Abstract

The article aims to analyze how the issue of violent self-defense has been dealt with within African American Movement, from abolitionism to the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, by focusing on the writings of prominent Black leaders and activists. David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet urge the slaves to engage in violent self-defense against their masters as a preliminary step toward liberation from their bondages. Decades after, Ida B. Wells and T. Thomas Fortune call for an armed response to lynch law and white supremacy. Similarly, W.E.B. Du Bois and Claude McKay greet with enthusiasm the wave of Black resistance in the so-called race riots of the World War I period. The article investigates the debate on violence in order to discuss some recurrent features. Self-defense, far from being solely a military necessity, is presented by its advocates as a practical demonstration of racial equality. The ability to defend oneself and one’s family stands as the ultimate proof of human dignity, challenging racial hierarchies. At the same time, violent action provides a way to enforce black masculinity in front of the emasculating rhetoric of white supremacy. Finally, by supporting armed resistance, radical activists often represent themselves in stark contrast with the majority of African Americans, supposedly marked by a submissive, non-violent disposition