The temperature of the nation remains heated after police shootings involving black men, we are taking a close look at a new black militia group that has emerged.
While the group calls for peace and justice, it does so while being heavily armed.
Even with three guilty verdicts against one of the officers charged in George Floyd’s death, some say black Americans continue to feel threatened. In fact, black gun ownership has increased 60 percent according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and it’s believed to be in response to continued violence impacting that community. Another response is a black militia called the NFAC, the “No F-ing Around Coalition.” CBN News spoke to NFAC’s founder John Johnson.
“I have a very hard time explaining to my child about the bygone era of lynching when there is a suspicion that a lynching just happened, when we start seeing the Ahmaud Arbery tapes when white men hunted down a black man and killed him,” he said.
Johnson, better known by his former DJ name, Grandmaster Jay, is the supreme commander of the NFAC.
“We’re not having the lies, we’re not having the unequal administration of justice anymore,” Johnson said. “We’re not having existing under the conditions that have been set by another race that do nothing but hamstring us and are detrimental to very existence. We’re not having it anymore.
“I didn’t form the group, the group was formed out of necessity based on the environment and the pressures being exacted upon the black population,” he said.
Founded in 2020, Johnson claims the NFAC has become a global force, helping push the investigations into the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
DePaul University Professor Thomas Mikaitis told NBC News he thinks the NFAC is different from far-right militias, some whom were involved in the Capitol breach on January 6.
“They have not risen to the level of concern of say the three percenters or the oath keepers,” Mikaitis said. “They have not engaged in violence, in fact in most of their demonstrations they have in fact coordinated their efforts with police.”
CBN News asked the FBI about the NFAC. Officials said they have no comment, adding that the FBI does not investigate groups and that their investigations focus solely on criminal activity.
“What is the necessity to be heavily armed like the group is?” CBN questioned Johnson.
“What do you mean, why do we have guns?” Johnson replied. “Why not, every else has guns. This country was born out of revolution. We fought over slavery with guns. As a matter fact we beat the British with guns. As a matter of fact, when the police show up the first thing they pull out is a gun.”
According to Johnson, his group has a few main goals: to protect and police the black community, to underscore the right of Black Americans to bear arms.
“To form the backbone of a military force that would facilitate the exodus from this country of those willing to go somewhere to establish an ethno-nation, totally based on our culture, giving us the ability to determine our path so that we too can have a seat at the international table like every other race on this planet.”
Dr. Judson Jeffries is Professor of African American Studies at The Ohio State University.
“Police officers are killing black people with impunity and it doesn’t seem like this kind of violence is going to abate unless black folk do something to bring about its end,” Jeffries said. “So that police understand that there could be a consequence if I go into black communities and misbehave, that’s missing. That’s why I think a group like the NFAC is so important these days.”
“Ever since that (guilty) verdict (in the trial of one of the officers accused of killing George Floyd) there has been a perception of an uptick in law enforcement shootings,” Johnson said. “Which is an expectation because of our relationship between police and culture or what I call police backlash.”
Andrew Brown, MaKhia Bryant, Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo – all black, all shot to death by police in the weeks surrounding the verdict.
“I find these all to be tragedies,” Johnson said. “The gun has become the judge, jury and executioners on American streets. Community policing could have stopped MaKhia Bryant from being shot. Community policing could have saved Daunte Wright’s life.”
But that’s why the NFAC has emerged, Johnson says, to try to give justice a nudge. And while 18-year-olds can join up, the NFAC is built on a military structure and tends to target mature members in their 40s, 50s and 60s, some of them veterans. Johnson says there is also extensive training.
“There is one state commander in every state and then there are chapter commanders,” Johnson said. “I sit at the top of that structure as the Supreme Commander. There are background checks, there are criminal checks. The NFAC has a zero record of arrests. We have a zero record of property destruction. We have a zero record of violence. We have a zero record of anyone shooting anyone.”
Those words spoken before Johnson himself was arrested and federally indicted for allegedly pointing an AR platform rifle at an FBI agent and other law enforcement officers during a Breonna Taylor Protest, something he aggressively denies, asserting he was targeted because of who he is.
Still, that has not taken the steam out of the NFAC’s mission.
“This group is saying, ‘listen we’re exercising our Second Amendment right with the express purpose of protecting black folks from indiscriminate violence by police officers, especially white police officers, who come into our communities and snuff out black lives prematurely’,” Jeffries said.
“We’re not anti-semitic, we’re not a hate group, we’re not terrorists, we are the response to the continued repeated injustice against our people,” Johnson said. “We are neither left and we’re not right. We are what we said we are.”
While Johnson says the group is not political, it is interesting to note that he himself ran for President as an independent candidate in 2016. Johnson maintains the group is about justice, and not revenge – the key being justice operates within the confines of the law. He says he insists on the NFAC being a law abiding organization.
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