Summary Of Timothy B. Williams 'Radio Free Dixie'

In Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams & the Roots of Black Power, Timothy B. Tyson tells us all about the story of Robert F. Williams. The story of his life as a black activist during his generation and the influence he had on many people. Not only do we learn about the life of Robert Williams, but we also get a look into the ways in which African Americans had to live during this time and how horribly they were treated by whites and those with authority in Monroe. This book discusses many of the struggles that blacks had to face including the intersection of races, sex and gender roles. Timothy Tyson’s historically written book focus’ on a biography of Williams as well as black lives during this time period. The book leads up to Williams
There is a section of the book discussing equal access to a pool and how whites didn’t want blacks to use the same pool water as them, and they couldn’t afford another one and therefore the blacks didn’t get a pool. Tyson chose to focus on this because it sparked one of the first steps Williams took in an armed self-reliance. Robert Williams took his activist role to a new level when he became the President of the NAACP in Monroe. When Robert Williams was in the midst of fighting for equal access to the pool, the vice president alongside Williams was Dr. Perry and he was specifically targeted by the KKK. Robert Williams and his men sat and waited for their opportunity to strike back with weapons, therefore creating the first instance in which the civil rights movement turned to violence in Monroe. Williams chose to challenge the ideas of the civil rights movement and incorporate an armed group to confront terrorists belonging to the KKK. This challenged the ideas of the civil rights movement because Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists had already taken a non-violent stance when it came to fighting for their rights, and Williams contradicted