This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible

Visiting Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. andquot;Just for self-defense,andquot; King assured him. It was not the only weapon King kept for such a purpose; one of his advisors remembered the reverendandrsquo;s Montgomery, Alabama, home as andquot;an arsenal.andquot; Like King, many ostensibly andquot;nonviolentandquot; civil rights activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protectionandmdash;yet this crucial dimension of the Afro-American freedom struggle has been long ignored by history. In This Nonviolent Stuffandrsquo;ll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb Jr. recovers this history, describing the vital role that armed self-defense has played in the survival and liberation of black communities. and#160;Drawing on his experiences in the civil rights movement and giving voice to its participants, Cobb lays bare the paradoxical relationship between the nonviolent civil rights struggle and the long history and importance of African Americans taking up arms to defend themselves against white supremacist violence.and#160;and#160;and#160;

andquot;Blending compelling experience with first-rate scholarship, Charles E. Cobb Jr. traces the way that armed self-defense and nonviolent direct action worked sometimes in tension but mostly in tandem in the African American freedom struggle. Crafted with powerful clarity and engaging prose, Cobbandrsquo;s book deploys the intellectual insights of both everyday people and excellent historians to make the case that it wasnandrsquo;t necessarily and#39;non-nonviolentand#39; to pack a pistol or tote a shotgun in the civil rights-era Southandmdash;but grassroots activists often found it necessary. This is easily the best, most accessible, and most comprehensive book on the subject.andquot;and#160;

andquot;A frank look at the complexities and contradictions of the civil rights movement, particularly with regard to the intertwined issues of nonviolence and self-defense. . . . Thought-provoking and studded with piercing ironies.andquot;and#160;and#160;

andquot;[A] bracing and engrossing celebration of black armed resistance.andquot;and#160;

andquot;Powerfully and with great depth, Charles Cobb examines the organizing tradition of the southern Freedom Movement, drawing on both his own experiences as a field secretary with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) working in the rural Black-Belt South and contemporary conversations with his former co-workers. While Cobb challenges the orthodox narrative of the andlsquo;nonviolentandrsquo; movement, this is much more than a book about guns. It is essential reading.andquot;and#160;

andquot;When night riders attacked his home, twentieth-century Mississippi civil rights leader Hartman Turnbow and#39;stood his groundand#39; and lit up the night to protect his family. Charles Cobbandrsquo;s and#39;stand your groundand#39; book, timely, controversial, and well documented, contravenes a history as old as George Washington and Andrew Jackson and as new as George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn. Donandrsquo;t miss it.andquot;and#160;

andquot;[A] richly detailed memoir.andquot;and#160;

andquot;Cobband#39;s long-essay format brings the Freedom Movement to life in an unexpected way, shaking up conventional historical views and changing the conversation about individual freedom and personal protection that continues today. . . . A nuanced exploration of the complex relationship between nonviolent civil disobedience and the threat of armed retaliation.andquot;and#160;

andquot;Cobb . . . reviews the long tradition of self-protection among African Americans, who knew they could not rely on local law enforcement for protection. . . . Understanding how the use of guns makes this history of the civil rights movement more compelling to readers, Cobb is nonetheless focused on the determination of ordinary citizens, women included, to win their rights, even if that meant packing a pistol in a pocket or purse.andquot;and#160;

andquot;This Nonviolent Stuffand#39;ll Get You Killed is a powerful mixture of history and memoir, a scholarly and emotionally engaging account of a dark time in our recent history. This is one of those books that is going to have people from across the political spectrum buying it for different reasons. One can hope that those on both left and right can learn from this book.andquot;and#160;

andquot;[A] brilliant book. . . . A serious analytical work of the African-American southern Freedom Struggle, Cobbandrsquo;s bookandhellip;deserves a prominent place on everyoneandrsquo;s reading list.andquot;and#160;

andquot;This Nonviolent Stuffandrsquo;ll Get You Killed jostles us outside the ho-hum frame of and#39;pick up a gunand#39; vs. and#39;turn the other cheek.and#39; Charles Cobbandrsquo;s graceful prose and electrifying history throw down a gauntlet: can we understand any part of the freedom struggle apart from Americaandrsquo;s unique romanticization of violence and gun culture? This absorbing investigation shows how guns are often necessary, but not sufficient, to live out political democracy.andquot;and#160;

andquot;In this challenging book, Charles Cobb, a former organizer, examines the role of guns in the civil rights movement.andquot;and#160;

andquot;Cobb brilliantly situates the civil rights movement in the context of Southern life and gun culture, with a thesis that is unpacked by way of firsthand and personal accounts.andquot;and#160;

andquot;[A] revelatory new history of armed self-defense and the civil rights movement.andquot;and#160;

andquot;Charles Cobbandrsquo;s This Nonviolent Stuffandrsquo;ll Get You Killed is a marvelous contribution to our understanding the modern black freedom struggle. With wonderful storytelling skills and drawing on his unparalleled access to movement participants, he situates armed self-defense in the context of a complex movement and in conversation with both nonviolence and community organizing. Cobb writes from personal experience on the frontlines of SNCCandrsquo;s voter registration work while also using the skills of journalist, historian, and teacher. The result is a compelling and wonderfully nuanced book that will appeal to specialists and, more importantly, anyone interested in human rights and the freedom struggle.andquot;and#160;

andquot;What most of us think we know about the central role of nonviolence in the long freedom struggle in the South is not so much wrong as blinkered. Or so Charles Cobb says in this passionate, intellectually disciplined reordering of the conventional narrative to include armed self-defense as a central component of the black movementand#39;s success. Read it and be reminded that history is not a record etched in stone by journalists and academics, but a living stream, fed and redirected by the bottom-up witness of its participants.andquot;

In This Nonviolent Stuffand#39;ll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb Jr. describes the vital role that armed self-defense played in the survival and liberation of black communities in America during the Southern Freedom Movement of the 1960s.

Charles E. Cobb Jr. is a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and has taught at Brown University. An award-winning journalist, he is an inductee of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. Cobb lives in Jacksonville, Florida.and#160;and#160;