Armed Black citizens march at KKK stronghold and issue warning to ‘rednecks’

Black militia at Stone Mountain Park


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On 4 July, Independence Day, hundreds of armed Black citizens marched, military style, at a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) stronghold in Georgia, USA. There they issued a warning to “rednecks”.

Symbolic

According to Fox News, the “protesters”, which local police estimated as numbering “around 200”, gathered at Stone Mountain Park to demand that the massive stone carving there be removed. The carving is a memorial to general Robert E Lee, confederate president Jefferson Davis, and general Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson. All three are confederate heroes and revered by white supremacists.

This follows Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests across the US and elsewhere that saw similar demands or direct action regarding statues of slave owners and their supporters.

Warning to rednecks

One person tweeted that the number of those marching was more like 1,000:

Another video shows the men marching military-style:

NFAC stands for Not Fuckin Around Coalition and at the march a spokesperson taunted the far right:

Murder

NFAC came about in the wake of the killing of young Black man Ahmaud Arbery:

“Ex-military man” and NFAC founder Grand Master Jay spoke extensively about the killing and of racial killings and assaults generally.

Three white men, Gregory and Travis McMichael (father and son) and William Bryan, are facing charges for the murder of Arbery. The killing was filmed by Bryan.

As reported by CNN, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent has testified that Bryan told police that:

Travis McMichael said “f***ing n***er” after three blasts from his shotgun left Arbery dead… Body camera footage also showed a Confederate flag sticker on the toolbox of McMichael’s truck.
Black Panthers link?

In the video about the Arbery killing it’s alleged that local media claims the armed individuals who gathered in the neighbourhood where the McMichaels lived were members of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The BPP was a US-wide mass organisation, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s.

One of its demands was:

We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.

A video provides an overview of the BPP. It shows how the group was a prominent target of the FBI’s counter-intelligence programme (COINTELPRO), used to “track, harass, discredit, infiltrate, destroy, and destabilize dissident groups in the United States”. The BPP was also beset by internal struggles that contributed to its eventual demise.

Not just white supremacists

As The Canary previously reported, it’s not just white civilians in the US who lynch Black people:

It’s the police too. Police kill around 1,000 people a year; and in 2019, the Mapping Police Violence website says “Black people were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population”. It adds that “99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime”. Studies, meanwhile, have consistently shown that police officers kill African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans at much higher rates than they kill white people.

The Canary also reported how the BLM chair for Greater New York, Hawk Newsome, has called for the monitoring of police by armed “peace officers”. In an interview with DailyMailTV, Newsome explained that these peace officers would be armed, similar to the Black Panthers.

In the longer term, the wider BLM movement aims to eliminate all racist confrontations by the police, as well as racism generally. Whether initiatives like NFAC have a role to play in that struggle remains to be seen.

Featured image via Twitter screenshot

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  • Show Comments

    2. These images are so reminiscent of ISIS I’d say the arming and deployment of this body of men was organised by the same sinister group (US and Israeli Deep State). They obviously want to start a race war, and there’s no better way of doing that than marching an army of African-American men into the intolerant Deep South.

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    3. Armed protests are not attacked by the police. That is why the Anti lockdown protests by Trump supporters were “peaceful”. And the footage clearly shows no trouble at this protest as the police and armed white people stayed away.
      Sometimes you have to stand up to bullies, which is what these people are doing.
      Ideally black and white people should be uniting, but in the mean time these people have a right to defend themselves.

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    4. Some constructive notes on this article.

      If the first piece of evidence presented leads with the term “According to Fox ‘News'”, I would question whether this should come under ‘analysis’. Comment may be more appropriate.

      The use of the term ‘redneck’ is problematic. While I acknowledge that in recent times it has come to signify ‘rural, white and low educational attainment’ – essentially calling someone racist without using the words, this is far from the original meaning and shoots the left in the foot in the long term.

      To quote Redneck Revolt (the armed, anti-racist group constituting many BAME members that you have previously covered):
      “In 1921, the term became synonymous with armed insurrection against the state, as members of the United Mine Workers of America tied red bandanas around their necks during the Battle of Blair Mountain, a two week long armed multi-racial labor uprising in the coalfields of West Virginia.

      Today, the term redneck has taken on a demeaning connotation, primarily among upper class urban liberals who have gone out of their way to dehumanize working class and poor people. Terms like “white trash” and “hillbilly” have come to signify the view among these same upper class liberals of poor rural folks.”

      Maybe the use of the term was framed by the Fox perspective, a lazy shorthand for an opposing group or a misinformed historical context. Excluding this extended narrative or including the term as a racial epithet takes another piece of history that the working classes can refer to – further limiting dissent.

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