Editing Deacons for Defense and Justice (section)

==Founding of the Deacons for Defense==
Black Americans were harassed and attacked by white KKK vigilantes in the mill town of [[Jonesboro, Louisiana]] in 1964 including the torching of five churches, a Masonic hall and a Baptist center. Given these threats, Earnest "Chilly Willy" Thomas and [[Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick]] founded the Deacons for Defense in November 1964 to protect civil rights workers, their families and the Black community against the local KKK. Most of the Deacons were veterans with combat experience from the [[Korean War]] and [[World War II]]. Born in Jonesboro on November 20, 1935, Thomas grew up in the segregated state decades after the white-dominated state legislature had [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most Black people]] at the turn of the century and imposed [[Jim Crow]] laws. Drawn into local rivalries between Black and white children for swimming hole rights, Thomas learned that rights and access come not to those who ask but rather those who fight.{{sfn|Hill|2004|p=10}}

In 1964, during [[Freedom Summer]] and a period of extensive voter education and organizing for registration, especially in Mississippi, the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] established a Freedom House in Jonesboro. It became a target of the Klan who resented white activists staying there.{{Sfn|Hill|2004|p=24}} Because of repeated attacks on the Freedom House, as well as the church burnings, the Black community decided to organize to defend it. Before The Deacons of Defense and Justice officially formed, two groups were operating in Jonesboro to protect Foundational Black Americans.<ref name="enc1">{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of African American History |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaafri00alex |url-access=limited |date=2010 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaafri00alex/page/n768 732]–733}}</ref> One group acted as sentries outside the Freedom House, led by Percy Lee Bradford, a stock room worker, and Earnest Thomas.<ref name="enc1" /><ref name="enc 2" /> [[Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick]], a high school teacher, organized a second group that volunteered to monitor police arrests of Black Americans while also working to keep the community safe.<ref name="enc1" /> Thomas was one of the first volunteers to guard the house. According to historian Lance Hill, "Thomas was eager to work with CORE but he had reservations about the nonviolent terms imposed by the young activists".{{Sfn|Hill|2004|p=25}} Around this time, CORE began protesting against the segregation of a public swimming pool as well as the Jonesboro Public Library.<ref name="enc1" /> The Ku Klux Klan and local police organized a caravan to intimidate the protesters and the African American community in Jonesboro.<ref name="enc1" /> Thomas and Kirkpatrick organized a twenty men group to protect the citizens of Jonesboro, starting the Deacons.<ref name="enc1" />

Thomas, who had military training, quickly emerged as the leader of this budding defense organization. He was joined by Kirkpatrick, a civil rights activist and member of [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC), who had been ordained that year as a minister in the Pentecostal [[Church of God in Christ]]. Coretta Jackson acted as treasurer for The Deacons Of Defense and Justice.<ref name="enc1" /> We Had been arrested for possession of a concealed weapon while protecting protesting students.<ref name="enc1" />{{Clarify|reason = who got arrested?|date=August 2023}} The Deacons had strict membership criteria for applicants.<ref name="enc 2" /> They accepted only male American citizens over the age of 21.<ref name="enc 2">{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of African American History: 1896 to the Present: from the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-First Century |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=23–24}}</ref> They preferred married men with military service, as well as registered voters.<ref name="enc 2" /> They refused men with a reputation for "hotheadedness".<ref name="enc 2" /> They vigorously upheld their stance of only acting in defense.<ref name="enc 2" /> They continued guarding CORE as a means to further the civil rights agenda.<ref name="enc 2" /> Every member of the Deacons had to pledge his life for the defense of justice, Black people, and for civil rights workers.<ref name="jour">{{cite journal |last1=Hill |first1=Rickey |title=The Bogalusa Movement: Self-Defense and Black Power in the Civil Rights Struggle |journal=The Black Scholar |date=2011 |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=43–54 |doi=10.5816/blackscholar.41.3.0043|s2cid=147399560 }}</ref>

During the day, the men concealed their guns. At night they carried them openly, as was allowed by the law, to discourage Klan activity at the site and in the Black community. In early 1965, Black students were picketing the local high school in Jonesboro for integration. They were confronted by hostile police ready to use fire trucks with hoses against them. A car carrying four Deacons arrived. In view of the police, these men loaded their shotguns. The police ordered the fire truck to withdraw. This was the first time in the 20th century, as Hill observes, that "an armed Black organization had successfully used weapons to defend a lawful protest against an attack by law enforcement".<ref name="Marqusee2004"/> Hill also wrote "In Jonesboro, the Deacons made history when they compelled Louisiana governor [[John McKeithen]] to intervene in the city's civil rights crisis <!-- when? does this refer to 1965? -->and require a compromise with city leaders — the first capitulation to the civil rights movement by a Deep South governor".{{sfn|Hill|2004|p=265}}

After traveling 300 miles to [[Bogalusa]], in southeast Louisiana, on February 21, 1965, Kirkpatrick, Thomas and a CORE member worked with local leaders to organize the first affiliated Deacons chapter. Black activists in the company mill town were being attacked by the local and powerful Ku Klux Klan. The police and sheriff in Bogalusa as well as most government organizations were all infiltrated by the Klan.<ref name="jour" /> The only protection the people of Bogalusa had against the Klan was the Deacons.<ref name="jour" /> Although the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] had been passed, Black people were making little progress toward integration of public facilities in the city or registering to vote. Activists [[Bob Hicks (activist)|Bob Hicks]] (1929–2010), [[Charles Sims (activist)|Charles Sims]], and [[A. Z. Young (activist)|A. Z. Young]], workers at the [[Crown-Zellerbach]] plant (Georgia-Pacific after 1985, later acquired by another), led this new chapter of the Deacons for Defense. Charles Sims, a World War II veteran was the president of the Bogalusa chapter of the Deacons.<ref name="jour" /> He acted as spokesman for the Deacons, demanding fair treatment and threatening violent retaliation in the event of attack.<ref name="enc1" /> Sims considered the Deacons a "defense guard unit" who had formed simply "because we got tired of the women, the children being harassed by the white night-riders".<ref name="jour" />

The Chicago Chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice was formed by Earnest Thomas, vice president of the Jonesboro chapter, in 1965.<ref name="enc1" /> The Deacons intended to spread throughout the North and the West but were unsuccessful because their tactics were less effective outside of the South.<ref name="enc1" />

In the summer of 1965, the Bogalusa chapter campaigned for integration and came into regular conflict with the Klan in the city. The state police established a base there in the spring in expectation of violence after the Deacons organized.<ref name="hague">[http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1997-8/Hague.html Seth Hague, "Niggers Ain't Gonna Run This Town"], 1997–1998, prize-winning student paper, Dept. of History, Loyola University New Orleans; accessed May 18, 2017</ref> Before the summer, the first Black deputy sheriff of the local [[Washington Parish, Louisiana|Washington Parish]] was assassinated by whites.<ref name=nyt/>

The Deacons' militant confrontation with the Klan in Bogalusa throughout the summer of 1965 was planned to gain federal government intervention.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gimletmedia.com/episode/the-deacons/|title=The Deacons|website=Gimlet Media|publisher=Undone|date=November 21, 2016|access-date=November 24, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171104133134/https://gimletmedia.com/episode/the-deacons/|archive-date=November 4, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> These tactics proved successful when "in July 1965, escalating hostilities between the Deacons and the Klan in Bogalusa provoked the federal government to use Reconstruction-era laws to order local police departments to protect civil rights workers".<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|title=Robert Hicks, Leader in Armed Rights Group, Dies at 81 |author=Douglas Martin |date=April 24, 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html |work=The New York Times}}</ref> The Deacons also initiated a regional organizing campaign, founding a total of 21 formal chapters and 46 affiliates in other cities.{{Sfn|Hill|2004|p=167}} <!-- what years? -->