It Isn’t Radical—It’s Necessary: Dr. Umoja on Southern Black Resistance
For 13th and South, Dr. Akinyele Umoja—author of We Will Shoot Back—discusses the Southern blueprint on self-defense and community protection—and why we must reclaim it now.
In March 2024, residents of Lincoln Heights, Ohio—a majority-Black town—formed an armed community patrol after a neo-Nazi rally brought extremists with rifles to their neighborhood. Some observers saw it as a radical act. But to historian and professor Dr. Akinyele Umoja, it was all too familiar.
“What we’re seeing in Lincoln Heights is part of a long tradition,” Umoja tells 13th & South. “This isn’t about provocation. This is about protection—something Black communities in the South have had to do for generations.”
Dr. Umoja, a professor at Georgia State University and author of We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, visited Lincoln Heights earlier this year with a delegation from the National Council of Black Studies. What he saw reminded him of stories he’s spent decades documenting: communities that took up arms not to incite violence, but to prevent it when everyone else refused to.
More than Parades and Rifles
In the 1960s, the Deacons for Defense and Justice organized armed patrols in Louisiana to shield civil rights workers from Klan attacks. In Monroe, North Carolina, Robert F. Williams led the Black Armed Guard, defending his community when police stood down in the face of racial terror. These weren’t isolated incidents — they were part of a larger South tradition of community-rooted defense.
In recent years, this legacy has been echoed by groups like the Not Fking Around Coalition (NFAC), an all-Black, Atlanta-based armed organization that marched in cities across the South, including Louisville, Lafayette, and Stone Mountain. While their highly disciplined public displays drew national attention—and occasionally controversy—their mission was clear: protect Black communities, demand justice, and exercise their Second Amendment rights.
While media, especially today, often depicts Black self-defense groups as threatening or militant, Umoja draws a distinction between performance and purpose.
“I always make a distinction between folks who are more performative and those who are on the ground providing safety and protection,” he said. “Parading with guns doesn’t necessarily make us safer. But having a culture where our elders, our youth, our families all take part in defending our institutions — that’s powerful.”
Why Reaction Isn’t Enough
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, more than half of all tracked hate groups are based in Southern states—Florida, Georgia, and Texas among the highest.
Yet Black communities who organize for self-defense continue to face criminalization, even as white militias parade with weapons openly. A widely cited report by the Urban Institute found that white shooters in Florida are nearly five times more likely to be acquitted under Stand Your Ground laws than Black defendants.
In recent weeks, MAGA supporters fueled reports that Donald Trump should consider pardoning former officer Derek Chauvin, convicted for the murder of George Floyd. This, alongside Trump’s rollback of DEI initiatives, attacks on civil rights, and efforts to reverse anti-segregation protections in federal contracting, has sparked a fresh wave of concern and debate.
Calls for a protest this past April 5 also gained traction online—but so has hesitation. Some Black organizers warned that it was a trap designed to bait Black people into the streets, only to be surveilled, provoked, or killed. But Dr. Umoja says this is exactly why collective, strategic community protection is not just relevant—it’s necessary.
“There are forces that want to erase us, provoke us, and then punish us for responding,” he said. “That’s why this has to go deeper than one-day protests.”
In essence, protest must be backed by planning, protection, and political clarity. Otherwise, he says, “we’ll still be waiting on the cavalry—and the cavalry’s not coming.”
On Rebuilding Consciousness
Black Americans who legally carry firearms are nearly twice as likely to be stopped, questioned, or arrested as white gun owners, according to a 2023 study by the RAND Corporation. The tragic case of Philando Castile, a licensed Black gun owner killed by police after disclosing he had a firearm, remains a stark example of this disparity.
For Dr. Umoja, these realities underscore why Black self-defense must be rooted in collective consciousness—not just in owning weapons.
“You might know how to shoot, but if we don’t have networks—if we’re not working with other communities—we’re still vulnerable,” he said. “Defense has to be collective. It has to be intergenerational. And it has to be strategic.”
This kind of preparation isn’t limited to firearms—it includes food, water, healthcare, and education. In cities like Jackson, Mississippi, where attacks on Black infrastructure persist even in the face of federal funding, Umoja says the issue isn’t just physical safety. It’s quality of life.
“Helping people eat. Making sure they have housing. Holding the government accountable. It’s not just about having a gun,” he said. “All of that is self-defense.”
Why the South Still Matters
Though Lincoln Heights is in Ohio, Umoja says the blueprint it reflects is Southern. As of 2020, approximately 57% of the Black population in the United States lived in the South—that’s nearly 24 million people out of 42 million Black Americans overall. And it's the South, he believes, that holds the numbers, the cultural memory, and the political potential to revive these traditions.
“Most of us live in the South,” he said. “And in places like Mississippi and Georgia, we have majority-Black counties. We have power—we just have to organize it.”
He also emphasized that Southern organizing must go beyond a single charismatic leader: “We need more than one ‘messiah.’ We need collective leadership. We need to make sure our spokespersons are safe—but also that there’s a network behind them,” he said. “That’s how we survived before. That’s how we survive now.”
As extremist violence, voter suppression, and cultural erasure increase across the South, Umoja calls for a return to community-rooted defense—not as nostalgia, but as necessity.
“We’ve got to begin to think of defending ourselves as a community effort,” he said. “Because there are forces trying to take us off the map. And I’m not using a hyperbole.”
From elders who took turns on night watch to families who built security networks street by street, the legacy of the South shows that protection has always been more than a right. It’s a duty. Umoja hopes this generation won’t just remember that legacy—but reclaim it.
13 & South is a new publication covering news, investigative stories, and insights on social justice, policy, and systemic inequities impacting Southern Black communities. I value your insights, and feedback and invite your perspectives to contribute to future issues. Please feel free to contact me here or follow me on my socials! LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, BlueSky, and Threads.
Thank you for this stack.
Great Article. Churches and non-profits need to Plan, Prepare, and Coordinate resources. Use the Emergency Management cycle/strategy and Blank Panther structure. God Bless 🦋