Deacons For Defense and Justice FBI Files, Miss. State Files, Court Documents, Oral Histories

Deacons For Defense and Justice FBI Files, Miss. State Files, Court Documents, Oral Histories 

2,637 pages of FBI Files, Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission files, court documents and oral history transcripts covering the Deacons for Defense and Justice (DDJ).

The DDJ was originally made up of black veterans from World War II, who believed in armed self-defense. The Deacons for Defense and Justice was formed in 1964 in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana as an armed self-defense organization of black men to protect local citizens and civil rights workers against the KKK. 

On February 21, 1965, Robert Hicks, Bert Wyre, Fletcher Anderson and Charles Sims and others founded the Bogalusa chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, headquartered in Robert Hicks' home. Eventually there were chapters in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, but the Bogalusa chapter attracted the most national attention for its militancy and repeated clashes with the Ku Klux Klan and local law enforcement.

This collection contains:

FBI Files

1,934 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington D.C., covering the Deacons for Defense and Justice. In 1965 the FBI began investigating the Deacons for Defense and Justice until early 1972, when the organization became inactive. This organization was characterized by the FBI as a black militant vigilante group which was formed in Louisiana in late 1964 for defensive purposes in retaliation for Ku Klux Klan activities.

Charles Sims was the founder of the Bogalusa chapter of Deacons for Defense and Justice. Sims, a World War II veteran, joined the DDJ after local police escorted a Klan march through a black neighborhood in Jonesboro, Louisiana. Based in local churches, the Deacons for Defense and Justice set up armed patrol car systems in cities such as Bogalusa and Jonesboro, Louisiana. The DDJ expanded to 62 chapters throughout the South and a chapter in Chicago.

Files cover racial matters in the south and Chicago. Files document FBI surveillance of attempts of the DDJ to spread. Files included detailed coverage of the violence surrounding the August 1966 visit of Martin Luther King Jr. to Chicago. 

Organizations covered in the files include American Nazi Party, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Coordination Council for Black Power, Nation of Islam, Original Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, Progressive Labor Party, Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), Socialist Workers Party, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), United Klans of America, W.E.B DuBois Clubs of Chicago, Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and Student Committee for Travel to Cuba.

 
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Files

60 pages of Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission documents related to the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was the state's official counter civil rights agency from 1956 to 1977. In 1956 the State of Mississippi created the State Sovereignty Commission to monitor the activities of people who challenged Jim Crow segregation laws and those who attempted to expand the number of African Americans voting in the state.

The commission had 12 appointed members, including the Governor who functioned as commission chairman. The Commission has been accused of using spy tactics, intimidation, false imprisonment, jury tampering and other illegal methods to thwart the activities of civil rights workers during the 1950s, '60s and early '70s. The Commission's files show that investigators made note of the pigmentation, associations, religious beliefs and the personal lives of the individuals that fell under its surveillance. Investigators used informants, many of them black Mississippians. 

The commission officially closed in 1977, four years after then Governor Bill Waller vetoed funding for the agency. The Mississippi legislature passed a law ordering the files of the commission to be sealed for fifty years, until the year 2027. A legal battle immediately followed, and the state was ordered in 1998 to release the commission's documents.


Oral History Interviews  

361 pages of transcripts of oral history interviews conducted by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History of 14 individuals. Each interview contains significant content about the Bogalusa, Louisiana movement and the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

Highlights include:

Hicks family oral history interview in Bogalusa, Louisiana - The Hicks family remembers their childhood in segregated Bogalusa, Louisiana, and their father, Robert Hicks. 

Richard Sobol, a civil rights attorney - He recalls meeting Robert Hicks of Bogalusa, Louisiana, being personally protected by the Deacons of Defense and Justice, and his involvement in many job discrimination cases brought against the Crown Zellerbach paper mill.

Cynthia Baker Anderson and Fletcher Anderson - Cynthia and Fletcher Anderson remember the segregation and job discrimination they faced in Bogalusa, Louisiana. Fletcher recalls working many different jobs at the Crown Zellerbach paper mill, the harassment of the police and Ku Klux Klan, and joining the Deacons of Defense and Justice.


Chambers v. Mississippi Court Documents

Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973) Supreme Court Records and Briefs

272 pages of the Supreme Court Records and Briefs for Chambers v. Mississippi including: Docket Entries, Records from the Circuit Court of Wilkinson County, State of Mississippi, Exhibits, Transcripts of State Trial Proceedings, Proceedings in the Supreme Court of Mississippi and Documentation of Supreme Court Actions.

Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a state may not enforce its rules of evidence, such as rules excluding hearsay, in a fashion that disallows a criminal defendant from presenting reliable exculpatory evidence and thus denies the defendant a fair trial.

Leon Chambers, of Woodville, Mississippi, was charged by the State of Mississippi with murdering a black police officer Aaron Liberty by shooting him. Chambers had been the first black police officer in Woodville before being fired. The shooting of Officer Liberty took place during a period of racial unrest in Woodville, during which African American residents were boycotting white-owned establishments to press demands for desegregation and increased services to black neighborhoods. During the boycotts, there had been a series of confrontations between members of the Deacons for Defense and the Woodville police force.

Chambers pleaded not guilty and insisted throughout the proceedings that he was not the shooter. Prior to the trial, another Woodville man, Gable McDonald, a member of the Deacons, told at least three people that he, not Chambers, had shot Liberty and gave a sworn confession. However, at a preliminary hearing in the case, McDonald disavowed his confession.

The court favored Chambers 8-1. The dissenting opinion was given by Justice William H. Rehnquist. In his view, the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction over Chambers' constitutional claims because he had not raised them at trial. Rehnquist also expressed his skepticism about what he characterized as "the Court's further constitutionalization of the intricacies of the common law of evidence."


Audio - Supreme Court Proceedings Chambers v. Mississippi

50-minute audio recording of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973) Supreme Court Oral Arguments Nov 15, 1972