Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, Timothy B. Tyson, author (UNC Press, 1999)
Radio Free Dixie tells the story of Robert F. Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996), an influential black activist who is considered by many the father of the Black Power movement.
In the late 1950s, as president of the Monroe, North Carolina, branch of the NAACP, Williams and his followers (most of whom were World War II veterans) used machine guns, dynamite, and Molotov cocktails to confront Klan terrorists. Advocating “armed self-reliance” by blacks, Williams challenged not only white supremacists but also the civil rights establishment.
During the 1960s, Williams fled the United States after being falsely charged with kidnapping a white couple. While living in Havana, Cuba, he broadcast “Radio Free Dixie,” a program of black politics and music that could be heard across the United States— and then China. In 1962, he published Negroes with Guns, a book that detailed his disagreement with pacifist civil rights activism.
Williams was allowed to return to the United States in 1969 and officially exonerated in 1976. He continued his involvement with the NAACP and at his funeral in 1996, Rosa Parks hailed him for his courage and commitment to freedom.
Dr. Tyson is an acclaimed author, civil rights activist, Senior Research Scholar at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, and Visiting Professor of American Christianity and Southern Culture at the Duke Divinity School.
