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Home » Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence by Kellie Carter Jackson

Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence by Kellie Carter Jackson

by Tony Grist
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For the first Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club session of 2025, we are reading We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance by Kellie Carter Jackson. Learn more and register for the Zoom Webinar-based book club here.

Jackson is a historian in the Africana Studies Department at Wellesley College and previously published a related book, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence.

As background for our discussion of We Refuse, the following are my reading notes/synopsis of Force and Freedom.

I have long been familiar with Frederick Douglass’ observation in his 1957 “West India Emancipation” address, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters. The struggle may be a moral one or it may be a physical one, or it may both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.”

Force and Freedom puts this idea in the context of the shift in 19th-century abolitionist thinking from nonviolent moral suasion to an embrace of violence as the only way to true freedom from slavery.

Black physician and abolitionist James McCune Smith declared in 1956, “Our white brethren cannot understand us unless we speak to them in their own language; they recognize only the philosophy of force” (p. 2).

In contrast to those who “lament that nothing good can come from political violence” (p. 2), in this book, Jackson seeks to “draw attention to the immense importance of violence to imagining emancipation and, in turn, freedom into being” (p. 3).

The philosophy of violence, according to Jackson, “In the quest for freedom, violence becomes a necessary liberating force when it is the only remaining option.” It is an “ideology of last resorts” (p. 4). Political violence is “forceful or deadly acts that operate around a political agenda or motivation to produce change” (p. 4).

Violence is, of course, a two-edged sword. As the colonial and revolutionary era of U.S. history taught, violence is “both a rhetorical and physical weapon to maintain the status quo, as well as a means to overthrow it.” Drawing on Patrick Henry’s famous declaration to “give me liberty or give me death,” black abolitionists came to understand that “freedom denied should be taken by force” (p. 4). Hence, the book’s title.

Black abolitionists who came to increasingly embrace the necessity of violence to secure their freedom were inspired by the example of the overthrow of slavery in the Haitian Revolution. “For the enslaved and black leadership, violence as a political language meant that Haiti was more than a noun; it was a verb” (p. 5).

When it emerged in the 1830s, the abolitionist movement held that “moral suasion coupled with nonviolent resistance was the best and surest way to abolish slavery.” For white abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, “efforts outside nonresistance were shunned, even in self-defense” (p. 6). But, as Jackson pointedly puts it, “If nonviolent resistance and moral suasion constructed the house that Garrison built, black Americans were merely renters” (p. 7).

Put simply, black abolitionists were forced to use force because “moral suasion failed to protect black people and produce liberation” (p. 7). As the white-led nonviolent abolitionist movement developed in the 1930s and 1940s, slavery expanded in the U.S. The 1950s became a turning point. The entire decade overflowed with attempts to deprive black Americans of their human, civil, and legal rights, but also notably included the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1954, and the 1957 Dred Scott decision.

Over five chapters, Jackson elaborates on this fundamental argument. I can’t capture all of the interesting historical details here. But in brief:

Chapter 1. Forcing Freedom: The Limits of Moral Suasion

In this chapter, we read the stories of key individuals who embodied the broader shift from nonviolent moral suasion to the philosophy of violence. Some are well known, and others are less so: Denmark Vesey, David Walker, Highland Garnet, Nat Turner, Joseph C. Holly, Elijah Lovejoy, Frederick Douglass, John, Brown, Sojourner Truth. Jackson concludes the chapter by turning the question of violence around: “Historically perhaps the question of the 1830s and ‘40s should have been: Why nonviolence? Why moral suasion?” If either of these had been effective, slavery and other forms of racial inequality would have shrunk rather than expanded during these decades (p. 46). In the end, the lesson was, “Freedoms give would always play second fiddle to freedoms won . . . If black abolitionists were going to produce real change, they had to embrace political protest and collective political violence. Essentially, they had to force freedom” (p. 47).

Chapter 2. Fight, Flight, and Fugitives: The Fugitive Slave Law and Violence

A slight modification of the subtitle to this chapter summarizes the argument: The Fugitive Slave Law makes violence necessary (p. 49). Its passage “was the final turning point in a failed campaign for moral suasion” (p. 52).

The chapter also provides a helpful reminder that Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution states, “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due” (see also Jackson, p. 50).

In place of moral suasion arose an emphasis on militancy. William Parker, for example, founded the Lancaster Black Preservation Society (p. 54). His home in Christiana became the site of violent collective resistance to a Maryland slaveholder, Edward Gorsuch, and others in search of his slaves. Later, Parker gave the revolver Gorsuch held when he died to Frederick Douglass as “a token of gratitude and a memento of the battle for Liberty and Christiana” (p. 57). As Jackson quotes another historian, “the soil of the Civil War was fertilized with Gorsuch’s blood” (p. 58).

The case was critical but not unique. “There remain countless stories of black men and women and their allies employing the use of axes, pistols, rifles, and the like to combat slave catchers in the region” (p. 60).

The Fugitive Slave Law forced Douglass to abandon the nonviolent abolition camp. In 1850, he “declared that life and liberty were the most sacred of all human rights and that nothing could be more important than self-defense” (p. 69).

Ultimately, “Violence would be the new political tool for the oppressed, the new method of casting a ballot for progress” (p. 79).

Chapter 3. From Prayers to Pistols: The Struggle for Progress

The chapter centers on the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which established the two territories and allowed each to decide whether they would be free or slaveholding states (p. 81). The Act violated the Missouri Compromise, which stated that no new territory north of latitude 36-30 could be slaveholding (p. 83). Jackson observes that the Kansas-Nebraska Act “solidified two major parties as oppositional foes: the Democratic South and the Republican North” (p. 85). But from the perspective of black abolitionists like Frederick Douglas, “Opposing slavery and hating its victims has become a very common form of abolitionism.” White supremacy was the Republican way as much as the Democratic at the time (p. 85).

Much of the evolution to violence centered on “Bleeding Kanas” (p. 81).  Famous white abolitionists like John Brown and Henry Ward Beecher (of “Beecher Bibles” fame) enter the story here supplanting the moribund Garrisonian nonresistance wing of the movement (p. 96). But Jackson’s story centers more on the development of black military companies, which “represented resistance, self-determination, self-defense, collective defense, and pride” (p. 99) and responses to developments in the decade that led to the conclusion that “immediate abolition was the only option and violence was the surest accelerator” (p. 105).

Chapter 4. Black Leadership: The Silenced Partners of Harpers Ferry

This chapter centers on the famous story of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 but broadens the story to include those often written out of the legend. Among the “silenced partners” are the Haitian Revolution and Nat Turner’s rebellion, which provided inspiration (p. 108). In addition, silenced partners in this history include black women like Harriet Tubman, Mary Ellen Pleasant, and Anna Murray Douglass, who supplied inspiration, support, and resources for his actions.

In contrast to those who elevate Brown, Jackson’s account concludes, “More accurate is the notion that Brown himself was but a foot soldier in the long movement toward black freedom” (p. 134).

Chapter 5. A Carbonari Wanted: Violence, Emigration, and the Eve of the Civil War

A day after South Carolina’s attack on Fort Sumpter on April 12, 1961, traditionally marking the beginning of the Civil War, a Weekly Anglo-African newspaper headline read, “A CARBONARI WANTED.” Jackson informs us that The Carbonari were a secret society founded in the early 19th century to violently overthrow the authoritarian government of Italy (p. 135). Reporting on the arrest of a black family as fugitive slaves, George Lawrence called for men who would respond to the event as The Carbonari would: with violence against tyranny (pp. 135-36). At this point, the violence was on. However, as Jackson shows, it has been incubating for decades.

A key moment Jackson highlights in this final chapter is the mobbing at Tremont Temple. In December 1960, black and white abolitionists were scheduled to commemorate John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. White Bostonians who objected to Brown’s philosophy of violence sought to silence the event (p. 145). Eventually, fighting erupted between the two sides and the event was shut down. Or so it seemed. It was actually moved to J. Sella Martin’s Joy Street Church that same evening.

Among the speakers was John Brown Jr., who implored his audience that their “watchword should not be, ‘Give me liberty or give me death,’ but ‘Give me liberty, or I will give you death’” (p. 147). Another speaker, white abolitionist Wendell Phillips, continued, “John Brown, Jr. has advised colored men to arm themselves with revolvers,” and added, “This meeting was a revolver.” At the meeting, Frederick Douglass affirmed that nonviolence and moral suasion had failed and that political violence was the order of the day. “I mean the John Brown way” (p. 148).

Of course, this veneration of John Brown made sense in the context of the event, but Jackson is more concerned with the role that blacks played in their own liberation. Jackson argues that if “a riot is the language of the unheard,” then “black abolitionists have changed our understanding of violence to see that a revolution is the language of the empowered” (p. 156).

Significantly, Jackson concludes that “the topic of violence and its utility is too quickly dismissed, lumped in with fanaticism, or monopolized by Southern antics and terrorism” (p. 157). Indeed, “Today many white Americans romanticize the Civil War era and even the Civil Rights movement, for its leaders’ radical ideas regarding nonviolence. However, until America reckons with the disturbing fact that freedom for black Americans has been largely achieved through violence, these invaluable lessons will remain largely untaught and wholly unlearned. Because of white supremacy, black Americans always knew freedom would require force. At the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, slavery was abolished. The shots fired at Fort Sumpter on April 11, 1961, were not only the first shots of the Civil War, they were also shots that pierced the hopes of any American leader who still hoped for nonviolent reform” (p. 159).

Epilogue

Jackson’s short Epilogue brings home the centrality of violence to black freedom in America. Faced with violence, “more black Americans than commonly believed sought to protect themselves and their community without apology” (p. 160). For many, “self-defense was godly, and guns were held in honor” (p. 161).

This includes black women like Ida B. Wells, who famously said, “A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give” (Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases). And Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee field secretary Cynthia Washington, who carried a handgun in her handbag to avoid the fate of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (p. 160).

In addition to writing violence back into the story of black liberation in the U.S., throughout the book Jackson also seeks to write women back into the story, especially the willingness of black women to engage in violence. I have not yet read We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, but the image of a black woman holding a rifle on the cover suggests that this theme may receive still more attention in Jackson’s new book.

I also expect the new book to pick up where this one ends: “In short, black Americans have always had to force their own freedoms, and forcing freedom is what they will continue to do until white resistance to black humanity has at long last come to an end” (p. 163).

I’m looking forward to finding out.

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