Ida B. Wells knew it when she risked her life to expose the killers of Black men, women and children by white lynch mobs that were populated by, and often led by and protected by, Southern law enforcement. The Deacons of Defense knew it when they organized themselves to protect people from the tyranny of white vigilantes and police in 1964 in Jonesboro, Louisiana, and then founded their first chapter in Bogalusa, Louisiana, on February 21, 1965, the day Malcolm X was assassinated. And the Black Panthers knew it when Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, with two guns slung over their arms, organized in
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