Deacons for Defense and Justice

Common card · No. 371417

The Deacons for Defense and Justice was a Black American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana. On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X's assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. It was intended to protect civil rights activists and their families, threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan. By 1968, the Deacons' activities were declining, following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the entry of Black people into politics in the South, and the rise of the Black Power movement. Black people worked to gain control of more political and economic activities in their communities. A television...

Read on Wikipedia