Negroes and the Gun (63 page)

As a broader principle of liberty, the coalition from which the modern orthodoxy grows also has exalted choice as a bedrock principle driving policy on some of the most critical issues within the progressive agenda. It is hard to improve on the Supreme Court's articulation of the principle:

Matters involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life
. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under the compulsion of the state.
59

The values and autonomy the court elevates here are easily reduced further. More basic than
defining
one's own concept of existence is the core interest in
preserving
one's existence against deadly threats. Personal security is the bedrock on which other popular autonomy claims rest. If choice on those matters is central to liberty, how do we deny people some fair measure of choice in circumstances where their lives hang in the balance?

INTRODUCTION

1
. The quotations from Turnbow and Hamer are sourced and discussed in detail in chapter 7.

2
. These quotations are sourced and discussed in detail in chapter 1, chapter 7, and chapter 9.

CHAPTER 1: BOUNDARY-LAND

1
. Timothy B. Tyson,
Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams & the Roots of Black Power
(1999) at 57.

2
. Ibid., at 49.

3
. Ibid., at 1-2, 18-25, 49-50, 57; Christopher B. Strain, “Civil Rights & Self-Defense: The Fiction of Nonviolence, 1955-1968,” PhD dissertation, Univ. California, Berkley (2000) at 40.

4
. Robert Franklin Williams,
Negroes with Guns
(1962) at 46.

5
. Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 86.

6
. Ibid., at 87.

7
. Ibid., at 50-75, 79-88.

8
. Julian Mayfield, in James Forman,
The Making of Black Revolutionaries
(1972) at 167.

9
. Strain,
Civil Rights
, at 56; William Worthy, “Black Muslims NAACP Target: Raise Funds for Arms for Carolinian,”
Baltimore Afro-American
(July 22, 1961); Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 89, 137.

10
. Timothy B. Tyson,
Blood Done Sign My Name
(2004) at 57.

11
. Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 138; Tim Hashaw,
Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed Race America
(2006) at 70-71.

12
. For discussion of defensive gun use, see Nicholas J. Johnson, “Firearms and the Black Community: An Assessment of the Modern Orthodoxy,”
Connecticut L. Review
(2013); Nicholas J. Johnson et al.,
Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy
(2012) and chapter 9 of this book.

13
. David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito,
Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard's Fight
for Civil Rights and Economic Power
(2009) at 67-68; E. Franklin Frazier, “The Negro and Non-Resistance,”
Crisis
, March 1924, at 213-214, reprinted in Herbert Apkether,
Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States
, Vol. 3 (1951) at 449-451, 451.

14
. Williams, at 62; Herbert Shapiro,
White Violence and Black Response
(1988) at 459; Forman, at 175; Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 86-89, 137-65.

15
. “NAACP Leader Urges Violence,”
New York Times
, May 7, 1959.

16
.
Carolina Times
, January 5, 1960;
News and Courier
, May 7, 1959, clipping in box A333, group 3, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 150.

17
. Telegram from NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins to Robert Williams, president of branch in Monroe, North Carolina, May 6, 1959, box A333, group 3, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress. Wilkins's account is quoted in Julian Mayfield, “Challenge to Negro Leadership: The Case of Robert Williams,”
Commentary
(April 1961) at 299. See also Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 86-89, 137-65.

18
. Williams,
Negroes with Guns
, at 67. For full text of the resolutions, see Glocester B. Current, “Fiftieth Annual Convention,” in
Crisis
(August-September 1959) at 400-10.

19
. Both essays are printed in
Southern Patriot
18, no. 2 (January 1960) at 3; edited versions of the essays appear in
Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader
, edited by Clayborne Carson et al. (1991) at 110 -113. See also Williams,
Negroes with Guns
, at 12-15 (quoting Martin Luther King Jr.).

20
.
Baltimore Afro-American
, May 30, 1959;
Ark. State Press
, May 23, 1959;
Ark. State Press
, May 23, 1959;
Southern Patriot
18, no. 2 (January 1960): 3;
Southern Patriot
21 no. 2 (February 1963): 2; see also Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 163-164.

21
. For continuing support in Monroe, see Williams,
Negroes with Guns
, at 111; Strain,
Civil Rights & Self-Defense
, at 49. For support in the branches, see Brooklyn Branch to Roy Wilkins, May 8, 1959, and Flint Michigan Branch Resolution to the National Board NAACP, May 24, 1959, box 2, CCRI Papers; Charles J. Adams to Roy Wilkins, May 8, 1959, box A 333, group 3, NAACP Papers. Adams wrote to Wilkins, “I support Williams one million percent. . . . Why can't we do like the Indians did down in Carolina last year?”; the Flint Michigan Branch demanded Williams's “immediate reinstatement.” Tyson,
Radio Free
, at 156-57.

22
. John McCray, “There's Nothing New about It,”
Baltimore Afro-American
, May 23, 1959.

23
. Roy Wilkins,
The Single Issue in the Robert Williams
Case
, box A333, group 3, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Address of Roy Wilkins, Freedom Fund Dinner of the Chicago Branch, Morrison Hotel, Chicago, Ill., June 12, 1959.

24
. Roy Wilkins,
Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins
(1982) at 265;
Meet the Press
transcript, July 16, 1967, at 9.

CHAPTER 2: FOUNDATION

1
. “The True Remedy for the Fugitive Slave,”
Frederick Douglass Paper
, June 9, 1854, reprinted in John R. McKivigan and Heather L. Kaufman,
In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty's Champion
(2012) at 111.

2
. Robin Santos Doak,
Slave Rebellions
(2006) at 16; Enrico Dal Lago, Constantina Katsari,
Slave Systems: Ancient And Modern
(2008) at 249; Ella Forbes,
But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana Pennsylvania Resistance
(1998) at 137.

3
. Walter C. Rucker,
The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture and Identity Formation in Early America
(2007) at 4-5; Christopher Waldrep,
Roots of Disorder: Race and Criminal Justice in the American South 1817–80
(1998) at 11; Douglas Greenberg,
Crime and Law Enforcement in the Colony of New York, 1691–1776
(1974) at 150-151; Peter H. Wood,
Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion
(1974); Harriet C. Frazier,
Slavery and Crime in Missouri, 1773–1865
(2001).

4
. Greenberg, at 74, 138-139.

5
. Ibid., at 129.

6
. The account here is detailed in Frederick Douglass,
The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass
, reprinted in
Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings
(1984) at 26-56, 68-82. See also William S. McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
(1991) at 8, 13, 43.

7
. Greenberg, at 74.

8
. Harriet C. Fraizer,
Slavery and Crime in Missouri 1773 to 1865
(2001) at 197, 201, 204-205; Walter White,
Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch
(1929) at 90.

9
. Dan T. Carter,
When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self Reconstruction in the South 1865–1867
(1985) at 188.

10
.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857).

11
. McFeely, at 5, 8.

12
. Waldo E. Martin Jr.,
The Mind of Frederick Douglass
(1984) at 188; Frederick Douglass,
Not Afraid to Die
, reprinted in Ronald T. Takaki,
Violence in the Black Imagination
(1993) at 17-35.

13
. Stanley Harrold,
Border War: Fighting over Slavery Before the Civil War
(2010) at 25-27, 32, 95; Stephen Middleton,
The Black Laws: Race and the Legal Process in Early Ohio
(2005) at 47-51; Robert C. Smedley,
History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania
(1883) at 26-29.

14
. Nicholas J. Johnson, David Kopel, George Mocsary, and Michael O'Shea,
Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy
(2012) at 114.

15
. Waldrep,
Roots of Disorder
, at 9-10, 25, 29-34.

16
. Nicholas J. Johnson, Clayton Cramer, and George Mocsary, “‘This Right Is Not Allowed by Governments That Are Afraid of the People': The Public Meaning of the Second Amendment When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified,” 17
George Mason Law Review
(2010) at 853.

17
.
Kevin Boyle,
Arc of Justice
(2004) at 46; Clifton Paisley,
The Red Hills Florida 1528–1865
(1989) at 134; Harrold, at 129-130.

18
. Henry Bibb,
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave
(2005) at 84.

19
. Leon Litwack,
Been in the in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery
(1979) at 104.

20
. Harrold, at 129-130.

21
. Ibid., at 131, 177.

22
. Elijah P. Marrs,
Life and History of the Rev. Elijah P. Marrs
(1885) at 17-20, 131, 177.

23
. These findings are discussed at length in chapter 9.

24
. William Loren Katz,
The Black West
(2005) at 85; Keith P Griffler,
Frontline of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley
(2004) at 62; Francis Fredric,
Escaped Slave, Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky
(2010) at 86; Harrold, at 131, 179.

25
. John P. Parker,
His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad
(Stuart S. Sprague, ed., 1996) at 119, 118-121.

26
. Katz,
Black West
, at 277.

27
. William Still,
Still's Underground Railroad Records, with a Life of the Author
(1872) at 124-126; George Hendrick, ed.,
Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad
(2004) at 148-155.

28
. Still, at 124-126; Hendrick, at 148-155.

29
. Still, at 48-51.

30
. Harrold, at 46, 62.

31
. Philip S. Foner and Yuval Taylor,
Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings
(1999) at 367.

32
. Harrold, at 10, 15, 21-22.

33
. Ibid., at 135, 139 -143, 155.

34
. “Unconstitutional Laws of Ohio,”
Liberator
, April 6, 1838, at 53; Johnson et al.
Public Meaning
, at 838.

35
. Lysander Spooner, “The Fugitive Slave Bill,”
Liberator
, January 3, 1851, at 1.

36
. “The New England Antislavery Convention,”
Liberator
, June 3, 1853, at 23; Johnson et al.,
Public Meaning
, at 840.

37
. Forman, at 376.

38
. Harrold, at 101-102, 109.

39
. Griffler,
Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley
(2004) at 54.

40
. Harrold, at 102.

41
. Ibid., at 103, 111.

42
. Ibid., at 98.

43
. Ibid., at 177-178.

44
.
Ibid., at 136.

45
. Ibid., at 150- 153, 156- 157, 181.

46
. Katz,
Black West
, at 48-52, 63-64.

47
. Forbes, at 131-133, 137, 139-140.

48
. Earl Ofari,
Let Your Motto Be Resistance: The Life and Thought of Henry Highland Garnet
(1972) at 43.

49
. Forbes, at 138.

50
. Ofari, at 44; Phillip Foner,
Frederick Douglass
(1964) at 138.

51
.
Liberator
, September 8, 1843.