025-0.jpg?v=1782938221","url":"https:\/\/www.thehappybookstack.com\/products\/the-deacons-for-defense-armed-resistance-and-the-civil-rights-movement","provider":"The Happy Book Stack ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}