Educational Media Reviews Online

Rob Williams was a North Carolina civil rights leader of the 1950s and 1960s whose beliefs were closer to those of Malcolm X than Martin Luther King. Like Malcolm, he felt American blacks had the right to take up arms and eschew non-violence when white society refused to listen to their demands for equality. (He formed a 200-member armed Black Guard in his hometown, and said he had another 300-400 armed individuals “on call.”) His views, expressed in his 1962 book, Negroes With Guns, became a major influence on the ideology of the Black Panther Party.

The video Negroes With Guns will serve as an effective introduction for many to Williams, who is probably not as well known nationally as other figures in the Black Power movement. The video features extensive archival footage of Williams, who died in 1996, and excerpts from his program “Radio Free Dixie,” which combined Williams’ commentary with jazz and protest songs, and was broadcast from Cuba, where Williams went to live after fleeing from the U.S. amid death threats and kidnapping charges. Also included in the video are scenes from a TV documentary, Robert Williams: Violent Crusader, and interviews with Williams’ wife and followers, and his biographer, Tim Tyson.

Williams first got attention outside his hometown of Monroe, N.C. for his work on the “kissing game” case. Two black boys were convicted of kissing two white girls during a kissing game. The judge’s sentence said the boys, ages 8 and 10, were to remain in a reformatory for a period not to exceed their 21st birthdays. Williams got the attention of the national and even international press with his efforts to publicize the case and free the boys. The Governor of North Carolina eventually suspended their sentences after four months.

But things didn’t always have such a happy ending. A white man accused of the attempted rape of a pregnant black woman was acquitted. Black women feared it would now be open season on them and Williams stated that if the police and justice system weren’t going to protect blacks, then they had the right to take up arms and protect themselves any way they could. He was suspended from the leadership of the local NAACP chapter for these comments.

Yet Williams was restrained on occasions when others were calling for violence. When a white woman drove through an area where civil rights marchers were gathered and some blacks were threatening to kill her, Williams had her taken to a house where out of town civil rights workers stayed. Although the woman thought it was a kidnapping, Williams said she was free to leave at any time, but that she would have to pass through the group that had called for her blood. She left the house after a few hours and was able to continue on safely through a police line, but Williams was still charged with kidnapping.

He was already out of the country, however, along with his wife and children, having fled after receiving a phone call that his body would be hanging in the town square within the next two hours. Williams received asylum in Cuba, but arguments with the Cuban leaders eventually led him to go to China to live. He returned to the United States five years after leaving and even served as a consultant to the State Department on normalizing relations with Communist China. All charges against him were dropped in 1976, and Williams lived the rest of his life (at a much quieter pace) in the Detroit area. He hoped to return to his North Carolina hometown, but died of Hodgkin’s Disease before he was able to come back. He is buried in Monroe, however.

Although this video makes good use of the archival footage and radio broadcasts of Williams, it leaves out a lot of details about Williams’ life and times. It does not use a narrator, and a lot of information is quickly displayed through newspaper clippings. The video is recommended as a way to introduce viewers to Williams, but print sources are definitely needed to give a fuller picture.