{"product_id":"the-deacons-for-defense-armed-resistance-and-the-civil-rights-movement-9780807857021","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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLance 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\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Lance Hill\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of North Carolina Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/27\/2006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 400\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.31lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.30h x 6.96w x 0.99d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780807857021","brand":"University of North Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47970711568521,"sku":"9780807857021","price":37.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_b8fd160a-8151-4882-b6d5-ce483e8209db.jpg?v=1787099870","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/the-deacons-for-defense-armed-resistance-and-the-civil-rights-movement-9780807857021","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}