Radio Free Dixie free essay sample

Williams and the Roots of Black Power, Tyson details the life of a remarkable man who had the audacity not only to challenge racial injustice in America but also to contest the rarely disputed strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Establishment. Tyson uses Williams life to illustrate his central thesis: how both the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement emerged from the same roots, confronted similar predicaments, and ultimately were fighting for the same thing: justice and freedom for blacks in America.Historians have customarily portrayed the civil rights movement as a nonviolent call on Americas conscience juxtaposing he subsequent rise of Black Power as a violent repudiation of the civil rights dream. As Robert Williamss story demonstrates, independent black political action, grassroots organizing, and armed self-reliance all operated in the South in conjunction with legal efforts and nonviolent protest. Tyson’s use of biography allows the readers to better relate to the experiences of Robert Williams therefore emphasizing the parallels and common threads between the two movements. We will write a custom essay sample on Radio Free Dixie or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page For example, it could just has easily been Dr.King, as a young boy that happened to witness that elderly black woman being beaten by a racist police officer; and the likelihood that any black person could have witnessed a similar event during that time period, unfortunately is quite likely. With the scene that Tyson created, it becomes instantly relatable and of course it would seem only rational to retaliate; the difference only lies in the approach to retaliation. Williams said himself â€Å"My only difference with Dr. King is that I believe in flexibility in the freedom struggle †. We can also look at the involvement of the NAACP for parallels.While both the non-violent movement and the armed self-reliance movement were involved with the NAACP, both movements experienced issues with the organization. Williams was the President of the Monroe and Union County branch of the NAACP, a branch that was extremely unique due to its majority composition of working class blacks and a leadership that was not middle-class. Tyson focuses on the difference in ideology based on class and further details the Williams/Wilkins divide. Williams later clashed heavily with Roy Wilkins, chairman of the national NAACP over Williams’ radical views and his public threat to â€Å"meet violence with violence†.Interestingly enough, the non-violent movement also had its issues with the national chapter, as King and Wilkins did not always see eye to eye. Tyson is also able to illustrate the parallels in the successes and the impact that both movements had on American society. Whether it was a 250, 000 person March on Washington, or 5 black guys with guns protecting the gravesite of a black veteran, every success, every fight big or small, violent or non-violent contributed and continues to contribute to the quest for racial justice in America.Tyson uses Williams’s biography as a means of putting the movement in context and providing the reader with some insight in to the experiences of black freedom fighters. His use of anecdotes combined with historical background and statistics are both particularly pe rsuasive and informative. The story-telling effect allows for a fairly easy read that provides a great deal of information along the way. Tyson’s book in comparison to similar biographical works based in this time period was laid out particularly well which again allowed for an easy read. Similar to Dr.King’s autobiography, Tyson goes in depth in to the roots of Williams’ past deciphering his experiences and relating them to the final product. For example, detailing Williams’ life back to the ideologies of his grandparents, his childhood, experiences with racial injustice and his military career allowed for a deeper understanding of his transformation in to a militant black leader. Another effective tactic Tyson used to depict Williams’ life was to focus his relationships with several other prominent black leaders at the time. ; Roy Wilkins, Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall etc. This allows the reader to find parallels and better understand the complexities of the black freedom struggle. Tyson highlights the incongruity in strategy and ideology in his detailing of these relationships yet maintains his central thesis that in the end they were all fighting for the same thing. The life of Robert Williams underlines many aspects of the ongoing black freedom struggle: The decisive racial significance of World War II and the impact of the Cold war on the Freedom Struggle and equally important the centrality of questions of sexuality and gender in racial politics.Particularly interesting was Tyson’s analysis of the rhetoric of protecting women as an integral part of the politics controlling women. Again, both the non-violent and militant movements share this in common. The black freedom struggle is notorious for its sexism whether intentional or not. You could take the Women’s Political Council from the Montgomery Bus Boycott or the female leadership in the Black Panther Party you would find these women were more than instrumental in the movement and ended up taking a back seat to a Martin Luther King Jr. or Robert F. Williams. Especially within the context of the class, the comparison of Dr.King and Williams is a complex one. A non-violent movement that appeals to the very conscience of society is difficult to challenge yet in Tyson’s depiction, Williams is able to unravel the entire strategy. Tyson quotes the Williams/King debate published in Liberation Magazine when Williams says: â€Å"Among the well-armed white population, there is open defiance to law and order throughout the south today. Where law has been broken down, only self-defense could deter the attacks of white terrorists who commit violence in service of their own sincere beliefs and time-honored prerogatives. Non-violence is a very potent weapon when the opponent is civilized. † This is an interesting point that Williams makes because so much of the non-violent movement relied on violence from the white counterparts in order to receive national attention. It was the water-hoses and attack dogs being set loose on non-violent men, women and children that grabbed the nation’s attention for a brief moment. As we saw in Albany, when whites were strategic and didn’t respond with violence, the movement was deemed a failure.An interesting similarity between King and Williams is that they both very firmly believed they were taking the high road. King in the sense that he believed non-violence was the ultimate form of resistance calling on a moral order to bring justice. Williams in the sense that he believed there was no higher honor than that of protecting your family and the women and children of your community by any means necessary. Tyson also details very carefully the relationship between King and Williams. Constant animosity towards each other, public denouncement, and constantly calling each other out to better represent America’s back population.In Tyson’s depiction, it seems the only thing they were able to agree on in the end was the opposition of the Vietnam War. Tyson writes plenty on the similarities of their respective movements yet there sees to be this constant juxtaposition of the two as individuals. In this sense, Tyson seemingly fails to detail the similarities between King and Williams throughout the course of their illustrious careers as freedom fighters. Tyson’s portrayal of the life of Robert F. Williams, allows us to better understand the complexities of the black freedom struggle. In his story Tyson unveils to us a man who was partly, if not wholly responsible for the influence and transition in the black freedom struggle from non-violence to self-defense. His ideologies and actions inspired future leaders such as Carmichael and Ricks, the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and allowed for an alternative to the mainstream Civil Rights Establishment of the 1950’s and 60’s. The traditional narrative of the civil rights movement as a movement characterized solely and predictably by non-violent civil rights protest obscures the full complexity of racial politics.As Tyson states â€Å"It idealizes black history, downplays the oppression of Jim Crow Society, and even understates the achievements of African American resistance. â€Å" What Tyson argues is that it is the recognition of the histories and lives of those such as Robert F. Williams that allow us to better understand the context of our own histories, that ultimately we all have a dream of raci al equality and social justice, and how far we still have to go to achieve that dream.