"This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed" by Charles E. Cobb (2014)

White Supremacists take note; African-Americans have the same love affair with the Second Amendment as you do. And more reason to cherish that right. After all, they were actually enslaved, you weren't. In this engaging little book the author has taken on the subject of just what part guns played in the non-violent movement for Civil Rights in the 1960’s.  And you know what? Even Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. kept a loaded pistol handy.

Tracing the story of slavery and the early slave rebellions Mr. Cobb shows just how the mere specter of armed blacks sent cold fear up the spines of their owners. (What a nasty term to apply to another human being – owner!) This is also a book filled with heroes; the ones they never taught you about in school. These were the people behind the headlines; the ones who sheltered the Civil Rights workers from the north when they came down south to help secure the Right to Vote.

Each chapter is filled with new names of ordinary people who; though down at the bottom the pecking order of a racist environment; managed to make not only make a difference, but also maintained some of their dignity in the process. 

How to explain the actions of old Mr. “Joe” McDonald who, after being shown the Constitution for the first time by the author, went into town and demanded that the sheriff return the shotgun which had been confiscated illegally. “I came to get my gun”, was what he said. When the sheriff told him he had no right to it, old Mr. Joe produced the book which the author had given him and said, “This here book says I do.” The startled sheriff returned the weapon without any further ado.

The author also traces the relationship between slavery and the path of gun control in America. The first gun control law was passed in 1640 in Virginia and was aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of slaves. Since Africans outnumbered the colonists this was of genuine concern. Have you ever seen the film “Mandigo”? This was a real fear to the plantation owners.

African-Americans fighting in the American Revolution faced the hard choice of gambling on becoming free men if they worked for the British, or maybe becoming free men sometime in the future by working for Independence. Surprisingly few slaves actually went over to the British. But their participation in the fight for freedom did nothing to assuage their lot as slaves. As a matter of fact, with the passage of the new Constitution they were enshrined forever as less than whole human beings.

The Civil War was a kind of tipping point for African-Americans and their exposure to weapons. W.E.B. DuBois characterized it like this, “The slave pleaded; he was humble…. And the world ignored him. Then the slave killed white men; and behold he was a man!”

But the best part of this book is the section which covers the African-American journey to freedom between the two World Wars and just after. The old song “How You Gonna Keep ‘em Down On the Farm” was never more applicable than it was for African-Americans returning from the First World War. Having been treated on a somewhat equal basis in Europe, the average black soldier was hard pressed to dampen his disappointment upon returning to the United Sates. He had fought for this country and half expected that sacrifice to be acknowledged. It wasn't.

After the First World War the South seemed to double down on restrictions where African-Americans were concerned. Jim Crow became even tighter and lynching’s; which were never uncommon; increased. Night riding KKK members resurrected the old bed sheets and began a reign of terror against the African-American which would continue unabated for the next 50 years.

I must note, here, that there is a common misconception which holds that the average African-American at the time did not consider the Second World War to be of concern to black folk. This belief is common to both black and white people, but the fact of the matter is that the Second World War was all about race; from genocide in Europe at the hands of the Germans, to enslavement in the Far East by the Japanese. Black folk had to have known that. And after fighting against racism abroad they expected some improvement back home. Moreover, they were now willing to fight for it.

At the end of World War Two things really began to stir. In early 1946, in Columbia Tennessee, an ex-serviceman named James Stephenson, along with his mother Gladys, went to a department store to retrieve a radio which had been left for repair. The radio had been sold after 30 days, which was store policy. But the way in which they were treated and even beaten by store employees on the way out created an incident in which Stephenson; who had been a boxer in the Navy; knocked out a white man. The mother and son were arrested, but the arrests caused such outrage that they were released. But it didn't end there.

Fearing reprisals the black residents of the town massed in the section known as the “Bottom” and organized a defense. Many of the men were ex-servicemen and all had rifles or shotguns in their homes. When the local riff-raff showed up, intent on violence, they got it. Caught between cars of sentries posted at both ends of town, the white intruders were allowed to enter and then escape under a withering fire of bullets. They didn’t bother to return. This was probably the beginning of the armed resistance to the outrages of Jim Crow.

By 1949 this scene would be repeated in several locations; and nowhere more dramatically than in Monroe, North Carolina. Monroe was home to a returned serviceman named Robert Williams; no relation to me, unfortunately. I would be honored to have it so.  After another black man in Monroe was beaten for needing a half day off work and asking for his pay, there was a fight and the man was convicted of murder for defending himself. He was executed in 1947. The KKK would not allow the townsfolk to have a funeral. They threatened the undertaker and anyone else who sought to simply bury the man, who was also a wounded ex-serviceman with a Purple Heart.

At this point Mr. Williams began to organize the towns African-American citizens into a defense league. They surrounded the funeral home armed to the teeth. When the KKK showed up they were fired upon. Just as in Columbia, Tennessee, the KKK fled under a hail of bullets. Williams eventually became President of the local NAACP, over the objections of many other blacks, including Thurgood Marshall, who all considered him to be too radical. He was later exiled to Cuba, later returning home to America where he died in 1996. Rosa Parks gave the eulogy.

The story of a man named C.O. Chin is so fascinating and inspiring that I will leave it to you to read the book if you want to know about him. He was a legend in Madison County, Mississippi and had land holdings, night clubs; including the famous Club Desire; and a thriving liquor business. He played an instrumental role in the early life of CORE.

 

The Deacons for Defense and Justice, the SNCC, CORE and all the rest; even Martin Luther King; owe a great debt to the Second Amendment and the people who availed themselves of that right while living under great peril during the time of Jim Crow. Their stories are told here, some for the first time, by the author.

This is a book which is long overdue, written by a man who was actually there with old Mr. Joe McDonald and showed him how to get his gun back. Until you have read this book you cannot have a complete understanding of what the Second Amendment meant to the Civil Rights movement. Simply put, this is a superb book.

The NRA and the March towards Censorship

Dick Metcalf, longtime writer for Guns and Ammo, the official magazine of the National Rifle Association, has been fired. The NRA, avowed champions of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, would seem to have no regard for their own rights under the First Amendment, which guarantees Freedom of Speech. Personally, I have always thought that the Second Amendment was there to protect the First one. Indeed, that has been the spin put forth by the NRA over the past several decades.

Yet, this disregard for that Amendment was on full display last week when the magazine, along with the full blessing of the NRA, dismissed Mr. Metcalf for having done his job when assigned the task of writing an article for the magazine entitled “Let’s Talk Limits”. Bear in mind that the theme of this article was not chosen by Mr. Metcalf, and the finished product was subsequently approved by those same editors who assigned him the task in the first place.

But, Mr. Metcalf apparently drew the wrong conclusion (I have not read the article and am relying upon news stories for this post) and opined that “all Constitutional Rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.” This modest statement of fact implied that Mr. Metcalf; and by extension the magazine itself; were in favor of gun control. Whether or not that is true is beside the point; it's what happened next which should trouble you.

The backlash was faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than the gun lobby. Within days, InterMedia Outlet, the entity which actually owns Guns and Ammo, fired Mr. Metcalf. They also control production of his TV show, the fate of which is now in limbo. The reason given was straightforward enough; several of the leading gun advertisers were cancelling their accounts.

While it is true that Guns and Ammo is a business and runs for profit, it was quite a surprise to see a magazine; which presents itself as so principled when it concerns the Second Amendment;  running for cover so quickly in detriment to the First Amendment, which the vaunted Second Amendment is supposed to protect. You would think that a bunch of gun totin’, highly principled magazine execs would take a stand on free speech and NOT take the money in exchange for that principle. 

So, there you have it, The NRA stands solidly behind your Second Amendment Right to bear arms. But they don’t even care enough about their own First Amendment Rights for me to ever trust them enough to protect mine. Apparently,  it’s just the corporations who make guns that will determine what you can read by virtue of the economic pressure they can bring to bear. Way to go for freedom and democracy!

So, the next time you see an NRA bumper sticker, keep that in mind...

PS: I am a registered gun owner and a supporter of Gun Rights; just not of the NRA.

Bill O'Reilly and Gun Control - A Study in Contrasts

Bill O’Reilly, the news commentator who regularly spouts anti-gun control rhetoric, states on page 212 of his book “Killing Kennedy”; which I reviewed here on Tuesday; that Texas, in 1963, with no gun control laws, was the leading state for murders, with 72% of those murders occurring by gunshot.

It is now 2013, 40 years later, and guess what? Texas is still the most lenient state in regards to gun control; and Murder by Firearms there has almost doubled since 1963. But yet, as recently as January 16th of this year, Mr. O’Reilly still maintains that gun control laws will “not stop crazy people from committing murder”, even as he advocates for a mandatory 10 year Federal sentence for any gun crime; from killing your spouse, to robbing a convenience store.

At the same time he also feels that gun control laws; in which he claims to not believe; should be left up to the individual states. This, would of course, result in virtually no local gun control laws, leaving the prosecution of gun related crimes to the Federal Government which Mr. O’Reilly already feels is too big. It also seriously makes me wonder which side of the debate he is really on.

This patchwork, and asinine approach; pitting the States against the Federal government; will yield no other result than to fill the already overcrowded Federal Prisons, thus placing more people under government control than ever before. And, remember, this idea comes from a man who purports to be against “big government.” 

This is just one more example of why political commentators should not be writing serious books about history. It only serves to further display their already overworked misunderstanding of history, as well as calling into question just what their real agenda is.

"FDR and Chief Justice Hughes" by James F. Simon (2012)

The old saying about how everything changes, yet remains the same, is highlighted in this book highlighting the battle between the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Charles Hughes, and Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States, over the Presidents “New Deal” policies. More than just a chronicle of events, the author takes the time to study each man’s past in an effort to more fully understand the differences in the two.

Within the first 5 days of his administration taking over the office of the Presidency, FDR enacted sweeping changes which put him; as well as the changes he did manage to make permanent; at odds with certain interests in the financial community. That chasm still exists today. And that’s what makes this book so important to read. At a time when we should be using the success of the New Deal to wriggle our way back to financial security as a nation, we seem to be having the same old arguments about how that recovery should take place.

Harry Truman once said that “The only thing new is the history you don’t know.” I quote that often, mainly because it is true. Within days of his taking office, FDR had declared a bank holiday, and suspended trading in silver and gold, using the Banking Acts of the First World War as his precedent to do so. He then went on radio to deliver the first of his “fireside chats”, explaining to the average American just how the financial system worked. After only three days the banks which had been allowed to reopen showed twice the amount of deposits as they did withdrawals. By the 15^th of March, a mere 2 weeks after the new administration took control, Wall Street re-opened, surging well ahead of the markets in Europe, and racking up the highest gains in 6 months.

Of course these changes did not sit well with many people in the banking profession. Particularly glaring were the changes regarding the Gold Standard, which had many of the more well-heeled industrialists fulminating. Eventually the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Hughes, struck down the New Deal as being Unconstitutional, leaving an exasperated FDR to come up with a new plan which would pass the courts muster. This is the part where he tried, through a failed attempt at legislating the age of retirement for the Justices on the Court, 6 of whom were over the age of 70. He hoped to be able to “pack” the court with Justices who would uphold his legislation. Although his motives may have been pure, his thinking was not.

The framers of the Constitution had made a point of having Supreme Court Justices appointed for life. They did this for a very good reason. In order to keep the Supreme Court from becoming a “plumb” position; handed out as a reward to political lackeys; they envisioned the positions to be life-long. This ensured that no party, no matter how long they might retain control of the Executive Branch of Government, could maintain control of the Court. The Court, like the Executive and Legislative Branches, was to act separately, answering only to their interpretation of the Constitution under which it was formed.

The book is filled with the history of both Franklin Roosevelt and his family, as well as that of Chief Justice Hughes. Even if the book were completely devoid of the struggle between the two men over the New Deal, the histories of their respective families would be interesting enough on their own.

Throughout the book, as the two men circle one another over this issue, the reader cannot help but admire the tenacity of both parties as they struggle to do what they feel is right for the American people. Both men were brilliant statesmen, making the tale of their adversity all the more remarkable.

Fully researched, and deftly written, this is the perfect book to help you get through both Conventions. It contains the seeds of the economic struggle which still rages in America today, as the “haves” try their best to bring back the days when the rest of us were “have nots.”

"The New Deal" by Michael Hiltzik

Reviewing this book is a difficult task, simply because it is so well researched and detailed. While I cannot say that I understood every word in it, I can say that this is one of the most complete pictures of the Great Depression, and what we did to get out of it. I had expected the book to be more of a comparison to what was done about the failing economy then, to what hasn't been done now, during the current economic downturn. But it's not. It's an absolutely unbiased account of what ideas were tried, which ones failed, and which ones were challenged by the Supreme Court.

The credit driven 1920's, with it's burgeoning car loans, made in the same ill concieved manner as the housing bubble decades later, began a period of consumer over confidence. This over confidence, along with reckless speculation drove the price of gold up from it's standard of $20 per ounce, thus devaluing the dollar. As the dollar shrank, so did jobs, investments and everything that goes with it.

Bank passbooks were offered for sale at 50 cents on the dollar during the "bank holidays", the idea being that if your bank didn't make it, you would at least have some cash on hand. Meanwhile, the person buying the account stood a chance to double his money. The banks, and the percentages being paid for their respective passbooks, were actually listed alongside of the stocks in the newspaperes of some cities.

Crops were plowed under, in an effort to make them more profitable, and cattle were slaughtered for the same reason. Nothing seemed to work. The banks were repeatedly bailed out, but like today, that approach only seemed to prolong the problem. The idea that business would carry the country through to renewed prosperity didn't work then, and isn't working now.

Roosevelt inherited a nation as divided as we are today, and through trial and error, was able to get the country back on it's feet, just in time for the Second World War. If there is something that seems familiar here, or any lesson to be learned from this book, it is one of deja vu. We have all been here before.

"Together We Cannot Fail" by Terry Golway

This is a very timely book. It mirrors much of our present day dilemmas. It also outlines and documents the solutions which were proposed, implemented and then opposed and outright rejected before new ones replaced them.

It reviews and summarizes the speeches that were given by Franklin Roosevelt in the darkest days of the Great Depression. Carefully dissecting the country's mood and culture at the time, Mr. Golway paints an accurate portrait of American culture and values while also capturing the spirit of the Presidents speeches. He then goes on to reflect upon the effect that those "Fireside Chats" had on the average American.

But more than that, it explores the forces, and needs, that united us then. More importantly it underscores that lack of spirit and cooperation that sully todays politics as usual, even in these unusual times.

An added bonus is the CD that accompanies the book and holds 77 minutes of the best of Roosevelts "Fireside Chats." This is the leadership that is so sorely missing in todays world, where polls rule while we experience essentially the same problems that plagued our nation then.

If history teaches us anything, it is that the only thing new is the history we don't know. This book drives that point home. I hope someone in Washington is reading it.