The Civil Rights Movement is taught in today’s classrooms in a way that discredits what the Black community went through and how they combatted the wrath of white supremacy in America. The European narrative of this historic event diminishes the potential influence it could have on current social justice movements, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Not only is the involvement and the experiences of Black women are not included with the European narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, stories of Black people using firearms to protect themselves and their community are not told either. Seeing how that ignored part of the movement could actually inspired more efficient social movements and leaders, Charles E. Cobb decided to write This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed : How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible to showcase the reality of how Black people fought for their rights in this country.
In the videos, Cobbs was emphasizing the importance for the use of firearms for Black people. Not only were they useful for providing food their family, Black people had guns for self-defense against any racial …show more content…
He points out in the book that “although the war was responsible for some of the changes that threatened southern whites, change had begun before the war. In the 1936 presidential election, black voters had deserted the Republican Party in large numbers, casting a majority of their votes for the Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt” (53). They saw that using their recently granted right to vote, their fight with racism could not be ignored in this country anymore. Art was an outlet of expressing their struggles as Black people, too. Everything that the Black community was doing in the first half of the 20th century (e.g. using guns, art, and politics to support themselves) inspired the grassroots efforts by organizations, like
In the videos, Cobbs was emphasizing the importance for the use of firearms for Black people. Not only were they useful for providing food their family, Black people had guns for self-defense against any racial …show more content…
He points out in the book that “although the war was responsible for some of the changes that threatened southern whites, change had begun before the war. In the 1936 presidential election, black voters had deserted the Republican Party in large numbers, casting a majority of their votes for the Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt” (53). They saw that using their recently granted right to vote, their fight with racism could not be ignored in this country anymore. Art was an outlet of expressing their struggles as Black people, too. Everything that the Black community was doing in the first half of the 20th century (e.g. using guns, art, and politics to support themselves) inspired the grassroots efforts by organizations, like