Robert Franklin Williams (1925-1996) organized armed resistance to white supremacy efforts in the American South. He debated the merits of nonviolence with Martin Luther King Jr in 1959. FBI persecution eventually forced Williams to flee the US to Cuba, where he regularly made radio addresses to Southern blacks on "Radio Free Dixie," a station he established with assistance from Castro.
Robert F. Williams first entered the national civil rights struggle as the president and organizer of the Monroe chapter of the NAACP in North Carolina. He became internationally known for to his defense of two young black boys accused of kissing a white girl in Monroe in 1958, which made headlines across the world. This controversy was known as the kissing case .
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Further reading
- Elson, Truman. People With Strength. The Story of Monroe, N.C. 37p. N.Y. Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants, n.d. (1962 or 1963?). Illustrated wraps. With hand drawn map.
- Tyson, Timothy B. Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power. 416 pages. University of North Carolina Press (February 1, 2001). ISBN 0807849235.
