Rev. Samuel Mosteller, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) leader who, in response to recent police shootings of African-Americans, said “I am going to have to advocate, at this point, that all African-Americans advocate their 2nd Amendment rights,” has been suspended from his position, reports 11 Alive . . .
Within 24 hours, he was relieved of his leadership position. In a letter, National SCLC president Dr. Charles Steele, Jr. explained his decision.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded and maintains it’s position against violence of ANY type. We are founded on the bedrock of non-violence and we encourage those principles as we seek social justice and social change in American society and around the world.
Although our organization does concur that the justice system in America has too often failed communities of color, particularly Black youth, in reviewing the comments made by the Rev. Mosteller on Wednesday, March 31, we have found that his comments do not represent, nor reflect the principles and position of this organization.
Rev. Mosteller agreed to three repercussions: 1) indefinite suspension as State President, effective immediately, 2) participation in an internal investigation, and 3) undergo internal training program.
AWR Hawkins at Breitbart News sums it up:
In other words, Mosteller has to be re-educated.
The SCLC, founded by Martin Luther King in 1957, was often criticized in the 1960s by younger activists who criticized its lack of militancy at a time when African Americans were literally being kidnapped and murdered for daring to exercise their basic civil rights. Now some civil rights advocacy seems to make the SCLC a little, well, gun-shy. The organization would do well to remember its own history. As Nicholas Johnson wrote in his 2014 book, Negroes and the Gun,
[The] black tradition of arms takes root early and ranges fully into the modern era. It is demonstrated in Frederick Douglass’s advice of a good revolver as the best response to slave catchers. It is evident in mature form in “1963, when Hartman Turnbow of Mississippi fought off a Klan attack with rifle fire. Turnbow considered this fully consistent with the principles of the freedom movement, explaining, “I wasn’t being non-nonviolent, I was just protectin’ my family.”
The black tradition of arms has been submerged because it seems hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence in the modern civil-rights movement. But that superficial tension is resolved by the long-standing distinction that was vividly evoked by movement stalwart Fannie Lou Hamer. Hamer’s approach to segregationists who dominated Mississippi politics was, “Baby you just got to love ’em. Hating just makes you sick and weak.” But, asked how she survived the threats from midnight terrorists, Hamer responded, “I’ll tell you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch won’t write his mama again.”
(H/T: ccchaz).
“I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch won’t write his mama again.”
Oh, that is DEFINITELY the winner! I can’t stop chuckling.
Words of wisdom all should live by. Its a good quote of the day.
The NAACP and the KKK agree on one thing: Keep all blacks disarmed.
No. John O is correct. Most civil rights black groups and other liberal progressive regressive groups are very anti-gun as well as most white supremacy groups are dedicated to disarming blacks. The black legal pro-gun community gets blasted from both sides.
Truth.
Sadly the NAACP and the KKK have more in common. both in politics and tactics, than most people care to admit.
They both like to keep blacks on the plantation in more ways than one.
To understand his rapid suspension, we have to discuss some inner-city politics.
Don your MOPP gear troops, cause this is gonna get nasty.
Inner city black reverends frequently use their churches for political rallies. The type where Democrat politicians “visit” on a random Sunday and discuss how democrat party platform ideas can help the ‘black community’ -in the name of faith, of course.
So the Democrats get a nice voting block , and in exchange the Reverends get political juice whenever a church project needs public financial “support” .
Its a well oiled machine, but it only runs so long as the Church and Politicians remain friends. That won’t happen if you have ministers running their mouths about the goodness of the RKBA. The money train’s gotta keep going at all costs, including the truth.
Its sad to say, but the modern day black advocacy community has more in common with the Sicilian Mob then what MLK Jr. intended.
That’s certainly eye opening. And yet the democrats are the ones always screaming about how the GOP crosses the lines of separation of church and state. It’s seems as if the democratic party hasn’t really changed much from it’s roots, it just has a pretty face now. I always love when liberals tote that myth that the parties somehow “flipped” in the 60s, or flipped because of “Nixon”, or because of the CRA. It’s the biggest myth taught in liberal colleges.
There was a flip — the loudmouthed bigots went to the GOP. The slimy, quiet, manipulative, systematic, patronizing bigots stayed put.
A win-win for the latter.
If true it means community leaders have no vested interest in improvement. On cannot continue to stare at crime reports and hope for a different outcome. Every measure falls short except for lawful self protection. To deny the one tool its use of restrict it’s use to the point of bring a rock is to sanction criminal behavior.
My sense is that as the civil rights movement became more and more the province of urban blacks and urban white elites, the notion of a gun for self protection was dropped in favor of the position that only criminals have guns. And the simultaneous Black Panther revolutionary rhetoric only furthered the interests of the disarmament group. And then what the other poster said about the deal that was struck with the urban Democratic machines.
The good and decent people of black communities, especially those who have not the economic means to escape high-crime areas in the inner cities, certainly have a real and present need to be armed. But not because “You stand there, [police] shoot. You run, they shoot.”.
Right solution to the wrong “problem”.
According to FBI crime ststs, better than the majority, (in the eighties to nineties percentile range( of blacks are assaulted, robbed, raped and murdererd by other blacks.
Blacks getting killed by cops is in the single digits.
Unjustified killing of blacks by cops?, well, so far. The instances as pushed have looked to be justified.
A lot of people don’t understand the root of the black fear of cops. And the reason for the modern gang bangers. Even most of the gang bangers don’t understand their roots.
Back in the 60’s and earlier, cops refused to go into poor black neighborhoods. They would only go in to do a “crime sweep” in which they would just round up a few blacks to parade to the cameras. Take a few pictures. Book them under crimes they may or may not have committed, and call it good. Crime was still there, but the newspapers sucked up the news that they were cleaning up the neighborhoods… The gangs started out with good intentions. They started policing themselves as a sort of neighborhood watch so the cops wouldn’t have to come in and do those sweeps. Initially it helped as crime rates which were astronomical plummeted due to the armed patrols. The problems started several years later when the gangs started touching other gang’s “territory” and it became standard practice that you could rob rape steal from another territory but not your own. Then they simply dropped the pretenses, and just started committing crimes in their own territories, as long as you weren’t from the rival it was okay… No, it’s not all right, but that’s how what started out as a good thing became what it is now. (told to me by an OG 8 Trey)
Fast forward to today, and the black heroes in those neighborhoods are folks who were and or are gang members. So it’s understandable that they would distrust them.
its like a “mini” militarized police experiment. Self policing is great, but if one side gets all the power and arms, those that don’t have to take what they are given. Including the lumps.
“In other words, Mosteller has to be re-educated.”
Ain’t that the truth. I guess they’ll send him to the nearest liberal controlled university and give him the full treatment.
Well, the professional-victims industry could hardly put up with a reduction in the number of “victims”, could it?
Maybe I’m reading this story wrong but I have conflicting thoughts. If the Pastor is advocating “defending your family” in the realm of justified self defense, then it’s horrible how he was treated and asked to step down.
However, if he’s promoting tooling up in a response to Police shootings of unarmed blacks, then one can almost read that he may be supporting something that may go beyond “defending one’s self in self defense”.
“…We’re going to have to do something in our community to let the rest of America know that we are not going to be victimized by just anybody….. “Whether it be police or folks that decide that, ‘Oh, black people are thugs and we need to control that black community…”
Yeah, like I wrote a few posts up – the right solution to the wrong “problem”.
Seems TTAG skipped over the part of this man’s original statement where he basically advocated shooting cops.
“I am going to advocate at this point that all African Americans advocate their Second Amendment rights. You stand there, [police] shoot. You run, they shoot. We’re going to have a take a different tack in order to send a message to the majority community that we are not to be victims.”
Maybe your criminals wouldn’t be “victims” of police shootings if they would, you know, not commit crimes.
Given that statistics show that blacks who don’t commit any crimes are still overwhelmingly more likely to be targeted by police (including many cases, some highly publicized, of cops basically assuming that anything any black male might be holding or pulling out of a pocket is a gun by default, and shooting to kill), they still would.
Yes, because blacks commit the majority of murders and a disproportionate number of violent crimes. The police act from experience—and if blacks are more likely to be violent, police will treat all blacks as if they’re violent.
My nephew is always asking more about the topics discussed in his US history class. Turns out there is a civilian gun angle to just about every event covered, and the curriculum is tortured to avoid discussion of it at any cost. He is now well aware of the true roots of gun control, and the blatant indecency of using racism as a cudgel to push for it. However, now that he knows this, I’ve had to give him our version of “the talk”; don’t bring it up in public, or you will be called a racist, and discriminated against.
And isn’t it interesting that the leader missing from this discussion is El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) whose philosophy was at the same time simple, clear but complex—-“By any means necessary. “
Please school me on how talking about 2A is and lawful self defense is “racist”?
Blonde haired, blue eyed boy raises his hand;
“Mrs. Byrd, my uncle told me that the second amendment was meant to guarantee the right of armed self defense against a tyrannical government. Is that true?”
She doesn’t even have to answer, the whole class is now looking sideways at him like he’s dylan kliebold.
“the justice system in America has too often failed communities of color, particularly Black youth,”
What a crock of crap. Their own communities are the ones that fail them, it’s their fault the kids are even involved in the negative parts of the DoJ anyway. Teach your kids to not rob gas stations, maybe they’ll grow up to be worth something instead of an occupant of a jail cell or a grave.
Here’s the one that needs re-educated!
I lived in St. Louis, in the “wrong” part of town. If a white guy was walking along a street after dark, cops would pull over and ask if there was any way they could help, because it wasn’t “safe” after dark for whites. If a black guy was walking along the same street after dark, cops would pull up with lights flashing and act on “guilty until proven innocent” lines.
Frak,I was walking one night with a black friend and cops pulled over and wanted to know if I was all right, if “this ni**er was harassing me! Despite my assurances, they insisted on frisking him.
Just about every place I’ve lived, cops let white guys get away with things they’ll arrest a black for, from streaking to having a pot pipe to having a pair of .357 rounds in a pocket. The only change I’ve observed is that cops are now starting to treat whites the same as they’ve always treated blacks — and they treat blacks even worse.
Over the past many years in business, my most faithful worker, supervisors, and foremen were black and brown. Almost all lived/live in the inner-city. All are well armed in their homes and in their trucks and cars and on their persons. None belong to the NCAA, SCLC, or any such similar organization.
Slammed for speaking out of the sclc’s terms pathetic in my view.
Democrat party hacks are pissed off because he is trying to escape their leftist plantation.
Re-education COMRADE…maybe ya’ll have to look for a new gig?
What a disingenuous headline. He was not suspended for encouraging that blacks exercise their second-amendment rights; rather, he was suspended for implying that blacks *shoot police officers*. Keep the context of his comments in mind. He was protesting the police shooting of two black criminals, while referencing the police shooting of other black criminals.
His comments had absolutely nothing to do with law-abiding black people availing themselves of their second amendment-protected rights.
I don’t see any where in the pastor’s statement that called for preemptive violence, he said that they exercise their Second amendment rights and stop being victims of the police. There is a huge problem of unlawful arrest and police abuse and until the police are met with deadly force when they abuse people their behavior won’t change
Please research the two men who’s deaths provide the context in which he’s speaking: Anthony Hill and Nicholas Thomas.
Hill:
http://m.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/dekalb-officer-involved-shooting/nkRY6/
Thomas:
http://www.cbs46.com/story/28611922/details-emerge-in-deadly-cobb-county-police-shooting
These are the deaths he’s protesting. These are the people he’s advocating take up arms against the police.
I am not saying he is right about the cases in question, he clearly isn’t, but the problem of police abuse is still a very real problem and one that isn’t unique to blacks, Kelly Thomas isn’t any less of a victim because he was white, so yes all Americans should take up arms so they don’t become victims. It doesn’t matter wether the criminal assaulting you wears a badge or not, every one has the right to defend themselves and I fail to see how saying that even if based on factually incorrect information is equivalent of saying people should go out and preemptively shoot cops.
This just goes to show they are liberal’s first.
They say that blacks aren’t being oppressed anymore.
But one of us speaks up and look at what happens.
Taken down from the inside. Business as usual.
Chip has it right. This is a misleading headline atop misleading commentary.
The Good Reverend’s comment wasn’t just in favor of the Second Amendment — he called for black people to start preemptively shooting the police.
The idea that any movement to secure or restore rights could be both non-violent and successful, it utterly stupid.
This is the very intent and reason for mixing the two incompatible notions; to assure that no such movement can ever succeed.
Rights are chipped away slowly, they are taken back in bloody chunks. It’s an ugly truth, but still the truth. If you’re not willing to kill your oppressors, you lose in advance. Denial won’t fix it.
I guess the Southern Christian Leadership Conference never heard of the Deacons for Defense who actually function as a Black Militia that had to guard Martin Luther King Jr while he tour through the South.
And when he returned back to the North, the Deacons had to stay active because the terrorisms agains the Blacks did not go away when the Reverend left.
It was the Deacons that guarded the churches and the marches.
And it was the NRA that helped arm the Deacons.
Funny the didn’t show any of that in the recent movie Selma.
Kind of left those details out.
The Reverends little show of Non-Violence protesting was just window dressing for what was really going on.
I am a white guy and I fully support the Reverend Mostellers decision to tell Black people to arm themselves but only for defense. Not out of provocation.
I support Black people’s God-given right to self defense and I have taught a few how to handle a gun who have never even touched a gun.
Black people of Gods’ children just like me and they have a right not to be threatened or intimidated by anyone.
http://www.amazon.com/Deacons-Defense-Resistance-Rights-Movement/dp/0807857025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428201324&sr=8-1&keywords=deacons+for+defense
Excellent book about the armed resistance by blacks during the civil right movement. Something that all major black leaders try to downplay today.
“social justice and social change in American society” And an proactive program of internal purges.
So Stalinists.
I don’t have any problem with non-violence. And if that’s what this organization wants to promote, that’s fine with me. I admire that. It would be difficult for me to do the same.
From a practical standpoint, I can see how it could be a strategic decision for a movement such as this to avoid any armed resistance. Blacks in America are never given the benefit of the doubt and a young black man shooting a cop in self defense could easily be received wrongly.
As long as they don’t try to promote legislation to restrict 2A rights (which I bet they have, but oh well), they can hold whatever view they like.
I am curious how no one mentions the so called ‘hip hop/gangster’ music in discussion like this. They glorify disrespect of women and violence. These seem to be the only adult male influence in some folks lives. The youngsters want to emulate what they see.
How about these religious preachers go back to the basics about respect yourself and other instead of blaming others for their issues?
Just my two cents anyway.
Gangsta “music” is a propaganda arm of the filthy rich bigot: it glorifies whatever it takes to get your own wealth, whether it’s violence against women or cops or gays or a “bro” who wronged you. It’s very Nazi.