The Deacons for Defense Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, with Jerry Martin Deacons For Defense|Tuscaloosa Civil Rights Films

September 13, 2026September 13, 2026RBG Street Scholar 1 Comment

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Organization Summary (Web Pages)

Deacons for Defense and Justice (often abbreviated DDJ) was a Black armed self-defense organization founded in Jonesboro, Louisiana in 1964 to protect civil rights workers and Black communities from Ku Klux Klan violence and complicit local police.

Most members were working-class men and veterans of World War II or Korea. They did not seek to start violence; they organized disciplined patrols, guarded homes and Freedom Houses, escorted activists, and shot back when fired upon. Their existence challenged the dominant nonviolence narrative of the civil rights movement and later influenced Black Power thinking.

Founding in Jonesboro DDJ

In summer 1964, CORE organizers arrived in Jonesboro to register voters and challenge Jim Crow. The Klan responded with church burnings, night rides, and intimidation, sometimes with police escort. Informal groups of armed Black men began guarding CORE’s Freedom House. After a large Klan motorcade rolled through the Black neighborhood in July 1964, the group formalized.

LSUCold Case Project

Key early figures included Earnest “Chilly Willy” Thomas (mill worker and veteran), Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick (teacher and minister), and Percy Lee Bradford (president). They incorporated as a Louisiana nonprofit in March 1965. The charter framed their purpose as defending civil, property, and personal rights “by any and all honorable and legal means.” The name “Deacons” evoked respected church authority and community service rather than revolutionary branding.

Americas 1st Freedom

Membership required being at least 21, employed, and respected in the community. Dues funded radios, legal aid, and pamphlets. Members supplied their own rifles and pistols.

Bogalusa and expansion

The most prominent chapter formed in Bogalusa, Louisiana, in February 1965—the same day Malcolm X was assassinated—under Charles Sims, A.Z. Young, and Robert Hicks. Bogalusa was a Klan stronghold with a large paper mill. The Deacons there guarded marches, protected CORE workers around the clock, and engaged in armed confrontations with Klansmen. Those clashes, plus national media attention, helped force federal intervention and pressure on local authorities to curb Klan activity.

Blackpast

Chapters or affiliates appeared in Homer, Ferriday, Natchez (Mississippi), and elsewhere across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and a few Northern cities. Estimates of size vary; contemporary accounts and later histories put formal membership in the hundreds with additional informal supporters, not the thousands sometimes claimed. They provided security for the 1966 March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson after James Meredith was shot.

Mississippi Today

Relationship to nonviolence and later movements

Mainstream organizations (SCLC, NAACP, national CORE) often stayed silent or distanced themselves because armed self-defense conflicted with the nonviolent image used to win Northern white support. Local CORE field staff, however, frequently welcomed the protection. Historian Lance Hill argues the Deacons were a working-class Southern alternative that made some local campaigns possible by deterring night riders when police would not.

UNC Press DDJ

Stokely Carmichael later cited them as an example of Black people realizing the law would not protect them. The group itself stayed focused on community defense rather than adopting explicit Black nationalist or Marxist programs. By 1967–1968 activity declined after the Voting Rights Act, increased Black electoral participation, FBI scrutiny of both the Klan and the Deacons, and the rise of the Black Panther Party, which absorbed much of the public attention around armed self-defense.

Wikipedia

Legacy

The Deacons demonstrated that organized, disciplined armed self-defense by Black Southerners could reduce Klan terror in specific locales and compel federal attention. They were not a mass guerrilla army and did not pursue the protracted “people’s war” strategy later associated with the Black Liberation Army. Their record sits in the lineage of earlier self-defense efforts (Robert F. Williams in Monroe, North Carolina) and later urban formations. Their story was long minimized in popular civil rights histories that emphasized nonviolence; recent work, including Hill’s book and documentaries, has recovered it.

YouTube

The spelling “Decons” in your query is the common shorthand or typo for this group. If you want a deeper dive on Bogalusa confrontations, their FBI files, comparison with the BLA, or specific chapters, say which angle.

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Jerry Martin Deacons For Defense

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Africa and Islam on the Continent

August 16, 2026September 9, 2026RBG Street Scholar Leave a comment

Africa and Islam on the Continent

Islam has been deeply rooted in Africa for over 1,400 years and is not an external import in the way it is sometimes portrayed. It arrived early, shaped societies across North, West, East, and parts of Central Africa, and remains a major force today.

North Africa: Islam entered in the 7th century shortly after the Prophet Muhammad’s time. Arab-Muslim armies conquered Egypt (639–642 CE) and moved westward across the Maghreb. By the 8th century, most of North Africa was under Muslim rule. Berber populations largely converted, and the region became a center of Islamic learning, trade, and scholarship (e.g., the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, founded 859 CE).
West Africa: Islam spread mainly through trade rather than conquest. Trans-Saharan caravan routes carried Muslim merchants, scholars, and ideas from the Maghreb into the Sahel. Major empires—Ghana, Mali, Songhai—adopted or were heavily influenced by Islam. The Mali Empire under Mansa Musa (early 14th century) is the classic example; his pilgrimage to Mecca and patronage of Timbuktu made the city a major center of Islamic scholarship.
East Africa: Islam arrived via Indian Ocean trade networks. Swahili city-states (Kilwa, Mombasa, Zanzibar, etc.) developed a distinctive Afro-Arab Islamic culture from roughly the 10th century onward. Arabic, Persian, and later Ottoman influences mixed with Bantu languages and societies.
Other regions: Islam also reached the Horn of Africa early (Somalia, parts of Ethiopia/Eritrea) and later expanded into parts of Central and Southern Africa through trade, migration, and 19th–20th century movements.

Historical Spread

Conversion was often gradual and selective. Many African societies adopted Islamic practices while retaining local languages, kinship systems, and some pre-Islamic customs. Sufi orders (Qadiriyya, Tijaniyya, etc.) were especially important in making Islam accessible and locally rooted.

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Scale Today

Islam is one of the two largest religions on the continent (alongside Christianity). Roughly:

North Africa is overwhelmingly Muslim.
West Africa has large Muslim majorities or pluralities in countries such as Senegal, Mali, Niger, Guinea, and northern Nigeria.
East Africa has significant Muslim populations in Somalia, Djibouti, parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Swahili coast.
Overall, Africa is home to hundreds of millions of Muslims—among the largest Muslim populations of any region in the world.

Strong emphasis on trade, scholarship, and urban centers historically.
Prominent role of Sufi brotherhoods and local Islamic scholars (ulama).
Development of distinct literary and intellectual traditions (e.g., Ajami scripts—African languages written in Arabic script; Timbuktu manuscripts).
Interaction with African political traditions: Islamic law (sharia) was applied in varying degrees alongside customary law.
Resistance and reform movements: 18th–19th century jihads in West Africa (Usman dan Fodio in the Sokoto Caliphate is the best-known example) sought to purify practice and establish Islamic governance.

Key Features of African Islam

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Contemporary Notes

Islam in Africa is diverse—Sunni (vast majority), with Sufi traditions still influential, alongside reformist, Salafi, and other currents. It intersects with politics, education, social organization, and identity in different ways across the continent. In some regions it has been a vehicle for social reform and anti-colonial resistance; in others it has been entangled with state power or conflict.

If you want a deeper focus on a specific region (West Africa, the Swahili coast, the Maghreb, the Sokoto Caliphate, Timbuktu scholarship, modern Islamic movements, Islamic economic practices in African contexts, etc.), just say which angle.

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Learn more in RBG Communiversity Knowledge Media eLibrary: Histoy of lslam in Africa Folder

The folder provided documents cover the historical spread and influence of Islam across Africa, including the Sahel, North Africa, and the Swahili Coast. Sources include studies on medieval empires like Mali, the development of Islamic scholarly centers such as the University of al-Qarawiyyin, and analyses of inter-religious relations, historiography, and the integration of Islamic practices within diverse African cultural settings.

How did Islam influence state formation and administration across medieval African empires?
What were the primary stages of Islamic spread and adaptation throughout the African continent?
Explain the tension between ‘normative Islam’ and local indigenous traditions in African history.

Chairman Omali Yeshitela delivers groundbreaking 2026 Political Report and Vote Self-Determination—We’re Not Going Back! , Black Black is Back Coalition 18th Annual Conference and Sunday Study – Our Party Intends to Govern!

May 30, 2026September 9, 2026RBG Street Scholar 2 Comments

Last Updated September 6, 2026

Welcome to “Remember Durban—Reparations Now!” the 18th Annual Conference of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations

https://theburningspear.com/category/Uhuru-Movement/Black-is-Back-Coalition-BIB

The Burning Spear TV_Chairman Omali Yeshitela delivers groundbreaking 2026 Political Report and Vote Self-Determination

Chairman Omali Yeshitela’s 2026 Political Report was officially broadcast on The Burning Spear TV, delivering a core anti-colonial analysis focused on African liberation, imperialist resistance, and the advancement of the Uhuru Movement.

Key Highlights of the Report

Anti-Colonial Directives: The report provides the primary ideological framework for the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), emphasizing that modern imperialist actions remain deeply rooted in historical colonial structures.
Electoral Politics: Yeshitela outlines strategic methods to inject revolutionary anti-colonial politics into mainstream electoral arenas, referencing recent Uhuru movement campaigns.
Global Solidarity Networks: The presentation emphasizes building international unity against U.S.-led imperialism, demanding reparations, and connecting the struggles of African people with globally oppressed populations. [1, 2, 3]
Building Dual Power: The address emphasizes organizing community-led economic and health infrastructure, such as the One Africa! One Nation! Uhuru Flea Marketplaces, to establish independent African community control. [1]