18. These Heroic Armed Volunteers Were Game Changers
The Deacons for Defense and Justice were game-changers. Wherever the armed black volunteers established themselves, white racists lost their ability to openly terrorize blacks. The group’s branches were effective in affording civil rights workers a degree of security to go about their business of registering blacks to vote. Even those committed to nonviolence appreciated the protection. As one CORE activist put it: “CORE is nonviolent, but we have no right to tell Negroes … that they do not have the right to defend their homes“.
The Deacons were so successful that they put themselves out of business. By the late 1960s, the environment had changed so much that the organized armed black volunteers were no longer necessary. Between long overdue prosecutions of violent Klansmen, gains secured by the Civil Rights movement, and the spirit of armed self-defense fostered by the Deacons, white racists’ ability to openly attack blacks with impunity vanished. By 1968, the heroic Deacons were in decline, and by the end of the decade, the organization had all but exited the scene.