Talk:Robert F. Williams

Untitled
I will challenge anyone who disagrees with brother Williams being (dubbed the Negro Che Guevara), this appears on the issue of a magazine I admit having difficulty to name. Please contact Dr. Akinyele Umoja Professor of African American Studies @ Georgia State University 404-651-2157

NPOV
I don't know anything about this subject but it is blantantly POV... e.g. the part where he takes the white couple into the house as Southern hospitality... I don't know anything of the event but I suspect that there are two sides to that story. If I knew how to put on the POV tag I would 01:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)djheart 01:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be interested to know what the couple themselves had to say about the incident.--Davecampbell (talk) 22:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * As Williams describes in Negroes with Guns, the couple got quite a bit of media attention, though the wife pretty much did all the talking (at least according to Williams, who was pretty disparaging of her husband who took her into the near-riot-level black community as protection while he scoped the black defenses). She couldn't keep her story straight and oscillated between calling Williams a horrible beast and saying he was a calm, rational man. I don't believe they ever thanked him for saving their lives. --68.178.43.163 (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.178.43.163 (talk) 21:52, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The article is clearly written in a subjective manner. The lack of citations is striking. There's no way of telling what, if anything, is fact. The assertion that the NRA blessed Williams (again, without any citation) is just one element here that should throw up an obvious red flag. Forward Thinkers (talk) 19:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You suspect that the article contains errors, but even worse than the authors, who I admit have not given enough citations, you give no facts to back-up your opinion. Its all very well to assert that the article is POV, but can we have some proof? The article did not strike me as having non-neutral-point-of-view problems. -- Ong saluri (talk) 20:10, 8 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Upon reading this over, I see that I have been a bit harsh with User:Forward Thinkers. She/he was not the one who tagged the article. My annoyance is mostly at the tag. My comments above apply to the combined effect of the posts here and the tag, an effect which I think is unjust. I think the tag has been put on without sufficient reason and should be removed. -- Ong saluri (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:21, 8 May 2010 (UTC).  Oh Sine Bot, you are such a pain in the ass.

The NRA thing turns out to be quite interesting. There are quite a few conservative White gun enthusiasts who write applaudingly of Williams. If I can summarise, they argue 1) that gun control was largely a racist measure brought in to disempower Blacks; 2) Williams case demonstrates that people with guns can defend themselves from oppression and people without guns can't. See for example, Carlton Cramer, "The Racist Roots of Gun Control", 1993; and other documents linked to from Bruce A Clark, ''Old Yankee. com'' >> "The Rightto Keep and Beaer Arms"; including: National Rifle Association, Institute for Legislative Action, "The Racist History of Handgun Bans in America" , from which I excerpt the following:


 * "In 1968, Congress passed the Gun Control Act, ostensibly in reaction to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. But even supporters of "gun control" have recognized another purpose to the law. Robert Sherrill wrote, "The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed not to control guns but to control blacks.... Inasmuch as the legislation finally passed in 1968 had nothing to do with the guns used in the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy, it seems reasonable to assume that the law was directed at that other threat of the 1960s, more omnipresent than the political assassin -- namely, the black rioter....With the horrendous rioting of 1967 and 1968, Congress again was panicked toward passing some law that would shut off weapons access to blacks." (The Saturday Night Special, 1973.) B. Bruce-Briggs similarly noted, "It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the 'Saturday night special' is emphasized because it is cheap and is being sold to a particular class of people. The name is sufficient evidence -- the reference is to 'n-town Saturday Night.'" ("The Great American Gun War," The Public Interest, Fall 1976.)"

Jack Hunter of the Charleston City Paper goes so far as to embrace Williams as a fellow "Southern conservative." ("Robert F Williams and the Second Ammendment")

Now if you still don't think that Williams could have been supported by the NRA, check this out: it appears that they didn't just support him, he was a member.


 * "When North Carolina Gov. Luther Hodges did nothing to stop the attacks, Williams and the local NAACP chapter formed a National Rifle Association chapter and trained its members in using firearms." (Stephen Millies, Workers World, reprinted by Afro Cuba Web


 * "Williams, a former Marine who volunteered to lead the Monroe chapter of the NAACP and founded a 60-member, NRA-chartered rifle club, described the battle in his 1962 book, "Negroes With Guns," which was reprinted in 1998 by Wayne State University Press. . ..
 * "The connection with the NRA might surprise some people who portray the organization as a haven for racist rednecks. Former NRA Executive Director Tanya Metaksa spoke with Williams before his death. She recalls, "He was very proud of being an NRA member and that the NRA sanctioned his club without question." "
 * (Michael S Brown "Negroes with Guns", Enter Stage Right, 7 January 2002 )

Ong saluri (talk) 01:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC) 

I've removed the fact and POV tags (and the reference tag). The main claim which seemed to set djheart (01:46, 16 June 2008) has a citation. As such, I'd now expect evidence, not merely an assertion, of POV before we fly the POV tag again. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

cultural revolution
Maybe it is true he was singled out for special treatment during the Cultural Revolution, but wouldn't it be nice to have any source for this strange Chinese behavior?--Radh (talk) 08:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Deleted material
This was deleted by User:Schrandit in January 2010:
 * Suddenly his familiarity with the country after a period of residence there during the tumult of the Cultural Revolution came to be viewed as an asset. He soon served in an advisory capacity to the U.S. government through the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor invited by Alan S. Whiting, Director of their Center for Chinese Studies. Nevertheless, he was extradited from Michigan to Monroe, North Carolina in 1976.

It may well be correct and if acitation can be found it should be re-added -- Ong saluri (talk)

Just poorly written
"at a time when gun ownership was fairly common in the South"

When has gun ownership not been fairly common in the South?

And I see that the National Rifle Association involvement has fallen out. Is there any particular reason? jdege (talk) 04:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Why is there no separate page for Williams' historical book?
There is a page for General Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket." It has a nice image with the original cover art.

This book was no less influential. It would be nice to see a similar page for "Negroes with Guns."

116.55.65.44 (talk) 07:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Negroes with Guns (book) was created 28 Feb 2016‎ --Naaman Brown (talk) 01:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

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'50s Military service.
In Can Negros afford to be Pacifists, Williams writes of being one of the few blacks in a USMC unit in 1954. Clearly, there are some chunks of bio missing here. Anmccaff (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Surprising that the article has 56 citations yet so much is still missing and unsourced. Tagged the article for more sources. Raymond3023 (talk) 11:12, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

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Very poorly written
This article is written in an extremely poor manner, and hardly any of the sources are cited. Also, the segment at the beginning describing the events leading to his exile seems needless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.5.37.10 (talk) 20:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Robert Williams
The article says the FBI persuaded the couple held hostage by Williams to claim they were kidnapped. Actually they were kidnapped. The FBI agents on site did not even know about the hostage-taking until they were told by Chief Mauney of the Monroe Police Department. I was there, a reporter for the Associated Press. Williams had called Mauney and told him the hostages would be set free if Mauney would release freedom riders who had been arrested that afternoon. Mauney refused. The couple, Mr. and Mrs. G. Bruce Stegall of nearby Marshville, N.C., were eventually released unharmed. 2603:6081:7840:3:915:9C07:6E41:4E38 (talk) 19:11, 22 January 2022 (UTC)