| the-pi-guy said:
5. "Not in the least. It was harmful to the civil rights movement. Private ownership of firearms was part of the means by which blacks were kept in subjection even after slavery ended. The Ku Klux Klan made extensive use of them. The civil rights movement was almost entirely non-violent so far as the protesters were concerned. Martin Luther King adopted Gandhi’s approach of non-violent resistance, civil disobedience, and shrewd use of the media. Firearms played no part in this. Arms were used by civilians in two ways. First, some black people not affiliated with Martin Luther King felt that they should take up arms in the struggle. They mostly died violent deaths, either through conflicts with the police or among themselves. Malcolm X was killed by someone in his own organization. It was just as dumb an idea as the “militia” loons’ ideas today. Second, a number of white civilians abused their right to bear arms to murder civil rights workers." |
Ernest Adams is not looking at things comprehensively here.
Without the threat of black nationalists, nobody would've looked at Martin Luther King Jr. as a moderate. In fact, King used the Black Panthers as an example of what is to come if there wasn't reform. This was a powerful motivator.
It is most clear in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail where he criticizes the "white Moderate."
"You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil.""
"I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare."
The Black Panthers also played a significant role to protect people, by cop-watching.
Which is why the Mulford Act was signed, so that police could continue to beat black people without fear.
