Charles E. Cobb Jr. This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights
Movement Possible. New York: Basic Books, 2014. 320 pp. $27.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-46503310-2; ISBN 978-0-8223-6123-7.
Reviewed by Michael Lasher
Published on H-Socialisms (October, 2014)
Commissioned by Gary Roth
Nonviolence, Guns, and the Civil Rights Movement
Charles E. Cobb Jr., former field secretary for the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
has advanced the dialogue concerning the southern civil
rights movement in the 1960s. Yet his This Nonviolent
Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights
Movement Possible does its best to hide the kernels of
analysis and historical detail that illuminate the book’s
interesting argument that the presence of guns in the
hands of local civil rights workers and citizens allowed
the national civil rights movement to advance its strategy of nonviolence in the South. Poorly written and
even more poorly edited, with each chapter jumping
from decade to decade for no apparent reason, Cobb’s
few gems do not come until 150 pages into the 237-page
book, with the best content and analysis at the very end.
The historical first four chapters, stretching back to colonial times, do little to support, and in fact undermine,
Cobb’s thesis. It is not until he begins to describe his
own work in the field in a particular time and place that
clarification and support for his argument arises. Indeed,
the book would have been more colorful, illustrative, and
cohesive if it had been solely a memoir without any attempt at scholarly analysis.
have assessed whether, within the national theater of the
civil rights movement, armed self-defense organizations
like the Nation of Islam supported or undermined Cobb’s
thesis that armed self-defense allowed nonviolence to be
effective as a strategy. Specifically, a thorough analysis would have posited, as a contrast class to Cobb’s
thesis, an analysis of the effectiveness of the national
armed self-defense organizations vis-à-vis the local, organic armed self-defense groups. The book would also
have benefited from an assessment of how the national
armed self-defense and nonviolence organizatons’ parallel activities nonetheless advanced the overall goals of the
civil rights movement across the nation. As it is, Cobb
only considers the interplay of the national nonviolent
movement with the local southern activists’ armed selfdefense, making This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed feel
more like a brief memoir with a large, irrelevant historical section tacked on than a global analysis of the sort
the reader is led to believe will occur based on the title of
the book and its arc from colonial times to the 1960s.
An explicit and narrowed scope would have explained the exclusion of these critical areas. Instead, the
reader is left to wonder why Cobb merely notes the exisA rigorous historical analysis of the interplay be- tence of the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and Maltween armed self-resistance and nonviolence in the U.S. colm X, devoting only one or two pages of text to each.
civil rights movement should encompass local, organic Instead of these national groups, Cobb solely discusses
armed self-defense activists based in places other than the small band of armed, purely southern activists—the
the South. A more rigorous and extensive treatment in Deacons for Defense and Justice. Cobb describes the Deakeeping with the promise of the book’s subtitle would cons as “heavily armed and defiantly outspoken about
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their willingness to shoot back when fired upon” (p. 192).
He also tells us that they barely appear in the discourse
of the southern freedom movement. Likely, he considers
only the Deacons because of his unacknowledged narrow
scope, born of Cobb’s own field experience in the South.
1957; and SNCC, organized by Marion Barry in 1960.
CORE led effective voter registration drives and challenges to interstate transportation practices, as exemplified by the more than one thousand Freedom Riders on
buses throughout the South in 1961. Working from a
solid base in the South, SCLC led voter registration drives
Because Cobb never explicitly defines the scope of his
in the early 1960s in Albany, Georgia, and Selma and
work, the subtitle How Guns Made the Civil Rights MoveBirmingham, Alabama. SCLC is best known for its role
ment Possible (likely some Basic Books editor’s concep- in organizing the 1963 Civil Rights March in Washington
tion of “sexy”) acts as the de facto thesis. Cobb’s failure D.C. during which King delivered his “I Have a Dream”
to define his thesis may explain why the book wanders speech. Finally, SNCC organized numerous sit-ins, parthrough hundreds of years of largely irrelevant histori- ticipated in the Freedom Rides, and sponsored voter regcal content that fills the majority of the book and why so
istration drives during the Mississippi Freedom Summer
much of this historical detail fails to support his central
of 1964.
themes. A more minor failing is that Cobb never clearly
defines how he uses the terms “nonviolence” or “armed
Let’s start with Cobb’s historical and analytical gems
self-defense.” And when one does glean a sense of what that advance the discourse but that do not appear unCobb means by these terms, the reader is already halfway til the end of the book. Cobb best describes the interthrough the book. Cobb states that those committed to play between the national nonviolent organizations and
nonviolence agreed to “submit to assault and not retali- the local southern armed self-defense activists in the last
ate in kind by act or word” and that some members would chapter of the book. Two actors in this interplay were
“fast before action” (p. 189).
CORE director in Canton, Mississippi, David Dennis and
local organizer Clarence Chinn Jr. Dennis, although not
Helpful to the reader would have been a succinct committed to nonviolence as a way of life, set up nonviotimeline and brief description of the principles of the na- lent CORE chapters. Cobb’s direct experience in the civil
tional civil rights movement. Because one engine of the rights movement allows him to clearly contrast CORE
civil rights movement was the black church, Jesus’s nonand SNCC, a contrast that illuminates how radical it was
violence naturally became the early model for the movefor CORE to countenance any form of armed self-defense.
ment. The commitment to nonviolence was deepened by CORE, because of its roots in Christian pacifist activism,
Martin Luther King Jr.’s adoption of the strategy of Ma- was more deeply committed to nonviolence than SNCC.
hatma Gandhi’s struggle for India’s independence. King The local chapters of CORE were also more tightly bound
described the goals of nonviolence on June 4, 1957: “An- to the national headquarters than those of SNCC, which
other thing that we had to get over was the fact that the
had no chapters and no membership cards or dues.
nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat
the opponent but to win his friendship and understandChinn admired the young civil rights organizers, and
ing. This was always a cry that we had to set before peo- he assigned protection to each CORE worker. In an inple that our aim is not to defeat the white community, terview with Cobb on March 9, 2013, Dennis recalled: “I
not to humiliate the white community, but to win the went outside to talk to [Chinn]. He’s sitting in the back of
friendship of all of the persons who had perpetrated this his truck with a shotgun across his lap and a pistol by his
system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath side. I introduced myself; told him about CORE’s nonviof violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is olent philosophy. He listened. Then, very calmly he told
reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. me: ‘This is my town and these are my people. I’m here to
A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a protect my people and even if you don’t like this I’m not
means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor going anywhere. So maybe you better leave’ ” (p. 190).
but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.”[1]
Having lived in and been an activist in the small town
descended upon by the national organizations, Chinn ulSupplementing spontaneous and planned student sittimately changed CORE workers’ views on armed selfins, three national organizations fought for civil rights
defense. CORE found that blacks, especially older ones
using Gandhi’s model of nonviolent direct action. The in rural counties, were not going to abandon the longthree most influential groups were the Congress of Racial standing practice of armed self-defense. Cobb notes that
Equality (CORE), founded in 1943; the Southern Chris- people like Chinn, E. W. Steptoe in Amite County, and
tian Leadership Conference (SCLC), founded by King in Jane Brewer in Tallahatchie County wanted to participate
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in the movement but not cede the right to determine how nonviolence and armed self-defense appears on page 212,
to protect themselves and their communities.
almost at the very end of the book. Presumably among
the strongest support for his thesis, Cobb describes how
Cobb nicely describes how local activists ultimately the Deacons’ activism led to the desegregation of Bochanged the strategies of the national organizations. By galusa, Louisiana. Desegregation “had been made pos1964, CORE staff on the ground reconsidered the appli- sible by a movement that combined nonviolent strugcability of nonviolence to their work in the rural South.
gle and armed self-defense to protect that struggle. The
A 1964 CORE field report from West Feliciana Parish in
mayor was forced to take the business-sensitive, lawLouisiana stated that there was a great need for “much and-order middle ground; he was not renouncing his bediscussion and training” concerning nonviolence, “espe- lief in white supremacy. He was not a changed man….
cially for older people” (p. 192). Ultimately the work- Business, after all, was business. Income and image, imshops failed because guns were more integrated into the portant to attracting needed new businesses to the state,
civil rights struggle in Louisiana than in most parts in
were at stake in Bogalusa” (p. 212).
the South and, Cobb maintains, because of the influence
of the Deacons for Defense and Justice.
As the ultimate catharsis of a national nonviolent
movement, Cobb describes the incorporation of the DeaAs noted above, Cobb leaves readers to fend for them- cons on January 5, 1965, with the help of CORE, the first
selves for most of the work, waiting until page 190 to first national organization (and possibly only, Cobb does not
clearly elucidate the distinction between the embedded, say) to assist with the formation of a group with “the exlocal civil rights movement and the national organiza- press purpose of providing armed self-defense” (p. 201).
tions. Furthermore, Cobb states: “Some in the moveCobb writes that “the tension between the national CORE
ment felt there was a practical rationale for opposing
office and organizers in the field increased markedly as
such groups [as the Deacons]: namely, that they invited news spread of the Deacons’ formation.” Richard Haswift, brutal, and overwhelming retaliation by all levels of ley, CORE’s southern regional director, told the New York
government. Yet CORE’s Louisiana experience seems to Times that “the Deacons have the effect of lowering the
refute that assumption, as well as the argument that or- minimum potential for danger. This is a valuable funcganized armed self-defense was incompatible with nontion that CORE can’t perform.” He further explained,
violence; in fact, CORE organizers helped create the Dea“protected nonviolence is apt to be more popular with
cons” (p. 193).
the participants than unprotected” (p. 202).
Cobb describes the de facto middle ground that was
Yet even with this informative and critical descripforged as consisting of armed locals preventing attacks tion of the tensions between the national movement
against CORE activists while studiously avoiding in- and local operatives and in-state activists around the isvolvement in nonviolent direct action. Fred Brooks, a sue of armed self-defense, Cobb misses every opportuCORE volunteer from Tennessee A & I College, in a June
nity to undertake a theoretical or even strategic analy30, 2013, interview with the author, stated that the losis of the effectiveness of either strategy, or the symcals understood the concept of nonviolence but that they biosis of the two, or a comparison of the interplay bewere “not nonviolent and we are not going to allow these tween the national armed self-defense movement (e.g.,
people to beat up on you or kill you” (p. 197). Cobb the Black Panthers) and local, organic self-defense acrecounts another similar story about Charlie Fenton, a tivists. For instance, Cobb does not provide a normative
white organizer and fervent supporter of nonviolence,
assessment of Haley’s claim that “protected nonviolence
who came to conclude that “armed men were a necesis apt to be more popular.” The reader can only guess
sary part of the project in Jonesboro and that people like whether the national nonviolent movement would have
himself had little or no influence over [local activists’] been more successful from the start had activists emdecisions to possess and use weapons” (p. 201). As cited braced armed protection. In fact, Cobb does not contexby Cobb in the endnotes, Adam Fairclough, in his Race tualize the fact that when a CORE organizer was forced
and Democracy, states that “the concept that we are goto flee (in a hearse) the pursuing KKK on September 1,
ing to go South and through love and patience change
1963, CORE’s historic commitment to nonviolence was
the hearts and minds of Southern whites should be to- “buried” and the group soon excluded whites and betally discarded” (p. 198).[2]
came a black nationalist organization. The reader can
only wonder whether CORE’s staunch commitment to
nonviolence was unworkable and caused them to veer to-
Cobb’s most detailed, yet still limited, assessment of
the effectiveness of a two-tiered approach incorporating
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ward another strategy, the effectiveness of which is also
not assessed. Sadly, the reader must go to the epilogue
for Cobb’s assessment of the failure to integrate the two
types of strategies: “the idea of nonviolent struggle had
prevented northern and southern activists from truly understanding each other’s strategies, tactics, and goals. By
1966, many above the Mason-Dixon line saw southern
struggle as finished and—insofar as it had been defined by
gaining voting rights and desegregation—won” (p. 236).
Movement. Cobb does speculate by saying that “there
may be similar black [armed] responses that have been
ignored or gone unrecorded” (p. 71). The reader might
rightly think that it is Cobb’s job as a historian to find
such instances or amend his thesis.
Besides the lack of a clear, historically supported thesis, the other chief failing of This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get
You Killed is the poor writing and organization of each
chapter. Each chapter wanders, haphazardly moving
from decade to decade. For instance, chapter 1 wanders
through colonial times, describing efforts to deny blacks
the use of guns. It does little to advance Cobb’s thesis,
yet it does repeatedly decry Thomas Jefferson’s racism
and “extravagant lifestyle” (p. 35).
Cobb is at his best when he describes conditions on
the ground, as he does in chapters 4 and 5, making the
material more suitable for a memoir than a rigorous, historical analysis. Interestingly, the richest material undermines the dichotomy, which for hundreds of pages Cobb
has adopted, between the national nonviolent organizations’ commitment to nonviolence and the armed selfdefense of locals: “It may be that ‘nonviolent’ is simply
the wrong word for many of the people who participated
in the freedom struggle and who were comfortable with
both nonviolence and self-defense, assessing what to do
primarily on the basis of which seemed the most practical at any given moment. SNCC field secretary Worth
Long preferred the term ‘unviolent.’ In the thinking of
this Durham, North Carolina, native, the notion of ‘unviolence’ offers a way to transcend the fundamentally false
distinction between violence and nonviolence that some
have tried to impose in their analysis of Freedom Movement work and decision making…. Whatever one’s personal beliefs, grassroots work like organizing for voter
registration, mounting a boycott, participating in a cooperative, or building a political party often did not involve any discussion of nonviolence as a tactic, strategy,
or philosophy. Rather, the day-to-day realities of these
organizing efforts always kept discussion centered on a
much more basic question: What was best to do? ” (pp.
147-148).
Chapter 3 also does little to advance Cobb’s thesis.
He recounts the story of Medgar and Charles Evers trying to register to vote, yet provides no analysis of how
this political act was or was not supported by guns. InCobb’s argument would have been clearer had he stead, Cobb baldly states that the Evers brothers did not
stated his thesis at the outset, defined his terms, pre- use weapons to register to vote but that “many veterans
sented historical highlights to support the thesis, and at were willing to do so when they felt it was necessary and
least sketched a normative assessment of the two-tiered practical” (p. 86). Cobb also makes the unsubstantiated
southern approach of armed locals protecting national claim: “guns always accompanied nonviolent struggle in
nonviolent movement workers. Without such a frame- Monroe [North Carolina] and this is well-remembered”
work and with the bulk of the analysis in the last few (p. 107). Yet he provides little evidence of this extensive
pages, the reader feels like Cobb made up his thesis as he history and instead recounts the story of Bernie Montwent along, firmly fixing upon it only at the very end of gomery who stabbed a white with a knife, but did not
the book when he describes his time in the field.
use a gun.
Chapter 2 rambles through various decades of the
twentieth century, burying or not developing interesting support for Cobb’s thesis. Cobb begins nicely with
a description of how the World War II experience of
black servicemen primed blacks to undertake armed selfresistance. Black servicemen used guns, killed whites,
and fought against racism. They were respected by
their European counterparts and were fighting abroad for
what they did not have at home. Cobb opines that the
World War II experience was pivotal and was the “precise watershed moment in the evolution of black struggle in the U.S.” (p. 82). Yet Cobb does not clarify why he
describes blacks’ World War II experience as pivotal, but
not that of World War I, especially given his description
of Texas in 1917 when black veterans stood up to white
power, resulting in twenty deaths. He also hardly proves
the pivotal nature of the black experience in World War
II by describing the Darien Insurrection of 1899 of armed
resistance as being the exception, not the rule, and then
This reader wishes that Cobb had begun here, on the
by pointing out that much resistance was not armed but ground, in his rich experience—a powerful place upon
political, such as the streetcar boycotts and the Niagara which to build a memoir, sure to give the lie to the di-
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chotomy adopted in his title: This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get and Speeches That Changed the World (New York: HarperYou Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Collins, 1986), 29.
Possible.
[2]. Adam Fairclough, Race and Democracy: The Civil
Notes
Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 341.
[1]. Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
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Citation: Michael Lasher. Review of Cobb Jr, Charles E., This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the
Civil Rights Movement Possible. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. October, 2014.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=41951
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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