Tradition of warm us. So i look forward to really getting into those three areas with you, love for a was interested in hearing from you a little bit about your background and how you have gotten into this topic, how did you arrive at this topic. Happy to be here. I think your sense about the way the book encounters occurred conversation is accurate. My background and this is there are two influences. I grew up in rural gun culture, which was black and culture. So everyone that i knew, all of the, you know, good people of the community, my grandfather and father were both ministers, both those guns. So did everybody else in the community. Really unapologetically. When i got to law school ill bet that there was a quite different impression of about something that i took as being sort of one of the clear fundamental rights. Before i could articulate something about the fundamental rights. There was this tension in the way that i was dealing with what i knew verses what i heard in law school end the kind of cultural response to issues that i got and lots of the venues that i was operating in. Certainly at harvard the sense in the early 80s was, oh, well, the Second Amendment thing, we dont really need to talk about that. It was a live dismissal of something that culturally was quite important to me as a community when i had grown up and. Thats interesting. So where did you i grew up in rural west virginia. My grandparents had a garden. They did not have a telephone that unremembered. There were half an hour away from any sort of Police Response they also needed end use guns in terms of sort of daily life. There was talk of killing, keeping the pass out of the garden. But there were also sort of a clear recognition to my take, and the community that on matters of personal security the government, the state was really deepen the back rent and almost irrelevant. In your book you really, i feel, try to recover this tradition and put it in a longterm historical context. So i wanted to hear the when you talk about the black tradition alarms, what exactly is the black traditional arms . It is almost a repeat of what i suggested. It is Church People and scribers and merchants embracing gun ownership, gun used, carrying guns, armed selfdefense as a sort of practical necessity. As an important response to that time of state failure, that place in any sort of a violent encounter with the state just is not able to respond. And you find this occurring very early on. So, as you said, the book actually after the introduction which focuses on the Robert Williams case that we would talk about in a bit, the book talks in the chapter title foundations about the earliest iterations, fugitive slaves and stealing guns, acquiring guns, and fighting of slave catchers, sometimes very successfully in ways that are justifying our Walking Around expectations about how escaped slaves were fearing end the kind of assistance that they got. Will we find really is that this tradition goes back as far as we can trace the black american experience. He started with Frederick Douglass. For many people who read the narrative, Frederick Douglass, familiar with this fight that they had with his former master that became the turning point in his coming. But what i didnt know about or what i knew less about were some of the other examples that you gave. One in particular was the case, i dont know if you can talk about William Parker. The resistance in lower central pennsylvania was prompted by a fellow named William Parker who is a conductor on the underground railroad. And there are lots of instances in the first chapter where you get snippets. A newspaper report, slaves fire of pursuers and you dont hear anything more about it. The thing that is interesting is that William Parker threw as a slave was illiterate at one point in time that people can test this, at some point along the way he learned how to read and write and wrote actually his own narrative recounting the christiane resistance. So he was sheltering to work free slaves at his home. The slave master obtained a warrant in philadelphia under the new version of the fugitive slave law. There were blacks buys right there at the door side. To found out that this fellow had gone toward was coming back to parkers homestead with two u. S. Marshals. The word got there ahead of the slave catchers and the head of the marshals. Black folk from the surrounding community gathered together with guns and cutlery and by the end of it the marshals, the slave catchers, one of them was dead. Several others were wounded. William parker in the two fugitives in the running north. On parkers telling commend it was just wonderful. I did not actually know the details of all of this until i get deeply into the book. On parkers telling he says, we were sheltered at a friends house in rochester. In the new retentive Frederick Douglass is narrative. He says the talks about how these people booktv and the name sparker explicitly, they came, sheltered at my house, help them across. The ending seems to me you could not ride it better. The ending scene is douglas and parker on the ferry. As douglas is about to get off to a partakes of of his pocket. He calls it the revolvers natural the dead hand of the slaver. So its like the ending scene of the movie. But there are countless examples like this with less detail. And some of them appear actually in william stills account, called the founder of the umbrella railroad who wrote this law and 800 page exposition of fugitive slaves who were coming through philadelphia. Three of the images in the book showing fugitive slaves firing guns against slave catchers come from william stills images in the original account. So this distinction the maker leon in talking about the black tradition of arms is the distinction between selfdefense and Political Violence. I wonder if you could walk us through why this distinction first of all, was selfdefense is, how you are defining selfdefense and how youre defining Political Violence and why this distinction is important. Okay. It is important, and it is my prairie a political contribution in the work. This book is based on a more scholarly peace that i published in the connecticut law review in 2012. What i felt and what i argue or what i show over and over again is that black people laid a distinction between Political Violence in selfdefense. Faceup Political Violence as folly. Political violence as the rest. But Political Violence, articulated in different details within the above Political Violence is trying to advance the race, trying to get political rights, arguing about the right to vote, arguing about access to schools, all the things that we think about what we think about group rights. The idea was that we are not going to prevail using violence of those sorts of questions. On the other hand, selfdefense is this individual response to a threat that occurs within that window of of evidence. It is impossible for the state, even if the state turns out to be not a malevolent state, turns out to be operating motivated by good will, you still have to recognize that there is a place just as a matter of physics for the state cannot respond. And on those sorts of fundamental selfdefense in areas that are really just baseline fundamental, there is this law embrace of the importance of firearms in our selfdefense as a private resource for black vote, and that is the dichotomy that runs really throughout the book. Is this more like a specter that people have flooded back and forth . Im thinking about the case of William Parker or Frederick Douglass, especially the 19th century were the acts of violence were aggressive acts of violence by whites or by the state itself. And so with that selfdefense and Political Violence . Is there a way that we cannot see that as not political . And your point is well taken. Allows me to sharpen the last denture. So the first chapter, i actually titled boundary land. What i am trying to evoke is this notion that there is this area of contested or can testable scenarios where there are people engaged in violent acts that either selfdefense, or if he pushes cannot think about and talk about it you could say, that is really getting to the range of Political Violence. What we see rather than people overtime talking about being of one side or the other, Political Violence versus selfdefense, what easy is the more conservative and cautious members of the Community Talking about selfdefense and talking about arms with the level of restraint that recognizes the possibility that you could very easily have something that started out as an active legitimate selfdefense leak into or filter into or swirl out into a scenario where now you are thinking, this is Political Violence. Now we have armed the movement. We have our request for freedom by striking out in the way it is going to produce this sort of political violent political backlash. It is a tension that runs through the conversation. You see by the time we get to the end of it, as i am sure we will have a chance to talk about , will we get to the end of the movement and see this transition into what i call the modern orthodoxy, one of the impulses that drives the modern orthodoxy is the use of self defense teams by black radicals in some areas that we have to say really are Political Violence. You see this debate and dissension within the community about whether that is a legitimate act of selfdefense are not. Okay. And very interesting. My sense is that you are doing or suggesting that within the tradition, there was this feeling that selfdefense was an easier explanation. It and a moral weight to it. And Legal Protection to it in ways that Political Violence did not. Is that at think thats right. Political violence is essentially revolution. You know, we will upset the game board. You see over and over and over again, roy williams talking about it in the 20thcentury. But you also see the boys talking about it at the turn of the century. Talk about it at the end of the 19th century. And lots of other people that you probably have not heard of expressing it in the same way this idea, you are a 10 percent minority. Youre not going to win a revolution. Youre not going to achieve your goals of inclusion. That does not mean that you give up the right or that there is that elimination of the need for these instances of individual selfdefense. He mentioned qaeda be well. Host of the things that i thought was really interesting in great about your book is that you focused on women. There were women who participated in this tradition. Salicylate and the russell of the women. It was not any sort of purposeful effort. They were there. A bit of background. I have been working on these issues for two decades. Every six months a pick up a new book and think, well, there he is again. There is this thing. Years ago, 15 years ago and thinking is by tradition of arms. A lot of scholarships that starts to sort of a firm listings. Well, wellknown to lots of viewers of the show and hopefully readers of the book. She was one of the foremost anti lynching advocates and the 19th century. She is just this very small, little, a demure woman. Just a firebrand. She goes to live this. She is a newspaper editor. She ends up getting chased out because of some inflammatory things and she had written about lynching. She goes to new york reporters with the thomas fortune working for the new york heat. And she is well known. Even people who are familiar with what i call the black tradition of arms, most people are familiar with her. The winchester rifle deserves a place of honor and every black coat. Well, she was not just off the cuff making these statements. The context was first she has survived an episode of violence which included a lynching. One of her best friends and memphis. She also was commenting on two episodes of averted lynchings, one in kentucky, another in jacksonville, florida. As she was going about her journalistic efforts and making these by todays standards inflammatory statements about firearms unless she was talking about people in the community were doing in response to racist in the other things we know who she has a and one of her several books the talks about the right after the thomas lynch and she went out and bought a pistol and carried it. There are other references that these continuing references to wells advocating armed selfdefense and preparing herself for armed selfdefense. We dont have an actual instance a wells firing a gun. As we move through the history, over and over and over again. People that one would not think of, rosa parks, people you have never heard of. One of my favorite parts or quotes captures the dynamic that you were talking about. That is the Political Violence on one hand and selfdefense and the other. So in response to people who are questioning her about the beatings and abuse. She just had a horrible or early life. She says you just have to love them. But she is talking about is this crucial response to her enemies. And it is exactly what you would think of in terms of the nonviolent movement. She goes on to say, hitting just makes you weak and sick. And then someone has to the second question. How did you survive so many years of abuse and so forth. And without missing a beat she says, altos you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom. The first one of these folks was to draw some dynamite unsupportable right is, again or Something Like that. And it just captures in no way that uc occurring over and over and over again that endemic to were talking about. One, i mentioned just a few, but the book really, as i said, to spills over with women who are just as in days to in this tradition has been. And this seems to me that really it is an illustration of the pragmatism that undergirds the tradition. That is, if the threat arises, it is not a question of waiting for your husband or rouge role is to pick up again engage in nectar selfdefense. If you are by yourself and the threat comes, you will respond in a way that is consistent with what principle would dictate regardless of whether you are a man or woman. It is an interesting reflection of this law dynamic between black men and black women particularly in the south. There is degree of equality year fascinating. So also called stagecoach mary. At one point or another, blackberry. So she starts out in tennessee, most of ohio, eventually finds herself in cascade montana. So she is 6 feet tall, 200 pounds, a dark black woman. Your instinct and she is in cascade been operating in the west, the latter part of the 19th century. Your instinct about the life of someone like that would have in that context is completely different from the reality. She turns out to be just this iconic local hero. That is not to say this season of face instances where she had to pick up again and selfdefense. She actually had to do with a white man. They were working at a place where she was in charge. The fellow says, of the dishes have to take orders from an acre slaved. She is diplomatic first. That didnt work. As the conflict escalates the comes in and sucker punches there. She gets up, dust yourself off, as is go get your gun and mimi behind the bar. So the men are who. The terms of the mission where she was working were all aghast. They go behind the barn, she shoots and then kills as many she goes on, has other sorts of episodes, she becomes famous as a stagecoach driver for wells fargo. And while she has these altercations, she is of lynched. We dont have it is not an episode of violence where blacks of defenders when the battle but lose the war. She becomes a hero tsk. This famous quip the elevating mary field as one of his childhood heroes. Her house burned down in the early 20th century. The whole Community Get together and built her a new house. This is this episode showing that you cannot really stereotypes the experiences that black folk were having. So like much of the book, this is a surprise, and defies many of the expectations that people have about health vote were surviving during various times. During the 19th century we have talked about how the distinction between selfdefense and Political Violence could easily get blurred. But you suggest that moving into the 20th century that distinction becomes clear. So and thinking, can you talk about how they illustrated the distinction . Sure. Youre right to see this, and that dr. Exclusively in the book about the pre slavery time, a lot of data see from Frederick Douglass to let henry barnett, charles rule, from others who were in the vanguard of the early freedom movement, and they were unapologetic about the idea that slavery was a state of war. So you had at that time prior to the civil war a lot of statements suggesting, listen, we just have to fight. There is no reason to be reticent. We dont have any political rights. Were not really operating within the system. After the civil war and certainly during the time of reconstruction where there was some sense that we have a really promising political opportunity, we start to see people backing off a bit set in terms of the rhetoric of Political Violence the still elevating individual selfdefense. But 1876 or reconstruction ends we have another sort of bump in the transformation. Now were and appointed with a concert of individuals of defense becomes much more important because people have lost their political rights. In some sense they have now in 1876 are all that they will get commended is a bleaker legal time. You start to see almost says just a residual mater, lots of references to selfdefense rather than the Political Violence. He moved into the 20th century and there again is this sort of concerned that four things to get better we have got to proceed in a fashion that evokes the tools of the democratic process and maybe the guilds of