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<H1 class=title>When Other Folks Give Up Theirs…” Black Freedom and the Gun
Control Debate</H1>
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<DIV class=submitted>Tue, 02/05/2013 - 15:30 — Akinyele Umoja</DIV></DIV>
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<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4><STRONG>Akinyele
Umoja</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4><STRONG>Contrary
to Congressman John Lewis’ revision of history, “the notion that the Civil
Rights movement was exclusively nonviolent is a popular mythology.” In fact,
“Some members of Lewis’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee picked up
weapons and worked with community people to defend their lives against white
terrorists.”</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4><STRONG>When
Other Folks Give Up Theirs…” Black Freedom and the Gun Control
Debate</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4><STRONG>by
Akinyele Umoja</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT color=#2323dc><FONT
size=4><STRONG>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Gun control for Black
activists must be an issue of self-determination, self-reliance and
self-defense.”</I></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>The recent debate concerning gun control is
complex, particularly as it relates to African descendants in the United States.
As almost every other issue in the US, the race dimensions of gun control cannot
be dismissed. Slave-holding society fought to prevent enslaved Africans access
to weapons to resist and increase potential for insurrection. After
emancipation, Blacks sought arms not only to hunt, but to protect themselves
from white supremacist terror. Gun ownership was associated with citizenship and
liberty and as a means to protect those principles. The segregationists
continued slave-holding society’s practice of attempting to disarm Blacks.
Ultimately, Blacks utilized armed self-defense to protect activist leadership
and their communities from white terrorist violence. It was a rite of passage
for rural Black families taught children to use arms as a means of survival; for
food and for protection. Black female youth were trained to shoot for defense
from white rapists.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>I have the utmost respect for Congressman John
Lewis due to the sacrifice he made during the Civil Rights movement in the Deep
South. In responding to those opposing President Obama’s gun control proposal’s
Congressman Lewis offers that he and his colleagues in the Civil Rights
movement, “… believed the only way to achieve peaceful ends was through peaceful
means. We took a stand against an unjust system, and we decided to use this
faith as our shield and the power of compassion as our defense.”
</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc><FONT size=4><STRONG>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Blacks
utilized armed self-defense to protect activist leadership and their communities
from white terrorist violence.”</I></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>The notion that the Civil Rights movement was
exclusively nonviolent is a popular mythology. In dozens of Southern communities
Black people picked up arms to defend themselves. In particular, Black people
relied on armed self-defense in communities where Federal government officials
failed to safeguard Movement activists and supporters from the violence of
racists and segregationists, who were often supported by local law enforcement.
Congressman Lewis statement is true for a small number of committed activists
who engaged in civil disobedience and voter registration in Mississippi,
Alabama, and Georgia. These activists were often protected by grassroots Black
people armed with shotguns and rifles. Some members of Lewis’s Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee picked up weapons and worked with community
people to defend their lives against white terrorists.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>The post-Civil Rights and Black Power era
brought a new dimension of this issue for Black communities. A crisis in Black
families resulted from welfare policy and increased individualism and the
decline of the manufacturing economy that employed significant numbers of Black
males. The federal, state, and local “Cointelpro” assault on activist Black
leaders, organizations, and institutions weakened solidarity and Black political
consciousness in the 1970s. Black communities experienced a growth in gang
activity and an influx of drugs in this period. The access to automatic weapons
and assault rifles paralleled the crisis in Black communities. Increased access
of weapons to the most criminalized and unstable elements of the Black community
only accelerated the crisis. Unlike generations of youth who were trained by
their elders to protect their families and communities from emancipation through
the Civil Rights and Black Powers era, large numbers of Black youth were
supplied weapons in the underground economy. </STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc><FONT size=4><STRONG>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Black
people will never disarm in a political and social environment where Black life
is still challenged and not valued.”</I></FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>As a youth growing up in Compton, California in
the early 1970s, I heard a plethora of rumors of elements external to the Black
community providing caches of military weapons that contributed to the
fratricidal war between the Crips and the Bloods in Compton, Watts, and South
Central LA. While this sounds like a wild conspiracy theory, it has been well
documented that the FBI and local police agencies utilized “divide and conquer”
tactics to incite fratricidal conflict between the Black Panther Party and the
Us Organization in the same streets that the Crips and Bloods would inhabit a
few years later. The dilemma of the criminal use of guns still poses a challenge
in several urban and rural places today. This situation has motivated support
for gun control in our communities.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT size=4
face="Arial, sans-serif"><STRONG>Other politically and socially conscious
elements challenge the gun control position based on the history of white
supremacy in the US and the desire of racists to disarm Black communities. The
growth of white supremacist and right-wing paramilitary formations and militias
since the 2008 election of Barack Obama and the fatal shooting of young Trayvon
Martin by a white civilian has done nothing to decrease the fear of white
violence in the Black community. Several elements of the Black community recant
the lyric of the late popular artist Gil Scott Heron, “when other folks give up
theirs, I’ll give up mine.”</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face=Times><FONT
size=4><STRONG><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif">Gun control for Black activists
must be an issue of self-determination, self-reliance and self-defense. Black
people will never disarm in a political and social environment where Black life
is still challenged and not valued.</FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif">
</FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif">The Black community must advocate for
policies that take weapons out of the hands of unstable elements (e.g. checks
for mental illness), but be vigilant to make sure these policies do are not
utilized in a manner to weaken the capacity of our community to defend itself
from white supremacists. At the same time, more solidarity and grassroots
organization of Black communities is needed to gain control and socialization of
unstable elements of our community. Cooperative economic projects to provide
alternatives to those trapped in the drug economy. The fight for the
decriminalization of drugs and quality and culturally relevant education for our
youth is another pillar in the fight to bring community integrity and solidarity
and a safer community back. </FONT></STRONG></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face=Times><FONT
color=#280099><FONT size=4 face="Arial, sans-serif"><I><STRONG>Akinyele Umoja is
an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African-American Studies
at Georgia State University. He is the author of We Will Shoot Back: Armed
Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement (forthcoming by New York
University Press, April
2013)</STRONG></I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>