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Robert F. Williams

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The Resume

    (February 26, 1925-October 15, 1996)
    Born in Monroe, North Carolina
    Robert Franklin Williams, Sr
    Author of 'Negroes with Guns' (1962)
    President of the Monroe, NC chapter of the NAACP (1956-1961)
    Advocated the controversial method of armed self-defense for the black community
    Lived in self-imposed exile in Cuba and later the People's Republic of China (1962-69)
    Broadcast from 'Radio Free Dixie' (1961-1965)
    Tried for unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution for kidnapping, along with his wife; later exonerated (1974)
    Later became a Research Associate at The Institute For Chinese Studies with the University Of Michigan
    Other works included 'USA: The Potential of a Minority Revolution,' 'Listen Brother!' 'Self-Respect, Self-Defense and Self-Determination,' and 'While God Lay Sleeping: The Autobiography of Robert F. Williams'

Why he might be annoying:

    He was a communist sympathizer.
    He influenced Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael.
    'Negroes With Guns' became a treatise within the burgeoning Black Panther movement.
    He received a dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Marine Corps.
    He was suspended by the NAACP, in 1961, for advocating violence.
    He was placed on the FBI Watch List after being accused of kidnapping a white couple, causing him to flee with his family to Cuba.
    He departed his haven in Cuba for China, on a 'personal invitation' from Mao Zedong and Zhou Youguang.
    He identified as 'president-in-exile' of something called the 'Republic of New Africa.'
    He made public appearances in Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh, for whom he shot several propaganda reels.
    He maintained that he had been 'set up' on the kidnapping charge, but it would never be settled. The Nixon administration offered him a pardon in exchange for information leading up to his diplomatic visit to China (he accepted).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was a card-carrying member of the NRA.
    His belief in armed resistance came from his grandmother, who gifted him with his grandfather's rifle on her deathbed.
    Rosa Parks delivered his Eulogy at his Detroit memorial service.
    He led a successful movement in integrating his local public library and public pool.
    He first attained national recognition securing a state pardon for two young black males falsely accused of rape (later known as the 'Kissing Case,' of 1958).
    When he took leadership of his local NAACP chapter, it was on the verge of shutting down (on his watch, it shot up from 6 members to 200).
    He helped form the Black Guard, an armed group committed to the protection of the local black population from the Ku Klux Klan..
    He taught physical/firearm training to members, with the aim of helping them to defend their homes should their calls to law enforcement went unanswered.
    The white couple he 'kidnapped' had been seeking shelter during a race riot provoked in response to a 'Freedom Rider' protest.
    His relationship with his wife was a 'marriage of equals.' She acted as his intellectual and professional partner for close to fifty years.
    J. Edgar Hoover feared he stood to inherit the base of support left in the vacuum created by MLK's and Malcolm X's assassinations, in the 1960s.
    Documents later showed that the FBI saw him as a 20th-century version of John Brown (although Nat Turner is the comparison Williams' would probably prefer).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 40 Votes: 17.50% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 1914 Votes: 47.70% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 109 Votes: 57.80% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 53 Votes: 47.17% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 220 Votes: 48.18% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 24 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 434 Votes: 66.13% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 122 Votes: 72.95% Annoying