Robert Franklin Williams, born on this day in 1925, was an American civil rights leader and author known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and being a proponent of armed self-defense within the black community. He succeeded in integrating the local public library and swimming pool in Monroe, and helped gain support for gubernatorial pardons for two young African-American boys who had received lengthy reformatory sentences in what was known as the "Kissing Case of 1958."

At a time of high racial tension and official abuses, Williams promoted armed Black self-defense in the United States. Williams obtained a charter from the National Rifle Association and set up a rifle club to defend black people in Monroe from Ku Klux Klan, once driving them out of his neighborhood with gunfire.

After allowing a white couple to take refuge in their home during race riots, the local police indicted Williams for kidnapping the couple, forcing him to flee the country and take up residence in Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro. While there, he ran a radio program called "Radio Free Dixie" with Castro support. In 1966 Williams moved to China where he became a friend and advisor to Mao Zedong.

In 1969, he returned to the United States and adopted more moderate political views. In 1996, Williams died of Hodgkin's Lymphona in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

• Negroes with guns by Robert Williams

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