NCJ Number
160185
Date Published
1992
Length
6 pages
Annotation
As the target of many death threats, the author, a civil rights and labor union organizer, recounts how he has avoided becoming a victim of assault from members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white racists by carrying a gun for self-defense.
Abstract
The author describes the death threats and threatening incidents under which he lived as an organizer for social justice, principally in the northeastern North Carolina Black- belt project in the 1960's. His work with African-Americans was challenged primarily by the Ku Klux Klan, which attempted various means of intimidating him and those with whom he worked. Local and State law enforcement had very little inclination to intervene for the protection of the African-American community. In a strategy of self-defense, the author and African-American families armed themselves and let this fact be known on the local "grapevine." Consequently, there was a clear reluctance by Klan members to engage in face-to-face encounters or to trespass on private property. Other indirect means of Klan intimidation failed to deter project organizers and participants. The author is convinced that an armed African-American community and the general knowledge of this fact deterred violence by the Klan and ensured the success of an essentially nonviolent organizing effort.