It didn’t start with the Panthers.. u had groups like the Deacons for Defense and so on who protected our communities from racists….
n Longview, Texas, in July 1919, S.L. Jones, who was a teacher and a local distributor of the black newspaper the Chicago Defender, investigated the suspicious death of Lemuel Walters. Walters was a black man who was accused of raping a white woman, jailed, and ultimately found dead under “mysterious” circumstances. When the Defender published a story about Walters’ death, asserting that the alleged rape had been a love affair and Walters’ death the result of a lynching, Jones came under attack, beaten by the woman’s brothers.
Hearing a rumor that Jones was in trouble, Dr. C.P. Davis, a black physician and friend of the teacher, tried to get law enforcement to protect him from further violence. When it became clear that this help was not forthcoming…
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One Tawny Stranger 
Charles Cobb writes about the Deacons of Defense and similar self-defense groups in That Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed. I found it extremely inspiring. Apparently Fanny Lou Hamer kept a weapon in every room to protect herself against white vigilantes.
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Really? Wow, this history makes you question the typical story of ‘blacks’ as acquiescent and docile!
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