The BPP name was inspired by the use of the black panther as a symbol that had recently been used by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent Black political party in Alabama. Excerpt from Wikipedia
The Deacons for Defense and Justice
On July 10, 1964, a group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana led by Earnest “Chilly Willy” Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick founded the group known as The Deacons for Defense and Justice to protect members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) against Ku Klux Klan violence.
The Deacons for Defense and Justice was founded in 1964 in Jonesboro, Louisiana to protect civil rights activists from the Ku Klux Klan. The organization was made up of black veterans from World War II, who believed in armed self-defense. About twenty chapters were created throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
The Deacons for Defense provided protection for people participating in protest marches in Mississippi in 1966, including the March Against Fear. Many of the records at the National Archives involving the Deacons for Defense are from the FBI Case Files on Civil Unrest. Excerpt from National Archives
The Deacons for Defense and Justice is an armed African-American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana.
On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X’s assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi and Alabama. It is intended to protect civil rights activists and their families.
They are threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan.
An armed self-defense group of African American Men that protected civil rights individuals and organizations in the U.S. Southern states during the 1960s. Historically, the organization practiced self-defense methods in the face of racist oppression that was carried out under the Jim Crow Laws by local/state government officials and racist vigilantes; the Ku Klux Klan.
The Deacons for Defense and Justice - to protect Civil Rights Leaders and Black and White CORE civil rights workers from vigilante Ku Klux Klan and police violence. With their largest and most famous chapter at the center of a bloody campaign in the Ku Klux Klan stronghold of Bogalusa, Louisiana,.
The Deacons became a popular symbol of the growing frustration with Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent strategy and a rallying point for a militant working-class movement in the South was created in Jonesboro, Louisiana by Earnest ” Chilly Willy” Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick, to protect the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) against ku klux klan violence. The Deacons were mostly black veterans of World War II and the Korean War.
The Jonesboro Deacons came to Bogalusa, La. on February 21, 1965 and organized it’s first affiliate chapter under the direction of Robert Hicks, Charles Sims, Bert Wyre, Aurilus “Reeves” Perkins, Sam Bonds, Fletcher Anderson and others.
By 1968, the Deacons’ activities were declining, following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the entry of blacks into politics in the South, and the rise of the Black Power movement. Blacks worked to gain control of more political and economic activities in their communities.
Source: Wikipedia Deacons for Defense and Robert Hick Foundation
YEARS LATER A MOVIE WAS MADE
The television movie; Deacons for Defense, produced by Showtime starring academy-award winners Forest Whitaker, Ossie Davis and Jonathan Silverman are still being shown across the nation and in different parts of the world. The film is based on the struggle of the actual Deacons for Defense against the Jim Crow South in a powerful area of Bogalusa, Louisiana controlled by the Ku Klux Klan.
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