Self Defense & Armed Resistance in the Black Freedom Struggle

CCS BOOKS Charles E. Cobb Jr.: This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible. Scott Crow (editor): Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense. Lance Hill: The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Nicholas Johnson: Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms. David F. Krugler: 1919,…

Asking the Oppressed to be Nonviolent is an Impossible Standard that Ignores History

Justin Podur In January 2023, after five police officers killed Tyre Nichols, President Joe Biden quickly issued a statement calling on protesters to stay nonviolent. “As Americans grieve, the Department of Justice conducts its investigation, and state authorities continue their work, I join Tyre’s family in calling for peaceful protest,” said Biden. “Outrage is understandable, but violence is…

“Forcible Hindrances”: The Structural Violence of Capitalism and How People Respond to it

Yanis Iqbal In his 1845 book “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, Friedrich Engels wrote: “When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society…

The U.S. Military Would Not Be Invincible Against Domestic Revolt

Rainer Shea Among those who discuss the prospects of overthrowing the United States government, there’s a common belief that it would be impossible for domestic rebels to militarily defeat the U.S. armed forces. This inevitably leads to speculations about alternative ways for the rebels to prevail. Maybe we could win most of the U.S. military…

Notes on the Coloniality of Peace

Nelson Maldonado-Torres The allusion to peace, to peace as a state of harmony within an established order, has long been an indispensable tool in the arsenal of colonialism and racism. First comes the brutal war: people killed, bodies in pieces, raped, and mutilated, subjects subdued, ancestors disrespected, lands taken, rivers with water turning viscous and…

Black Women With Guns

From Harriet Tubman to female members of the Black Panther Party, Black women have always played a role in armed resistance in the United States, said Jasmine Young, a doctoral fellow at the University of California’s Department of African American Studies. Young is working on a manuscript titled, “Black Women with Guns: Armed Resistance in…