Radio free Dixie is a book written by Timothy Tyson that is about the life of of African American activist Robert F. Williams. The book depicts African Americans' daily lives during World War II, encouraging their awareness of the event and its importance, the struggles of the Black power movement, and the improvement in racial accommodation following the unsettling 1960s. Williams promoted the use of force as a form of self-defense, which was in direct opposition to Martin Luther King's appeal for compassion. Segregation, Williams' concern with violence against African Americans, particularly women, a lack of democracy, and the use of violence for self-defense are the main topics covered in the novel. Williams believed that the only way they would get the white people to respect and acknowledge African Americans was by them defending themselves through violence. One of the topics I found appealing was Williams' reference to his country as a prison. According to him, he does not understand how he gets to fight in the war and struggle for his country's democracy yet the army and his state are full of racism. He actually compares his home as a prison and says African Americans are born in prison.
The other issue that I find appealing is how Williams explains segregation and how it affects them both locals and war veterans. Tyson writes of how Williams remembers a scenario from when he was eleven of a black woman beaten and dragged off to be raped as white people watched and laughed. Williams says he prefers to be in prison than be an African American in his country the way the white people wanted. The manner the book describes the level of segregation is both scary and helps one understand Williams's point of view.
When Williams compares his birthplace to a prison, one is able to learn of how bad the racism was. One can only imagine the extent to which African Americans faced problems and racism so that Williams would prefer being in an actual prison than to be at home. We also see white people's feeling that just because African Americans participate in the war, they should not be considered as equals to them. This shows that regardless of these people, the black ones, giving up their lives for their country, they are still not considered human enough for recognition and also get respect from fellow army men.
We see also that despite America trying to show that it had the moral compass to provide democracy for all, white supremacists in the south still showed racism and Williams vowed to act on it. He organizes black veterans against the Ku Klux Klan. He defends his advocacy for armed self-reliance saying that like rattlesnakes, if one has no conscience then appealing to their humanity and using the law, would not work as they are immune to those feelings. He quips that southern supremacists could not be appealed to by reaching out to their conscience he, Williams sees the use of guns and violence as self-defense and a means to an end, as he sees protection by law does not work in the south.
In summary, the book addresses issues faced by African Americans to length. It shows the extent to which they were segregated and the many problems that they faced. The main shortcoming I found with the book is that it, in a way, glorifies the actions of violence that Williams advocated for. I also find that the book does not show how black life changes after Williams' era of change. It only focuses on life in the 40's to the 60's. The work shows that, despite taking different routes, both Williams and other African American power advocates have the same goal and that is independence for the black people, and they, in the end, achieve it.
