In the United States, Martin Luther King Jr. reigns over the collective imagination, a prince of peace immortalizing nonviolent resistance as the only effective means to effect political change. Black Americans, in particular, are chastised if they stray from this nostalgic reinvention of King, the nationally admired so-called good protester who rejected all forms of political violence and succeeded in ending racism by the power of Christian faith and love alone.
But it is also true that the Sons of Liberty in Revolutionary Boston are revered for fomenting armed revolt. It is conveniently forgotten that President James Madison advocated for a free militia to stand up to state tyranny. Crispus Attucks, a Black man, was the first to die in a rock-throwing mob facing down British soldiers. Calls for Black violent resistance grow from an intrinsically American brand of patriotic insurrection that needs to be recognized for its moral and political validity.
