20. Standing Up to Heavy-Handed Police
The heroic Deacons’ stand in Jonesboro and its success in cowing the KKK led to the organization’s rapid expansion. Soon, twenty-one formal chapters, and over forty affiliates, were established in other cities. Setting up communications networks using walkie-talkies and CB radios, they conducted armed patrols of black neighborhoods to ward off white vigilantes. Their reputation grew further in early 1965, when hostile police were called on black students, peacefully picketed Jonesboro’s high school over its racist practices – they were barred from taking some classes.
The cops summoned fire trucks and prepared to use fire hoses against the black kids when armed Deacons arrived on the scene and proceeded to load shotguns within sight of the police. The police ordered the fire trucks to withdraw. It was the first time in the twentieth century that armed black people had successfully used weapons to protect a lawful protest from a police attack. Louisiana’s governor was forced to intervene, and he compelled Jonesboro’s authorities to negotiate a compromise with the protesters. It was the first capitulation to the Civil Rights movements by a Deep South governor.