Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power
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Overview
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.
Synopsis
Captures the life and legacy of Robert F. Williams (1925-96), the militant and controversial black activist who challenged both white supremacists and the civil rights establishment in the 1950s and 1960s. '[A] radiant biography. . . . Tyson sharpens our historical focus, demonstrating just how crucial self-defense, guns, and nonviolence were to the successes of the black freedom struggle."—Village Voice Literary Supplement
Emerge
Written in lucid and confident prose with a solid reliance on first-hand accounts, Radio Free Dixie presents an engaging portrait of one man's continuous struggle to resist political and social oppression.
Editorials
John Dittmer
Will change the way we think about the black freedom struggle of the 1950s and early 1960s.—Quarterly Black Review
Glenda E. Gilmore
A spellbinding narrative that analyzes the making of black manhood in an era that bridged Jim Crow and civil rights.— Quarterly Black Review
Quarterly Black Review
A compelling story that...needs to be ready by all who care about race, courage, and humanity. Robert Williams was an inspiration to many an a threat to others; Tyson give him his proper due.— Julian Bond
Emerge
Stunning. . . . Radio Free Dixie presents an engaging portrait of one man's continuous struggle to resist political and social oppression.Village Voice Literary Supplement
[A] radiant biography. . . . Tyson is that rarest of writers a successful scholar who can actually tell a compelling story in clear, even handsome language. . . . Tyson sharpens our historical focus, demonstrating just how crucial self-defense, guns, and nonviolence were to the successes of the black freedom struggle.Detroit Free Press
Tyson's main achievement, in addition to conquering the problem academics have in writing readable prose, is to put Williams's Black Power ideology and actions into the larger context of the era--the Cold War, the nonviolent civil struggle, and the questions of gender and sexuality in racial politics. This is an interesting book about a captivating personality during a fascinating time of recent history.Publishers Weekly
Tyson's firecracker text crackles with brilliant and lasting images of black life . . . across the South in the '40s, '50s and '60s. . . . Tyson successfully portrays Williams as a troubled visionary, a strong, stubborn and imperfect man, one who greatly influenced what became the Black Power Movement and its young leaders.Journal of American History
Meticulously researched. . . . [and] magisterially argued.American Historical Review
A sympathetic, absorbing portrait of one of the most influential and controversial African-American leaders of the twentieth century. . . . A remarkable, often harrowing, account of the civil rights movement and some of the people that made it possible. . . . A book that powerfully conveys the life and voice of one of the key personalities of the modern civil rights struggle.Against The Current
[An] excellent book. . . . Timothy Tyson has done Williams, and scholars of 20th century world radicalisms, a great service with Radio Free Dixie. . . . Definitive in its coverage of Williams's life between his birth in North Carolina in 1925 and his exile to Cuba in 1961.The Journal of Southern History
Tyson has written, with compelling prose and great insight, an excellent biography as well as a definitive history of armed self-defense doctrines in the civil rights movement.American Historical Review
A book that powerfully conveys the life and voice of one of the key personalities of the modern civil rights struggle.Emerge
Written in lucid and confident prose with a solid reliance on first-hand accounts, Radio Free Dixie presents an engaging portrait of one man's continuous struggle to resist political and social oppression.Village Voice Literary Supplement
Tyson sharpens our historical focus, demonstrating just how crucial self-defense, guns, and nonviolence were to the successes of the black freedom struggle.Publishers Weekly
To some, the civil rights radical Robert Williams's philosophy of armed self-defense was the very antithesis of Martin Luther King's nonviolent resistance. However, each man represented a wing of the growing civil rights movement, and both grasped and skillfully wielded the political leverage that the dynamics of the Cold War afforded the civil rights cause. After a stint in the army during WWII, Williams returned to his hometown in Monroe, N.C., where he built a uniquely militant NAACP chapter and attracted international attention to racist hypocrisy. When eventually forced by Ku Klux Klan vigilantes and an FBI dragnet to abandon his activities and flee the U.S. with his family in 1961, he found safe harbor in revolutionary Cuba, where he produced Radio Free Dixie, a program of politics and music broadcast to America. Written with the cooperation of Williams and his family, Tyson's firecracker text crackles with brilliant and lasting images of black life in the Carolinas and across the South in the '40s, '50s and '60s. Liberally peppered with quotes from Williams, many taken from his unpublished autobiography, While God Lay Sleeping, as well as from interviews and radio tapes, the book is imbued with the man's voice and his indefatigable spirit. An assistant professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the co-editor of Democracy Betrayed, Tyson successfully portrays Williams as a troubled visionary, a strong, stubborn and imperfect man, one who greatly influenced what became the Black Power Movement and its young leaders. Photos. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.From the Publisher
A fascinating book that is a welcome antidote to the historical pap being spooned out in popular documentaries these days.Journal of Southern History
Tyson's firecracker text crackles with brilliant and lasting images of black life in the Carolinas and across the South.
Publishers Weekly
An important study of a forgotten Civil Rights leader. . . . [A] groundbreaking, skillfully written revisionist monograph.
Library Journal
Radio Free Dixie presents an engaging portrait of one man's continuous struggle to resist political and social oppression.
Emerge
Meticulously researched. . . . [and] magisterially argued.
Journal of American History