Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power

Tyson, Timothy B.

ISBN 10: 0807849235 / ISBN 13: 9780807849231

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2001

About this Item

(6th) Very large, sturdy thicker softcover, glossy wrappers, black spine and bottom front half, gold, black back wrapper, a red-tinted photograph of man and woman with hands on a pistol, a face at top front and top back left, 402 pages, including a photo section. On title page in black ink: "For Bob with every good wish, Tim Tyson." Very slight surface wear at bottom front tip, light crease at bottom back right, praise on back from Essence and Village Voice, and the American History Review. Near Very Good.

Seller Inventory # 060965

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807849235
• ISBN 13: 9780807849231
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 5th or later Edition
• Condition: Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

This book tells the remarkable story of Robert F. Williams--one of the most influential black activists of the generation that toppled Jim Crow and forever altered the arc of American history. In the late 1950s, as president of the Monroe, North Carolina, branch of the NAACP, Williams and his followers used machine guns, dynamite, and Molotov cocktails to confront Klan terrorists. Advocating "armed self-reliance" by blacks, Williams challenged not only white supremacists but also Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights establishment. Forced to flee during the 1960s to Cuba--where he broadcast "Radio Free Dixie," a program of black politics and music that could be heard as far away as Los Angeles and New York City--and then China, Williams remained a controversial figure for the rest of his life.

Historians have customarily portrayed the civil rights movement as a nonviolent call on America's conscience--and the subsequent rise of Black Power as a violent repudiation of the civil rights dream. But Radio Free Dixie reveals that both movements grew out of the same soil, confronted the same predicaments, and reflected the same quest for African American freedom. As Robert Williams's story demonstrates, independent black political action, black cultural pride, and armed self-reliance operated in the South in tension and in tandem with legal efforts and nonviolent protest.

About the Author

Timothy B. Tyson is associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the coeditor and a contributor of Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy (University of North Carolina Press, 1998).