Page "Deacons for Defense and Justice" Paragraph 17

The history of the Civil Rights Movement focuses little on organizations such as the Deacons for a number of reasons.

First, the dominant ideology of the Movement was one of practicing non-violence and this overarching view has been the accepted way to characterize the Civil Rights Movement.

Second, threats to the lives of Deacons ' members required that secrecy be maintained to avoid terrorist attacks on their supporters, and they recruited mature and male members, in contrast to other more informal self-defense efforts in which women and teenagers also played a role.

Finally, with the shift to Northern Black plight and the idea of Black Power emerging in major cities across America, the Deacons became yesterday's news and organizations such as The Black Panther Party gained notoriety and became the publicized militant Black organization.