That Nonviolent Stuff Ll Get You Killed By Charles E. Cobb

The Civil Rights Movement has always glanced over in many history books. What many fail to see and grasp is that this historic moment had many different layers than what has been taught. The Civil Rights Movement has multiple perspectives than just that of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. There were underlying stories that have not been focused in the mainstream media such as the tremendous impact that black women had in the movement and the misinterpretation of self-defense as violent means to acquire change. Charles E. Cobb beautifully painted the picture of how self-defensive tactics kept many black civil rights activists and their families alive in That Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed. He also broke the notion that self-defense

Charles E. Cobb is a journalist and he was an activist during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1962, he left Howard University and became the secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). During the interviews he had with The Real News, he detailed that slaves organized to revolt, escape, or assassinate white plantation owners. There has always been a history of black people uniting together against white supremacy. The Civil Rights Movement was just a manifestation of the traditions that black people had been a part of since late 18th and mid 19th centuries. Cobb also detailed that guns were a part of the tradition of the South, and that formed the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. It was a means of protection. In chapter one, Cobb stated that many black veterans who returned home from Civil War were “considered dangerous and disarming them was a priority for the white supremacists of the defeated Confederacy.” This white supremacy

Cobb detailed that Ella Baker was a pivotal piece in the insertion of youth into the Civil Rights Movement. She had organized SNCC, and even the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was even the temporary executive director as well. However, many pastors felt uncomfortable with a woman power. Baker advocated that one should listen to the voices of the people of from the bottom like the farmers, maids, cooks etc. That was where the true leaders of the communities could be found and that leadership was waiting to emerge as well. Thus she believed that the use and involvement of the student youth were crucial. She idealized that “if you want to see change, it needs to be organized from the bottom to the top, not from the top to the bottom” and that “strong people do not need strong leaders.” This was different from what many others believed. The Civil Rights Movement had originally been centered around leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who told people how to struggle and how they should protest. What was really important was how does the common man want to protest. King had been against violence as a whole and “misunderstood Robert Williams as inviting blacks to kill whites with impunity. For his part, Williams may have equated nonviolence with pacifism, not fully understanding the forcefulness of nonviolent direct action.” King had not fully understood