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From Negro Militias To Black Armament


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An interesting read:

 

https://www.nprillinois.org/post/negro-militias-black-armament#stream/0

 

 

 


From Negro Militias To Black Armament


By GENE DEMBY & NATALIE ESCOBAR • 17 HOURS AGO

 

All the way back in 1676, we had Bacon's Rebellion, which occured in Virginia. It was a particularly interesting rebellion, because it was an allyship between Black slaves and white indentured servants; essentially they took a bunch of firearms and they tore stuff up. And the government's response to that was to roll out slave laws. And part of those slave laws were meant to ensure that Black people, whether they were enslaved or free, were not able to get firearms. You see throughout time and time again throughout history. These rebellions would occur, and the government would step down hard and fast to further racially stratify the laws.

So what you actually see here is this entire self-defense armament movement that restarts back up with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the 1850 October edition of the abolitionist paper, The Liberator, they say how Black people and abolitionist whites had flooded to gun stores to start purchasing revolvers [in response to the act] and how white accomplices and allies were actually donating firearms to their Black compatriots for self-defense. There is this rich history of fighting that goes up to and throughout the Civil War, where Black people [are doing what is necessary] to simply survive.

 

Fast forward to the Civil War, during which Black people served in the U.S. army for the first time—and were armed. Once the fighting stopped, you had a trained and, in many cases, recently emancipated Black populace. What was the relationship between Black people and guns after the war?

 

This is the part that is really the most unsung part of Black armament in American history. Right up until the Civil War, [black gun ownership] was essentially illegal activity. There were so many laws that mandated that Black people couldn't have firearms — a Black person owning a gun was a sheer act of defiance. So when the Civil War ended, the Union government did not exactly know what to do. They knew that they wanted to end the system of slavery, but past that, there were a whole array of ideas that white people in America had about how to handle Black people. But for Black people, the fundamental thing was: I'm free now. How can I maintain that? It was a very different thing to go to a free Black person at that point and tell them that they did not have the right for self-defense; it accompanies the very notion of freedom. So for the very first time, we have Black people who are for the most part free to go about and acquire weapons.

As we move into the civil rights era, there's this nuance: For African American gun owners, the firearm is seen as this tool for charting one's own course and self defense. At the very same time, it is also that this lethal implement that could very much be turned against you—and throughout history, has been turned against you. This very much showed up during the civil rights era of the 1960s.

 

The first thing we need to know is that the idea of nonviolence was one that had formed and shifted over the years. Right. Even Martin Luther King Jr. himself had started off with indications of being more friendly to that notion of Black armed self-defense in the beginning of his movement, compared to the later half of his movement. At the same time, firearms had always been part of the movement, even when we talk about nonviolence. A lot of the coordinators, for instance, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had an uphill battle trying to convince Black southerners to not bring guns to protests.

 

The other thing is that this history of Black armament [in the civil rights movement] has always secretly been there. Medgar Evers, a very prominent civil rights activist in Mississippi, carried guns on him all the time. He had a rifle and a pistol in his car the day that he was assassinated in front of his home. And then you look at other ones, such as Fannie Lou Hamer, who was a civil rights activist, who famously registered thousands Black people to vote. And she did this in the South, right? She did this in one of the most costly and toxic places for Black people to even organize a political movement. She would tell everyone: You don't want to hurt anyone. You don't want to hurt white people. Right. But when push came to shove, she did say that part of her success was predicated on the notion that she kept the shotgun in every corner of her house. ...Having a shotgun in every corner wasn't a direct part of her political organizing; she had a shotgun to protect herself from white supremacists.] So, so well, there was very much a nonviolent movement. But there was still very much this defensive notion that, when the movement came home and as a Black person operating at home, there was this practicality of having a firearm there. And that practicality was one that Black people never quite divorced by simply just being in the realities of that violent environment in which they had to operate.

 

 

 

 

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Interesting topic. I think there is more unity among blacks and whites who support gun rights then there are between those who don't. Even among the media generated "hatred" many have today against one another, as a black man, when I enter a gun range or a gun show, I don't get the awkward feeling I get if I were to attend lets say a white democrats fundraiser. These events and those like them are supposed to be where I would feel the most at home/safe but that isn't the case. Why go somewhere where people look down on you and work to prevent expansion of rights when you can see eye to eye with the big bad gun nut? My hope is that the politics of the right can bring more blacks and browns into the fold outside of 2A issues. There are those who would fight side by side in the struggle. Many who look like me just need to feel that they are welcome. Once that happens it's lights out for the far left.

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Interesting topic. I think there is more unity among blacks and whites who support gun rights then there are between those who don't. Even among the media generated "hatred" many have today against one another, as a black man, when I enter a gun range or a gun show, I don't get the awkward feeling I get if I were to attend lets say a white democrats fundraiser. These events and those like them are supposed to be where I would feel the most at home/safe but that isn't the case. Why go somewhere where people look down on you and work to prevent expansion of rights when you can see eye to eye with the big bad gun nut? My hope is that the politics of the right can bring more blacks and browns into the fold outside of 2A issues. There are those who would fight side by side in the struggle. Many who look like me just need to feel that they are welcome. Once that happens it's lights out for the far left.

You are certainly welcome here.

 

This is a single issue forum - to advance our 2A rights.

 

A website devoted to advancing your right to carry in Illinois.

IllinoisCarry is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing educational information about the lawful acquisition, possession, and carrying of firearms in Illinois as well as actively preserving, protecting, and advancing the Second Amendment Right to Carry for personal safety of self and others.

 

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Interesting topic. I think there is more unity among blacks and whites who support gun rights then there are between those who don't. Even among the media generated "hatred" many have today against one another, as a black man, when I enter a gun range or a gun show, I don't get the awkward feeling I get if I were to attend lets say a white democrats fundraiser. These events and those like them are supposed to be where I would feel the most at home/safe but that isn't the case. Why go somewhere where people look down on you and work to prevent expansion of rights when you can see eye to eye with the big bad gun nut? My hope is that the politics of the right can bring more blacks and browns into the fold outside of 2A issues. There are those who would fight side by side in the struggle. Many who look like me just need to feel that they are welcome. Once that happens it's lights out for the far left.

Well said.

If you are a student of history, examine the period from the end of the Civil War and for the century that followed. Look at the people (politicians) and the laws they made/passed that adversely affected not only freed black's freedoms, but their education and job possibilities during the 100 years after the Civil War. You might be surprised at WHO were making the most heinous of these laws and regulations.

 

The "donkeys" are NOT your "friend".

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  • 3 weeks later...

Interesting topic. I think there is more unity among blacks and whites who support gun rights then there are between those who don't. Even among the media generated "hatred" many have today against one another, as a black man, when I enter a gun range or a gun show, I don't get the awkward feeling I get if I were to attend lets say a white democrats fundraiser. These events and those like them are supposed to be where I would feel the most at home/safe but that isn't the case. Why go somewhere where people look down on you and work to prevent expansion of rights when you can see eye to eye with the big bad gun nut? My hope is that the politics of the right can bring more blacks and browns into the fold outside of 2A issues. There are those who would fight side by side in the struggle. Many who look like me just need to feel that they are welcome. Once that happens it's lights out for the far left.

 

 

They have, look at the Black conservatives on Youtube. These guys walked away and are very blunt on why they did.

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Interesting topic. I think there is more unity among blacks and whites who support gun rights then there are between those who don't. Even among the media generated "hatred" many have today against one another, as a black man, when I enter a gun range or a gun show, I don't get the awkward feeling I get if I were to attend lets say a white democrats fundraiser. These events and those like them are supposed to be where I would feel the most at home/safe but that isn't the case. Why go somewhere where people look down on you and work to prevent expansion of rights when you can see eye to eye with the big bad gun nut? My hope is that the politics of the right can bring more blacks and browns into the fold outside of 2A issues. There are those who would fight side by side in the struggle. Many who look like me just need to feel that they are welcome. Once that happens it's lights out for the far left.

 

 

They have, look at the Black conservatives on Youtube. These guys walked away and are very blunt on why they did.

 

That's not nearly enough.

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