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Short Answer Identification Questions (50 Points)

3. The stark contrast between the non-violent and civil disobedience stance of the Civil Rights Movement and the self-reliance and self-defense stance of the Black Power Movement is best exhibited through the legacy of Robert F. Williams. Williams was the leader of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1956. Williams’s militancy culminated in his admission to the National Rifle Association and the formation of the Monroe Black Guard, a self-defense group developed to provide protection for Black residents in the town. Williams was candid in his stance on self-defense. He was not averse to resorting to violence if the consequence resulted in the safety of Black Monroe residents. However, Williams’s position isolated him for the mainstream Civil Rights Movement. During the early 1960s, the mainstream organization associated with the Civil Rights Movement, such as the NAACP, rejected Williams claims of violence in the name of self-defense. His position conflicted with the NAACP’s adherence to civil disobedience. Consequently, Williams was suspended from the NAACP in 1961. Armed self-defense was beginning to take form in the South. Organizations such as Deacons for Defense and Justice challenged the traditional perspective of Christian ministers as nonviolence peacekeepers through their possession of weapons to face oppression under Jim Crow. Williams was sent into forced exiled in Cuba where he wrote his book Negroes with Guns (1962), which is said to have inspired Huey P Newton to adopt more radical positions.

4. Amiri Baraka was a distinguished writer and critic of his generation. He was a noted Communist, Pa...

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...ents the internal transformation that many activists of his generation experienced. He began his career in advocacy as a Black member of a white movement, the Beat Generation. However, feeling disillusioned with the Beats, he explored Communist ideology and became an opponent of racial oppression and discrimination. He became enamored by the teachings of Malcolm X and quickly developed into a literary Black Nationalist advocating for violence against white aggression through poetry, dramas, and essays. Baraka’s final conversion can with the founding of the Black Power Movement where he made his full switch into a Pan-African nationalist. Throughout his later life, Baraka remained a controversial figure. From 2002 to 2003, he served as Poet Laureate of New Jersey, but was forced to resign the position after accusations of anti-Semitism. Baraka died on January 9, 2014