Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Journal of African American History
Volume
107
Publication Date
2022
Abstract
In the spring of 1963, Holmes County, Mississippi voting rights activist Hartman Turnbow fought off a terrorist attack on his home with his sixteen-shot semiautomatic rifle. Later, Turnbow explained that his gunfire was perfectly consistent with the nonviolent philosophy of the freedom movement, declaring, “I wasn’t being non-nonviolent, I was protecting my family.” Turnbow embraced armed self-defense and political nonviolence without any sense of contradiction. In this, he channeled a generations-old practice and philosophy of arms that was an integral part of Black response to racist terrorism, mobbing, state failure, and majoritarian tyranny.
Recommended Citation
Nicholas J. Johnson,
A Considered African American Philosophy and Practice of Arms, 107 J. Afr. Am. Hist. 156
(2022)
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/1263
Rights
The University of Chicago Press.
