Robert F. Williams

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Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author best known for serving as the first president of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) from 1968 to 1971 and president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1950s and into 1961.

Williams succeeded in integrating the local public library and swimming pool in Monroe. At a time of high racial tension and official abuses, Williams promoted armed Black self-defense in the United States. In addition, he helped gain support for gubernatorial pardons in 1959 for two young African American boys who had received lengthy reformatory sentences in what was known as the Kissing Case of 1958.

Williams obtained a charter from the National Rifle Association and set up a rifle club to defend Black people in Monroe from Ku Klux Klan or other attackers. The local chapter of the NAACP supported Freedom Riders who traveled to Monroe in the summer of 1961 in a test of integrating interstate buses. In August 1961, Williams and his wife left the United States to avoid federal kidnapping charges, first traveling to Canada, then Cuba,<ref name="nwg">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp and later the People's Republic of China. These charges were dropped by the state when his trial opened in 1975, following his return in 1970.

Williams advocated black self-defense.<ref name=":04" />Template:Rp Williams' book Negroes with Guns (1962) has been reprinted many times, most recently in 2013. It details his experience with violent racism and his disagreement with the non-violent wing of the Civil Rights Movement. The text was widely influential; Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and African American Defense League founder Mauricelm-Lei Millere cited it as a major inspiration.

Early life

Youth

Robert Franklin Williams was born in Monroe, North Carolina, on February 26, 1925, to Emma Carter and John L. Williams who worked as a railroad boiler washer.<ref>Robert Franklin Williams in North Carolina Birth Index, Family Search</ref><ref name="obit">Yoruba ancestry Robert Franklin Williams in Michigan Obituaries, Family Search.</ref> He had two sisters, Lorraine Garlington and Jessie Link, and two brothers, John H. Williams and Edward S. Williams.<ref name="obit" /> His grandmother, a former slave of Yoruba ancestry, gave Williams his grandfather's rifle. His grandfather had been a Republican campaigner and publisher of the newspaper The People's Voice during the hard years after Reconstruction in North Carolina. At the age of 11, Williams witnessed the beating and dragging of a black woman by police officer Jesse Helms Sr.<ref name=Tyson/><ref>pp. 227–228.</ref> Helms Sr., later the Monroe chief of police, was the father of future United States Senator Jesse Helms.<ref>Jesse Helms: Timeline, PBS</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide, p. 36.</ref>

As a young man, Williams joined the Great Migration, traveling north for industrial work during World War II. He worked in factories in Detroit.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp He witnessed the 1943 Detroit race riot prompted by labor competition between white and black Americans. Drafted in 1944, he served for a year and a half as a private in the then segregated Marines before returning home to Monroe.<ref>Robert F Williams's United States World War II Army Enlistment Records, Family Search</ref>

Marriage and family

In 1947, Williams married a 16-year-old African American woman named Mabel Ola Robinson, a fellow civil rights activist.<ref>[Mabel Ola Robinson in North Carolina Birth Index], Family Search</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They had two children named John C. Williams and Robert F. Williams, Jr.<ref name="obit" />

Civil rights movement

Early NAACP activities

Williams returned to Monroe, North Carolina and became the president of the Union County NAACP chapter in 1951.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp He wanted to change the segregated town to protect the civil rights of blacks.<ref>Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide, p. 9.</ref>

First they worked to integrate the public library. After that success, in 1957 Williams also led efforts to integrate the public swimming pools, which were funded and operated by taxpayer monies. He had followers form picket lines around the pool. The NAACP members organized peaceful demonstrations, but opponents fired on their lines. No one was arrested or punished, although law enforcement officers were present.<ref>"In Memory of Robert F. Williams: A Voice for Armed Self-Defense and Black Liberation", Revolutionary Worker, November 17, 1996.</ref> At that time, Monroe had a large Ku Klux Klan chapter. The press estimated it had 7,500 members, while the city had a total of 12,000 residents.<ref name="pool"/>

Black Armed Guard

Alarmed at the threat to civil rights activists, Williams had applied to the National Rifle Association (NRA) for a charter for a local rifle club.<ref>Truman Nelson, 'People with Strength: The Story of Monroe, North Carolina', 1962, within 'Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide' (San Francisco: Freedom Archives, 2005), pp. 55, 59.</ref> He called the Monroe Chapter of the NRA the Black Armed Guard; it was made up of about 50–60 men, including some veterans like him. They were determined to defend the local black community from racist attacks, a goal similar to that of the Deacons for Defense who established chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in 1964–1965.<ref>Nelson, People with Strength, pp. 49, 60, 65.</ref>

Newtown was the black residential area of Monroe. In the summer of 1957, there were rumors that the KKK was going to attack the house of Dr. Albert E. Perry, a practicing physician and vice-president of the Monroe NAACP. Williams and his men of the Armed Guard went to Perry's house to defend it, fortifying it with sandbags. When numerous KKK members appeared and shot from their cars, Williams and his followers returned the fire, driving them away.<ref>"In Memory of Robert F. Williams", Revolutionary Worker, November 17, 1996;
Timothy Tyson, "Robert Franklin Williams: A Warrior for Freedom;"
Timothy Tyson, "Introduction" to Robert Williams Papers, p. vi.</ref>

"After this clash the same city officials who said the Klan had a constitutional right to organize met in an emergency session and passed a city ordinance banning the Klan from Monroe without a special permit from the police chief."<ref name="pool">Williams, Robert F. "1957: Swimming Pool Showdown", Southern Exposure, c. Summer 1980; the article appeared in a special issue devoted to the Ku Klux Klan, accessed November 17, 2013.</ref>

In Negroes with Guns, Williams writes:

[R]acists consider themselves superior beings and are not willing to exchange their superior lives for our inferior ones. They are most vicious and violent when they can practice violence with impunity.<ref>In Thomas (Chapter 4), Spooks, Sex & Socio-Diagnostics, section: "Sadistic White Insanity".</ref> It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence.<ref>"Negroes With Guns", Ann Coulter blog, April 18, 2012.</ref>

Williams insisted his position was defensive, as opposed to a declaration of war. He relied on numerous black military veterans from the local area, as well as financial support from across the country. In Harlem, particularly, fundraisers were frequently held and proceeds devoted to purchasing arms for Williams and his followers. He called it "armed self-reliance" in the face of white terrorism. Threats against Williams' life and his family became more frequent.Template:Citation needed

Kissing Case

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In 1958, Williams as head of the NAACP chapter defended two young black boys, ages seven and nine, who were jailed and beaten in Monroe after a white girl kissed each of them on the cheek and told her mother, who became enraged.<ref>Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide , p. 12.</ref> The incident was covered internationally and Williams became known around the world. His publicity campaign, inviting a barrage of headlines castigating Monroe and the US in the global press, was instrumental in shaming the officials involved.<ref>Nelson, People with Strength: The Story of Monroe, North Carolina, pp. 62–63.</ref> Authorities eventually released the boys, who were pardoned by the governor of North Carolina, but the state never apologized for its treatment of them. The controversy was known as the "Kissing Case".

Harassment

On May 12, 1958, the Raleigh Eagle, a North Carolina newspaper, reported that Nationwide Insurance Company was canceling Williams' collision and comprehensive coverage, effective that day. They first canceled all of his automobile insurance, but decided to reinstate his liability and medical payments coverage, enough for Williams to retain his car license. The companyTemplate:Rp said that Williams' affiliation with the NAACP was not a factor; they noted "that rocks had been thrown at his car and home several times by people driving by his home at night. These incidents just forced us to get off the comprehensive and collision portions of his policy."<ref name="insurance"/>

The Raleigh Eagle reported that Williams had said that six months before, a 50-car Ku Klux Klan caravan had swapped gunfire with a group of blacks outside the home of Dr. Albert E. Perry, vice president of the local NAACP chapter. The article quoted police chief A.A. Maurey as denying part of that story. He said, "I know there was no shooting."<ref name="insurance"/> He said that he had had several police cars accompanying the KKK caravan to watch for possible law violations. The article quoted Williams: "These things have happened," Williams insisted. "Police try to make it appear that I have been exaggerating and trying to stir up trouble. If police tell me I am in no danger and that they can't confirm these events, why then has my insurance been cancelled?"<ref name="insurance">Insurance cancelled, Raleigh Eagle, May 12, 1958, p. 15.</ref>

The following year, Williams was so incensed with the decision of a Monroe court to acquit two white men of raping a pregnant black woman,<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Mary Reid, that he replied by saying on the courthouse steps:

We cannot rely on the law. We can get no justice under the present system. If we feel that injustice is done, we must then be prepared to inflict justice on these people. Since the federal government will not bring a halt to lynching, and since the so-called courts lynch our people legally, if it's necessary to stop lynching with lynching, then we must be willing to resort to that method. We must meet violence with violence.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>James Bock, "A new debate over nonviolence Militant: A fiery black advocate of violence in the 1960s has returned to the spotlight with recent revelations that Thurgood Marshall passed information about him to the FBI," Baltimore Sun, March 2, 1997.</ref><ref name="Tyson1">Timothy B. Tyson, "Robert F. Williams: "Black Power" and the Roots of African American Freedom Struggle",The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement, ed. Susan M. Glisson, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littefield, 2006, p. 236</ref><ref>Christopher B. Strain, Pure Fire: Self-defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005, p. 59.</ref><ref>James Forman,The Making of Black Revolutionaries, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000, 2nd printing, p. 176.</ref><ref>"The Robert Williams Case",The Crisis, Jun-Jul 1959, Vol. 66, no. 6, p. 327–329.</ref><ref>Nelson, pp. 65–66 in People With Strength: The Story of Monroe, North Carolina, quotes Williams as saying "This court has proved that Negroes cannot receive justice from the courts. They must convict their attackers on the spot. They must meet violence with violence!".</ref>

The Harvard Crimson quoted him<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as saying "the Negro in the South cannot expect justice in the courts. He must convict his attackers on the spot. He must meet violence with violence, lynching with lynching." It is not known where these quotes originated.

Suspension from the NAACP

In 1959, Williams was in a shoot-out with Ku Klax Klan members and local police officers, from which he fled.<ref name=":04" />Template:Rp

Following his statements about meeting violence with violence, Williams was removed from his NAACP position in 1959.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Williams disavowed any reference to lynching, rejecting retaliatory force, also called retaliatory violence, claiming he only said that African Americans should act in armed self-defense if attacked by white people.<ref>Timothy B. Tyson, "Robert F. Williams: NAACP "Warrior and Rebel," p. 17.</ref><ref name="Tyson1" /><ref>Thomas Bynum, NAACP Youth and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1936–1965, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013, p. 125.</ref><ref>Strain, Pure Fire: Self-defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era, pp. 60, 66, 181, 206.</ref><ref>Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, 159.</ref>

Freedom Rides and prosecution

Template:Further

The FBI's wanted poster alerted people to an armed kidnapper.

Despite losing much support, civil rights activist James Forman was still supportive of Williams and his advocacy for using armed self defense against white oppression.Template:Cn Forman, who would also promote Williams' armed self-defense message during a visit to his home in Monroe, North Carolina, also agreed to assist Williams in organizing a Freedom Ride in Monroe.Template:Cn When CORE dispatched "Freedom Riders" to Monroe to campaign in the summer of 1961 for integrated interstate bus travel, the local NAACP chapter served as their base. They were housed in Newtown, the black section of Monroe. Pickets marched daily at the courthouse, put under a variety of restraints by the Monroe police, such as having to stand 15 feet apart. During this campaign, Freedom Riders were beaten by violent crowds in Anniston, Alabama and Birmingham.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As the picketing in Monroe proceeded, tensions heightened. In Negroes With Guns, Williams describes incidents on the third day picketing where a police officer knocked one picketer to the ground, another picketer was arrested, and another was spat at in the face by two white Monroe community members.<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp On Friday, August 25, Williams wrote that one Freedom Rider was shot in the stomach with an air rifle while walking the line, and a group of Freedom Riders was attacked by white racists at a restaurant in nearby Mecklenburg County.<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp

Williams writes that on Sunday, August 27, thousands of white racists from nearby counties and South Carolina gathered in Monroe, concentrating at the courthouse square.<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp Fighting eventually broke out, the mob spread out through the town, and many Freedom Riders and black community members were arrested. Around 6pm that evening, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Stegal, a white couple, rode through Williams neighborhood and were recognized as having driven through the day before with a banner that read "Open Season On Coons."<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp According to Williams, the Stegals were stopped at gunpoint on his block and were brought to his yard; Williams was in his house at the time. The crowd at Williams' house became angry with the Stegals, who asked Williams' to escort them out, which he declined to do. Williams writes that the Stegals then followed him into his house to avoid the angry crowd.<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp Williams began receiving word that state troopers were moving in and his street was being blocked by police, so he and his wife and children left immediately and drove to New York that evening, according to Williams' account.<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp Mrs. Stegal claimed that Williams kidnapped them, while Williams maintained that his actions saved their lives.<ref name="nwg"/>Template:Rp

On August 28, 1961, the FBI issued a warrant in Charlotte, North Carolina, charging Williams with unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution for kidnapping. The FBI document lists Williams as a "freelance writer and janitor ... [Williams] ... has previously been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and has advocated and threatened violence ... considered armed and extremely dangerous."<ref>Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide, p. 19.</ref> Williams fled to Canada, then Cuba, and then to China.<ref name=":04" />Template:Rp

Exile and return

Cuba

Template:See also Williams went to Cuba in 1961 by way of Canada and Mexico. He regularly broadcast addresses from Cuba to Southern blacks on Radio Free Dixie.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp He established the station with approval of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, along with assistance of the government, and operated it from 1962 to 1965.<ref>Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide, pp. 20–21.</ref> While in America he had supported the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Williams used Radio Free Dixie to urge black soldiers in the U.S. armed forces, who were then preparing for a possible invasion of Cuba, to engage in insurrection against the United States.

While you are armed, remember this is your only chance to be free. ... This is your only chance to stop your people from being treated worse than dogs. We'll take care of the front, Joe, but from the back, he'll never know what hit him. You dig?<ref>Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War, Knopf (2008).Template:ISBN?Template:Page?</ref>

Williams also published a newspaper, The Crusader.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp In 1962, he wrote his book Negroes with Guns.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp It had a significant influence on Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panthers and in later years Mauricelm-Lei Millere, the founder of African American Defense League. Despite his absence from the United States, in 1964 Williams was elected president of the US-based Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM).<ref>"Exile Robert Williams' Wife Returns to US from Africa", The Afro American (Baltimore, Maryland), August 30 or September 6, 1969 (unclear).</ref>

During his time in Cuba, Williams increased his efforts to obtain international support and publicity for the concept of African American armed self-defense.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Following requests by Williams, Mao Zedong issued a statement in People's Daily in August 1963 in support of the African American struggle against discrimination.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp On August 10, China's ambassador to Cuba invited Williams to the Chinese embassy to be presented with a copy of Mao's statement.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Later that month, People's Daily published a statement by Williams in which Williams stated that the dignity required self-defense and self-defense required a willingness to counterattack.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

Visit to Hanoi

In 1965, Williams traveled to Hanoi, then the capital of North Vietnam. In a public speech, he advocated armed violence against the United States during the Vietnam War, congratulated China on obtaining its own nuclear weapons (which Williams referred to as "The Freedom Bomb"), and showed his solidarity with the North Vietnamese against the United States military attacks against that country.<ref>Williams, Robert F., "Speech Delivered at the International Conference for Solidarity with the People of Vietnam Against U.S. Imperialist Aggression for the Defense of Peace. Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam November 25–29, 1965" (March 1965). The Crusader 6(3), pp. 1–5.</ref>

Some Communist Party USA members opposed Williams' positions, suggesting they would divide the working class in the U.S. along racial lines. In a May 18, 1964, letter from Havana to his U.S. lawyer, civil rights attorney Conrad Lynn, Williams wrote:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

... the U.S.C.P. has openly come out against my position on the Negro struggle. In fact, the party has sent special representatives here to sabotage my work on behalf of U.S. Negro liberation. They are pestering the Cubans to remove me from the radio, ban The Crusader and to take a number of other steps in what they call 'cutting Williams down to size.' ...

The whole thing is due to the fact that I absolutely refuse to take direction from Gus Hall's idiots ... I hope to depart from here, if possible, soon. I am writing you to stand by in case I am turned over to the FBI ...

Sincerely, Rob.{{#if:|

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Williams opposed what he described as "fake Marxists" who argued that black people should be patient and seek intervention through the courts and the electoral process.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp In Williams' view, African Americans had the right to use any means to oppose violent policies which targeted them.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

China

Mao Zedong meeting with Robert F. Williams

In Summer 1963, Negroes with Guns was translated and published in China.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

In late September 1963, Robert and Mable Williams visited China.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp China treated Williams as a major leader, including presenting an honor guard for his arrival.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp On National Day, Williams met with Mao in advance of the National Day parade.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Mao asked Williams about the development of the Black Liberation movement and its future.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Williams predicted a long and difficult fight.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Mao responded that Williams could be patient because of his age, and that a revolutionary program must be planned and sustained because its goal is to change society permanently.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp After National Day, the Williamses toured China.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

Also in 1963, Williams attended Mao's 70th birthday party as an honored guest.<ref name=":04">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

From 1966 to 1969, Williams lived in China, where he continued to publish The Crusader, which praised armed liberation movements in the United States and elsewhere.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp In 1967, Williams delivered a speech in Beijing on the 25th anniversary of the Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art.<ref name=":Mullen">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp In it, Williams stated that "all our literature and art are for the masses of the people," and encouraged African American artists to develop a new revolutionary approach.<ref name=":Mullen" />Template:Rp

Williams described China as last hope for African Americans, contending that "Without China, there can be no Black struggle in America."<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp In a speech at a demonstration against United States imperialism in 1966, Williams praised what he described as the militant friendship between the Chinese and the revolutionary American people.<ref name=":0" />Template:Rp

Represented by the ACLU and human rights lawyer Michael Tigar, he won a lawsuit against the U.S. Postmaster General, in which the statute allowing the U.S. Post Office to refuse to deliver foreign-origin publications deemed to be "communist political propaganda" except at the specific prior request of the addressee was declared unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.<ref>Template:Cite court</ref> In January 1968, Conrad Lynn wrote to encourage Williams to return to the U.S.,Template:Citation needed to which Williams responded:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

The only thing that prevents my acceptance and willingness to make an immediate return is the present lack of adequate financial assurance for a fight against my being railroaded to jail and an effective organization to arouse the people.

I don't think it will be wise to announce my nomination [for President of the United States] and immediate return unless the kind of money is positively available...Template:Citation needed{{#if:|

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Lynn wrote Williams in a letter on January 24, 1968: "You are wise in not making a decision to come back until the financial situation is assured." Because no financial backing could be found, no 1968 "Williams for President" campaign was ever launched by Williams' supporters in the United States. By November 1969, Williams apparently had become disillusioned with the U.S. left. As his lawyer, Conrad Lynn, noted in a November 7, 1969 letter to W. Haywood Burns of the Legal Defense Foundation:

Williams now clearly takes the position that he has been deserted by the left. How and whether he fits black militant organizations into that category I don't know. Radio Free Europe offered him pay to broadcast for them. So far he has refused. But he has not foreclosed making a deal with the government or the far right. He takes the position that he is entitled to make any maneuver to keep from going to jail for kidnapping...<ref>Conrad Lynn to Haywood Burns, November 7, 1969, Conrad Lynn Papers, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.</ref>

Williams was suspected by the Justice Department of wanting to fill the vacuum of influence left after the assassinations of his friends Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Hoover received reports that blacks looked to Williams as a figure similar to John Brown, the militant abolitionist who attacked a federal armory at Harper's Ferry before the American Civil War attempting to arm and free enslaved Black people. Williams' attempts to contact the U.S. government in order to return were consistently rebuffed.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In March 1968, a group of several hundred African American leaders met in Detroit and declared the Republic of New Africa, electing Williams as the President of its provisional government.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp An RNA delegation including RNA Vice President Gaidi Obadele and Information Minister Imari Obadele traveled to China in June 1968 and met with Williams.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Williams accepted the presidency and proposed diplomatic initiatives for the RNA.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

Return

When he decided to return to the United States, Williams began to raise funds for his bail and legal defense.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp During that time, he decreased his rhetoric about armed revolution in an effort to avoid complicating the upcoming legal proceedings.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

In 1969, Williams returned to the United States to fight the legal charges against him in North Carolina.<ref name=":Li">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Williams' wife, Mabel Williams returned first, in September.<ref name="exile">"Exile Robert Williams' Wife Returns to US from Africa", The Afro American (Baltimore, Maryland), August 30 or September 6, 1969; p. 22, accessed November 17, 2013.</ref> Williams returned via London, England, reaching Detroit in 1969. Williams had chosen to return via Detroit because he could obtain political and financial support from the Republic of New Africa there and because he had greater faith in the Michigan courts than elsewhere in the United States.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp Federal agents immediately arrested him and he was released on bail.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

Williams resigned from his position as President of Republic of New Africa and focused on his legal case and disseminating information about China.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

Williams was extradited from Michigan to North Carolina in December 1975.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp The historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall chaired his defense committee and a broad range of left wing activists arrived to support him. Noted attorney William Kunstler represented Williams in court.<ref>"Charges Dropped Against Williams", Wilmington Morning Star (UPI). January 17, 1976, p. 2.
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall Papers (1939–1991), Bentley Historical LibraryTemplate:Dead link, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.</ref> North Carolina prosecutors dismissed the charges against Williams on January 16, 1976, stating that its major witness was too weak to appear in court.<ref name=":Li" />Template:Rp

Death

Williams died at age 71 from Hodgkin's lymphoma on October 15, 1996.<ref name="obit" /> He had been living in Baldwin, Michigan. At his funeral, Rosa Parks, an activist known for sparking the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, recounted the high regard for Williams by those who joined with Martin Luther King Jr. in the peaceful marches in Alabama.<ref name=Tyson>Timothy B. Tyson, "Robert F. Williams: 'Black Power' and the Roots of the African American Freedom Struggle", in Susan M. Glisson (ed.), The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, pp. 227–254; accessed May 12, 2011.</ref> Parks gave the eulogy at Williams' funeral in 1996, praising him for "his courage and for his commitment to freedom". She concluded, "The sacrifices he made, and what he did, should go down in history and never be forgotten."<ref>Timothy B. Tyson, "Robert Franklin Williams: A Warrior For Freedom, 1925–1996" Template:Webarchive Investigating U.S. History (City University of New York); accessed October 3, 2016.</ref><ref>Robert and Mabel Williams Resource Guide (San Francisco: Freedom Archives, 2005), p. 38.</ref>

Works

  • Negroes with Guns (with input by his wife; 1962), New York, NY: Marzani & Munsell. Reprinted by Wayne State University Press, 1998.
  • " USA: The Potential of a Minority Revolution" [1964] 1965. In August Meier et al. (eds), Black Protest Thought in the 20th Century. Indianapolis and New York.
  • Listen Brother!. 1968; New York: World View Publishers. 40 pp.
  • " The Black Scholar Interviews: Robert F Williams," The Black Scholar, 1970.
  • Williams, Robert F. While God Lay Sleeping: The Autobiography of Robert F. Williams (completed 1996, unpublished).

See also

References

Template:Reflist

Sources

Further reading

  • Hill, Lance. Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, University of North Carolina Press, 2004. History of the Deacons' civil rights activity and organizing in Louisiana and elsewhere; they supported armed self-defense.
  • Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries, University of Washington Press (1997).
  • Template:Cite journal
  • Schaich, Diane Hope. Robert F. Williams: A Rhetoric of Revolution, M.A. Thesis, SUNY Buffalo, 1970.
  • Tyson, Timothy B. Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power. 416 pages. University of North Carolina Press (2001). Template:ISBN.
  • The Robert F. Williams Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. https://bentley.umich.edu/

General

Writings and interviews

Film and audio

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