Black Communities Organize Armed Self-Defense Clubs in Response to Wave of Mob Violence

Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, Black communities in both South and North organized armed self-defense structures in response to the failure of law enforcement to protect them from white mob violence. In Elaine Arkansas, Longview Texas, Washington DC, Chicago, and elsewhere, Black veterans and community members stockpiled weapons and organized to defend their neighborhoods. This tradition of armed community defense — rooted in Reconstruction-era militia companies — persisted through the century and informed the Deacons for Defense in the 1960s and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s-70s.