As the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, Robert F. Williams led the small town of Monroe, North Carolina in protesting racism and segregation during the 1950s. But he was also head of a local NRA chapter that urged African Americans to defend themselves by meeting violence with violence. His story is one of the most fascinating and unusual in American history, and, in Monroe and elsewhere, it’s challenging how we talk about the Civil Rights Movement today.

Featuring: 

Special thanks to the Henry Hampton Collections at Washington University Libraries, the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-Chapel Hill, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and WBTV in Charlotte. 

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• You can find a transcript of the episode here.

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