The news is recently filled with images of protests triggered by the murders of black teens by white police. However, reports about the similarities between these happenings and the Civil Rights protests 50 years ago are tightly controlled and focused on fantasies of reconciliation without retribution. It’s as if we’re suddenly all supposed to wake up one shiny day and just get along as if all of the oppression and violence and murder never happened.

One way this is accomplished is by narrowing the scope of the Civil Rights movement to a tight focus on Martin Luther King Jr. and his peaceful marching hand-in-hand with wonderful white folks who were part of the solution. I’ve no interest in diminishing King or his accomplishments or the philosophy of non-violence, but why is Malcolm X marginalized by comparison? How come Huey Newton is a footnote? Why have most Americans never heard of Robert Franklin Williams? Here’s the Wiki…

Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author, best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting armed black self-defense in the United States.

Williams helped gain gubernatorial pardons for two African-American boys convicted for molestation in the controversial Kissing Case of 1958. He also succeeded in integrating the public library and the public swimming pool in Monroe. He obtained a charter from the National Rifle Association and set up a rifle club, which became active defending blacks from Ku Klux Klan nightriders. He used the NAACP to support Freedom Riders who came to Monroe in the summer of 1961. That year he and his wife were forced to leave the United States to avoid prosecution for kidnapping, on charges trumped up during violence related to white opposition to the Freedom Ride. The kidnapping charges came after a white couple sought shelter in Williams’ home when they were confronted by black protesters while driving through Monroe’s black community. A self-professed Black Nationalist, Williams lived in both Cuba and The People’s Republic of China during his exile.

Williams’ book Negroes with Guns (1962) details his experience with violent racism and his disagreement with the pacifist wing of the Civil Rights Movement. The text was widely influential; Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton cited it as a major inspiration. Rosa Parks gave the eulogy at Williams’ funeral in 1996, praising him for “his courage and for his commitment to freedom”, and concluding that “The sacrifices he made, and what he did, should go down in history and never be forgotten.”

In this 1961 interview during Williams’ exile in Dar Es Salaam, Williams outlines his philosophy and tells the story of his remarkable life and times.

Petey Greene was a pioneer of shock radio and television who became the voice of his black community in Washington, DC from the 1960′s — the 1980′s. He achieved international fame for his hilarious, outspoken, outrageous rants and interviews and for his tireless activism for civil rights, poverty rights and the rights of prisoners.

Greene was raised by his grandmother and dropped out of high school before enlisting in the army and fighting in the Korean war. Greene found little opportunity when he came home from the war and he gradually drifted into crime and alcoholism. Greene was convicted of the armed robbery of a grocery store in 1960 and sentenced to ten years in penitentiary.

In a sense, going to jail was Greene’s big break: During his incarceration Greene became a prison DJ and vowed to change his life and never be in prison again. Greene became famous throughout the cell blocks for his hilarious broadcasts and he eventually won a parole when he convinced a fellow prisoner to climb to the top of a water tower so Greene could talk him down and “save his life.”

Greene struggled on the outside, but this time he persevered, becoming both a pillar of his community and the broadcast celebrity portrayed in the 2007 film Talk to Me, starring Don Cheadle.

Cheadle narrates this PBS Independent Lens special about the man and his mighty mouth: Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene pictures our hero reveling being as potentially offending as he is positively affecting — keep your eyes peeled for Greene eating a watermelon, Howard Stern in blackface, and a parade of celebrities who built their own careers on Greene’s influence and generosity.

Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene (2008) from GodsConnect2 on Vimeo.

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