Black Masculinity in the Civil Rights Era : Non-Violent Protest Versus Armed Self-Defense

Abstract

The Civil Rights Era of the 1960s was a time of great turmoil and great change in the United States. Previously, the African American community had been subjected to segregation, subjugation, and oppression at the hands of white Americans. The fight for civil rights for Black Americans happened in the courtrooms, the legislatures, and on the streets across the nation. Many organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Black Panther Party, paved the way for institutional change and for the generations that followed. However, each of these groups approached the fight for equality in different ways, using opposing tactics to achieve the same goal. This caused a split in the movement. The roots of these differences go back to the start of slavery in America, and the stereotypes that surrounded the Black community. These stereotypes were created and disseminated by white people who incorrectly believed in the superiority of their own race. This ideology created the premise for “respectability politics”, which is the public behavior expected out of an individual in order to ensure they are perceived as respectable. In this writing, we will explore the impacts of gender and black masculinity on the choice between nonviolent action and armed self-defense during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. We will be comparing white masculinity to Black masculinity to determine which, if any, aspects of expected Black male behavior were racially driven, and how this influenced individuals to choose nonviolence or to arm themselves. We will also explore how each core organization of the movement advocated or disparaged either nonviolence or armed self-defense, and what each organization’s reasons were for their chosen action. This will demonstrate how the expectations placed on Black men impacted the Civil Rights movement, and how we see similar events transpiring today.