罗伯特·威廉

罗伯特·弗兰克林·威廉姆斯（英语：Robert Franklin Williams，1925年2月26日—1996年10月15日），美国民权运动领袖、作家。

他于1950年代至1961年担任美国全国有色人种协进会（NAACP）的北卡罗来纳州门罗分会主席，任内成功使门罗的有色人种和白人的公共图书馆和游泳池融合，并以此而知名。在种族关系高度紧张以及遭受官方虐待的时候，威廉姆斯在美国提倡武装黑人自卫。他从全国步枪协会获得许可，成立了一个步枪俱乐部，用以防止门罗的黑人遭受三K党及其他攻击者的袭击。NAACP在当地的分会支持自由乘车者，他们于1961年夏前往门罗，对整合州际巴士进行测试。1961年8月，他与妻子离开美国长达数年，以避免因为自由乘车者到达门罗后发生的暴力行动中的绑架行为而遭北卡罗来纳州的指控。1975年回国后遭审判时被撤销了这些指控。作为一个黑人民族主义者，他于1961年至1969年流亡期间居住在古巴和中国。

著有《黑人与枪支》（Negroes with Guns）一书，该书多次重印，详细介绍了他在暴力种族主义方面的经历以及对民权运动非暴力派系的异议。该书具有广泛的影响力，黑豹党创始人休伊·牛顿和非裔美国人防御同盟的创始人Mauricelm-Lei Millere都深受其影响。

Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author best known for being president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1950s and into 1961 and serving as the first president of the provisional government of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), a black nationalist and separatist organization. During the Jim Crow era, Williams succeeded in integrating the local public library and swimming pool in Monroe. At a time of high racial tension and official abuses, Williams promoted armed Black self-defense in the United States. In addition, he helped gain support for gubernatorial pardons in 1959 for two young African-American boys who had received lengthy reformatory sentences in what was known as the Kissing Case of 1958.

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 or other attackers. The local chapter of the NAACP supported Freedom Riders who traveled to Monroe in the summer of 1961 in a test of integrating interstate buses. In August 1961, Williams and his wife left the United States to avoid federal kidnapping charges, first traveling to Canada, then Cuba, and later the People's Republic of China. These charges were dropped by the state when his trial opened in 1975, following his return in 1970.

Williams advocated black self-defense. Williams' book Negroes with Guns (1962) has been reprinted many times, most recently in 2013. It details his experience with violent racism and his disagreement with the non-violent wing of the Civil Rights Movement. The text was widely influential; Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and African American Defense League founder Mauricelm-Lei Millere cited it as a major inspiration.

Early life

Youth

Robert Franklin Williams was born in Monroe, North Carolina, on February 26, 1925, to Emma Carter and John L. Williams who worked as a railroad boiler washer. He had two sisters, Lorraine Garlington and Jessie Link, and two brothers, John H. Williams and Edward S. Williams. His grandmother, a former slave of Yoruba ancestry, gave Williams his grandfather's rifle. His grandfather had been a Republican campaigner and publisher of the newspaper The People's Voice during the hard years after Reconstruction in North Carolina. At the age of 11, Williams witnessed the beating and dragging of a black woman by police officer Jesse Helms Sr. Helms Sr., later the Monroe chief of police, was the father of future United States Senator Jesse Helms.

As a young man, Williams joined the Great Migration, traveling north for industrial work during World War II. He worked in factories in Detroit. He witnessed the 1943 Detroit race riot prompted by labor competition between white and black Americans. He was drafted in to the United States Army in 1944, serving in a segregated unit; he was discharged in 1946.

Marriage and family

In 1947, Williams married a 16-year-old African-American woman named Mabel Ola Robinson, a fellow civil rights activist. They had two children named John C. Williams and Robert F. Williams Jr.

Civil rights movement

Early NAACP activities

In 1954, Williams enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, but was dishonorably discharged in 1955 because of his anti-segregationist views. Williams returned to Monroe, North Carolina, and became the president of the Union County NAACP chapter in 1954. He wanted to change the segregated town to protect the civil rights of blacks.