Negroes with Guns

Negroes with Guns
2015 ebook edition reproduction of original cover art
AuthorRobert F. Williams
LanguageEnglish
GenreBlack Power
PublisherMarzani & Munsell
Publication date
1962
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint.

Negroes with Guns is a 1962 book by civil rights activist Robert F. Williams.[1][2] Timothy B. Tyson said, Negroes with Guns was "the single most important intellectual influence on Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party".[3] The book is used in college courses[4][5] and is discussed in debates.[6][7]

Negroes with Guns was Williams' experience throughout the Civil Rights Movement of Monroe, North Carolina. Because black rights were constantly violated, the self-defense policy was born, with Williams saying there was a need to "meet violence with violence."[8] However, Williams claimed that black militants were not promoting violence, but were combating it, believing in self-defense and not aggression.[9]

In film

The subject matter of the book was made into the documentary film Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power, directed by Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts, released in 2004.[10][11] The film provides witness testimonies of many of the events described in the book.

A documentary by Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts, Rob Williams and Black Power, attempts to gather Williams from margins of movement scholarship.[12]

Foreign publication

In summer 1963, the book was translated and published in China.[13]: 263 

Impact

Negroes with Guns influenced Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in their founding of the Black Panther Party.[13]: 275 

References

  1. ^ Robert F. Williams, Negroes with Guns, edited by Marc Schleifer, Marzani & Munsell, Inc., NY, 1962, p. 128, with forewords by Martin Luther King Jr. and Truman J. Nelson; republished by Martino Publishing, Mansfield Centre, CT, in 2013, ISBN 978-1-61427-411-7.
  2. ^ Paul S. Cowan, Negroes with Guns (review), The Harvard Crimson, 16 March 1963.
  3. ^ Glisson, Susan M. (2006). The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742544093.
  4. ^ Student's blogpost, 8 May 2012, accessed on 27 February 2016.
  5. ^ Aronson, Jay. Guns in American History: Culture, Violence, and Politics. Carnegie Mellon University, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Fall 2019.
  6. ^ Prof. Nicholas Johnson, The what and why of Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms, The Washington Post, 27 January 2014.
  7. ^ Ann Coulter, Negroes With Guns, Ann Coulter column, 18 April 2012.
  8. ^ Williams, Robert Franklin (1998). Negroes with Guns. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814327142.
  9. ^ Williams, Robert Franklin (1998). Negroes with Guns. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814327142.
  10. ^ New York Times movie review, NEGROES WITH GUNS: ROB WILLIAMS AND BLACK POWER (2003), accessed on 27 February 2016.
  11. ^ PBS - Independent Lens, NEGROES WITH GUNS: Rob Williams and Black Power, accessed on 27 February 2016.
  12. ^ Jeffries, Hasan Kwame (2006). ""Negroes with Guns": Rob Williams and Black Power". OAH Magazine of History. 20 (5): 44–45. doi:10.1093/maghis/20.5.44. ISSN 0882-228X. JSTOR 25162085.
  13. ^ a b Li, Hongshan (2024). Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231207058. JSTOR 10.7312/li--20704.