Violence Isn’t the Answer — Or Is It?

With Professor Kellie Carter Jackson

In We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, and in conversation, Professor Kellie Carter Jackson highlights stories of Black refusal. Sometimes, refusal takes the form of violent resistance. Other times, it’s an impromptu electric slide in the middle of a protest. Either way, Professor Carter Jackson moves us away “from the rightness or wrongness of nonviolence and violence” and instead focuses on what has most effectively stifled white supremacy.

Professor Carter Jackson is the Michael and Denise ‘68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies and the Chair of the Africana Studies Department at Wellesley College. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Boston Globe, CNN, and a host of other outlets. She’s previously been featured in numerous documentaries and appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, MSNBC, Democracy Now, the BBC, and last but not least, Skipped History.

A condensed transcript of our latest conversation, edited for clarity, is below. You can also listen to the audio, which includes discussion of why revolution isn’t as scary as it sounds, the discomfort necessary for change, the discomfort of my acupuncture pillow, and more:

Shoutout to Verizon

Ben: You begin by offering a shift in how we understand and talk about violence. Why?

KCJ: I start the story with my great-grandmother, Arnesta, who walked with a limp. Arnesta had stepped on a rusty nail and needed urgent medical attention. A white doctor offered to help her, but in exchange, he said she had to live with him and work for his family for the rest of her life. This was 1915, and the idea that this white man felt entitled to a little girl's life in perpetuity — she was nine years old — was shocking to me. 

My great-great-great-grandmother intervened and saved her granddaughter. She said no, this is not what we're doing. I really wanted to talk about my ancestors’ response and their refusal.

Ben: You explore various remedies and tools that Black people have used to respond to white supremacy. Can you talk about “protection” and the Christiana Resistance?

KCJ: I love that story. 

A couple, William and Eliza Parker were station masters on the Underground Railroad. They started a Black self-protection society. And there's one particular incident in 1851 when four escaped slaves left Maryland and got to the Parkers’ home in Pennsylvania. They were only there for a few hours before Edward Gorsuch, the owner of these four men, arrived with slave catchers, knocked on the Parkers’ door, and demanded his property back.

Basically, William and Eliza Parker were like, heck no, you are getting these people back over my dead body. The Black self-protection society came by the dozens and about 80 men and women, both white and Black, some of them Quakers, armed with guns, pistols, pitchforks, and farm equipment, surrounded Edward Gorsuch. Long story short, everyone managed to escape.

To me, this is just a remarkable example of how Black people have engaged in forceful protection. I don't think we talk about how much Black people have to and should protect each other against white supremacy. That’s what the Parkers did, and they were successful. Eliza, William, and the four escaped slaves — they all eventually made their way to Canada and lived out the rest of their days there.

Ben: I thought it was noteworthy that, in your estimation, the American Revolution still hadn't occurred at the time of the Christiana Resistance.

KCJ: Yes. I’d argue that America’s revolution began not in 1776 but in 1863. 

Think about the hypocrisy of the American Revolution. If you were Native American, Black, or a woman, your life did not get better after the revolution. So I started thinking about, well, what is a revolution then, and what makes it revolutionary?

I thought about the Haitian Revolution and how it’s really the only revolution that accomplished what it set out to achieve, which was to abolish slavery and give Black people a level of equity and justice they’d never had before. 

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Learn more about the Haitian Revolution below:

"Awakening the Ashes" of Anti-colonialism

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And I thought about how the real work of revolution in American history was Reconstruction. I began to see that revolutions require transformational change to improve the lives of all people.

Ben: I guess that unless we all join the network America relies on, the Verizon 5G ultra high-speed revolution doesn’t count.

KCJ: Ha! No...

Ben: Another story you mention surrounds Carrie Johnson. Can you talk about her own use of force?

KCJ: Okay. So this is one of my favorite stories in the book. 

1919 is known as the Red Summer. It was more than just a summer — it was a period in American history when racial riots were taking place all over the country. You could even put Tulsa, which occurred in 1921, in that period. Racial tensions were just at an all-time high.

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Learn more about Tulsa below:

The History of Black Wall Street

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Amid that backdrop, a riot broke out in Washington, D.C. Carrie Johnson, a 17-year-old girl, was at home with her father. Hundreds of white people were shooting at Black people, throwing rocks into their homes, and trying to destroy Black property. Carrie saw this mob and took matters into her own hands.