This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible

During the Civil Rights movement, and long before, guns played a crucial role in keeping Civil Rights leaders safe and black families free. Charles Cobb, Jr., tells how every family he visited in the South had a gun, and how guns were responsible for keeping Martin Luther King, Jr. protected from those who wished to do him harm. Guns were frequently all that kept black families alive in the period after the Civil War. The title is a quote from one of Dr. King’s visitors, who told him that nonviolent protesting and pacifist philosophy would lead to his death; Martin Luther King, Jr., took these words to heart and armed himself and his followers. Cobb writes eloquently and forcefully. He fills his book with hard facts and data, and supplements these with anecdotes, stories, and persuasive arguments. His position is that guns were crucial to every aspect of the Civil Rights movement, and that civil rights and firearms are inextricably linked. I enjoyed this book and I hope that it will be widely read and appreciated for its simplicity, depth, and high caliber of writing that illuminates a frequently mischaracterized aspect of history.