Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power by Timothy B. Tyson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The more I read about North Carolina’s extremely racist history, the more shocked I am (I grew up in North Carolina), the more appalled I am, and the more the burn of injustice and just plain moral wrong wells up inside me.
On the other hand, my appreciation for my parents as quintessential leaders grows more profound and deep (my dad was a North Carolina native, who was born and raised in Burlington, while my mom grew up in Greenville, SC) because they taught me, and modeled without exception as an example for me, to treat everyone with dignity, honor, and respect, no matter who they were, what their skin tone was, where they lived, how much or how little they had, and what they did to earn a living.
The story of Robert Williams, who was maligned by just about everyone on all sides, including the NAACP, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Panther party, and, until this book by Timothy Tyson, misrepresented and mischaracterized as something he was not (he was a smart man, a measured man, and actually avoided the polarized positions that seemed to be the norm, but he made mistakes and they, sadly, were what became his codified legacy) spotlights the depth of racism in North Carolina as it existed (and, I suspect, still does and probably has been given the green light to come out of hiding with the resurgence of extreme white nationalism throughout the country since President Trump’s election in 2016) in the 20th Century.
Monroe, NC, Williams’ birthplace, is at the center of much of Williams’ story. Monroe is a suburb of Charlotte, and the birthplace of Jesse Helms (NC senator who was a dyed-in-the-wool racist) and his father, a Monroe police officer who terrorized and severely beat African-American citizens just for fun.
Monroe was a hotbed for Klan activity and racial tensions there boiled over frequently throughout the last century. Williams fought fire with fire, with the aim for the African-American citizens of Monroe to be able to defend their families and their homes from attacks by the Klan and other white nationalist factions that found a welcome mat for their vitriolic rhetoric and their harassment and, often, murder of African Americans.
Williams ended up spending a little more than a decade as an expatriated American because of a trumped up kidnapping charge in which he was not guilty of the crime.
The charges against him were dropped by North Carolina in 1976, allowing him to return to the United States, but he never again lived in Monroe, instead spending the last twenty-two years of his life in rural Michigan out of the spotlight.
This is a piece of history that none of us can afford to be ignorant about, especially those of us who have chosen to pursue the path of quintessential leadership.
Racism, discrimination, and hate are the antithesis of quintessential leadership and being quintessential leaders. It is that simple.
I highly recommend this book.
The Quintessential Leader 