you see roy wilkins talking about it in the 20th century and you also see them talking about it at the turn of the century and ida wells talking about in the 19th century. thomas worked in talking about it at the end of the 19th century and lots of other people that they may have not heard of. it's frustrating in the same way that the idea that you are a 10% minority and you are not going to win a revolution or achieve your goal through violence. but that doesn't mean that you give up an elimination in need for individual self-defense. >> host: one of the things that i thought was very interesting was the focus on women who participated in the tradition. and so tell us about the women who made up this tradition. >> guest: sure. in some sense it was not a purposeful effort is just that they were there. and there's a bit of background. i've been working on these issues for two decades. and every six months i picked up a new book and think, well, there he is again. fifteen years ago and thinking and there are lots of scholars out there that starts to a firmness. ida wells is well known to

so crystallizing us and them later roy wilkins still under pressure from lots of people argues in a pamphlet called the single issue in the robert williams case. he said that this is not an issue of self-defense. so wilkins looked at what he said was self-defense and said that that is not what you advocated. you advocated political violence and we will have none of this. and at the same time he said the naacp cut its organizational support on supporting black folks who stood up for firearms to defend themselves. he talked about this case which maybe we'll have a chance to talk about later. but it was a case that funded the impulse that funded the legal defense fund. steve green is another example. all of these early 20th century cases. they stood up and said that we are going to support people that have used firearms and self-defense. the 1960s and 1970s, we are not going to be in the lynching business. and this is the place where that distinction that runs through the book really becomes crucial. because the next turn it is the efforts of radical is to conflate those two things and i argue

and so for those of you don't know, he dies on the day of the march and roy wilkins who is the head of the naacp is asked -- a. philip randolph asked him what he read out, commemorate, and wilkins says no, because w.e.b. dubois as a communist. the only way randall says if you don't do it, i'm going to do it. i'll take up your time. then wilkins kind of does agree. i do think that -- there are people who are forgotten. bayard rustin is forgotten. rosa parks is certainly misremembered. i don't know what her -- position on capitalism is but i do know that she was not, when asked about her position, in relation to malcolm, i could never get -- i was much more believer in malcolm's strategy than 10 ones, or at least she could not -- she was never, she could never quite devote herself emotional of nonviolence, really. >> yeah, i don't know if there are in other figures that are critical of capitalism and depoliticized. >> muhammad ali would be a good example. malcolm x. >> also gloria richardson. one of the things we haven't mentioned yet tonight is sort of how much, sort of both women parti