Im a student of history, he said. Kelly Clarkson's Home Collection Is Up to 74% Off During Way Day Deals, The Best Wayfair Way Day Deals 2023 Starting at $30. NFAC leader John "Grandmaster Jay" Johnson faces state and federal charges over allegedly aiming a rifle at officers before the 2020 Kentucky Derby. When I spoke with him after January 6, he still slipped into periodic fits of rage at the impertinence of my questions, but he stressed that the NFAC is peaceful and wants to open up a dialogue and stabilize the situation.. John Fitzgerald Johnson, also known as Grand Master Jay, is facing state and federal charges for allegedly pointing a gun at Louisville Metro Police officers and federal agents while in Louisville last September. John Fitzgerald Johnson, known as Grandmaster Jay, is the leader of the NFAC, self-described as a Black nationalist paramilitary organization. On August 21, 2017, he witnessed the total eclipse of the sun while standing outside the city hall of Carbondale, Illinois. Yet it is rarely good news when you learn that a sectarian racist is raising an army, stockpiling weapons, demanding total loyalty, and suggesting that he is a messiah. Jay speaks prophetically, and sometimes apocalyptically. [7] It allegedly happened just after 8:30 p.m., as officers were conducting surveillance of demonstrators at Jefferson Square in downtown Louisville. Most soldiers have just one MOS over the course of their career; once the Army trains a soldier, why go through the expense of training him again? He left the Army in 1997 but despised civilian life. 'Grandmaster Jay' pleads not guilty to federal charges, due back in court in February, Pletcher's Forte, Tapit Trice are morning line favorites for Kentucky Derby 149. According to the affidavit in support of his indictment in Louisville, he was arrested in 1995 for punching a woman in the face, and for menacing a man with a 20-gauge shotgun. But the desire for action of some kind, acknowledging that Black people are uniquely menaced, is to be expected. HE POINTED A RIFLE AT LOUISVILLE POLI OCEFFICERS. These people are screaming our name while theyre resisting," he said, although no such screams have been independently documented. (That might explain his given name: He would have been born just nine days after the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.) You would sit that person down and have a word with him., Jay reappeared in 2015 as an ally of the movement he now denigrates, Black Lives Matter. COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Think of it in terms of alternate paths. He said that by stepping off this timeline into another timeline, you create a new reality. He said yes, but I pressed him to continue. But my goodness, the weaponryAR-15s galore, sniper rifles with scopes and bipods, high-capacity magazines, and enough tactical clothing to resupply an Army-surplus store. We dont come to chant. In Louisville, just two hours from where Jay and I sat, the NFAC first revealed the extent of its capabilities. John Johnson, a.k.a. All I want is 1 [million]. (According to the Census Bureau, 47 million Americans identify as Black or Black and another race. CRAWFORD | Not skipping ahead: Setting the scene for Kentucky Derby 149, will Forte reign? His group, armed with guns, moved into Louisville twice in the wake of Breonna Taylor's death for what they described as peaceful formations: Once in July and again during the 2020 Kentucky Derby in September. Do you know anything about these things?. A month later, the police raided his apartment. Grandmaster Jay, leader of the NFAC. Grandmaster Jay. Copyright 2020 WDRB Media. That includes defending it. Dressed from mask to shoes in black, he was four hours late to our meeting, and remorseless. (Don't worry, its temporary), Challenges to books at Ky. libraries tripled in 2022 amid national jump in attempted bans, How the Telugu immigrant community is instilling their culture in the next generation, Richmond, Ind., residents sue owner of property where massive industrial fire occurred, This Mt. All lives!). Two photos were included in the court filing that allegedly shows Johnson aiming his firearm at the officers. White people decided to act up and show us their true colors, Jay said. In our conversation, though, he made no direct reference to the mass murder of Jews and others, or to the lessons of totalitarian fascism. NFAC says it is the definition of a Black Militia and is the largest one in the U.S., with chapters in almost every city. Led by Grandmaster Jay (John Fitzgerald Johnson), the NFAC has been posited as an eye for an eye organization, in opposition to those aforementioned organizations, and hasloudly called for Black citizens to arm themselves in the face ofwhite supremacy. We sat in Jays SUV, which soon filled with pleasant Cajun aromas from the scallops. He faces federal charges in Louisville for pointing a gun at people on a roof. He considers Germanys a genuine effort by society to restore and repair those people who were the victims of this Holocaust., Like so much else about Jay, this passion for European Jewry presents a contradiction: Elsewhere, he has quoted Hitler approvingly and suggested that the Jews of Europethose people running around calling themselves the Jewsare imposters. In the July gathering, three people were wounded when a firearm accidentally discharged ahead of the march. Instead, he mentioned that he was impressed by postwar Germanys decision to outlaw Holocaust denial and the glorification of Nazism. Lastly, prospective membersare required to attend anNFAC protest. Jay is contesting these allegations in court. BOZICH | Who would have beaten Secretariat? His attorney argued that Johnson was using the light on his gun to see who was on the roof, but the judge says evidence shows he was aware it was police. And we appear to be the target of an undeclared domestic war against African Americans.". We live in a world where racism is appearing to rear its ugly head again the way it did back in the Jim Crow days, he tells Complex via Zoom. In the July gathering, three people were wounded when a firearm was accidentally discharged ahead of the march. Great Jones Cookware Review: Is It Worth Buying? The first public appearance of the NFAC was at a KKK rally in Dayton, Ohio, in 2019. STEPHON: NEW TONIGHT, THE LEADER OF A BLACK MILITIA WAS INDICTED ON CHARGES. The far-right patriot movement has long been a fringe factor in American politics, as racial upheaval, police brutality, and a not-so-hidden agenda from President Donald Trump have paved the way for wide-scale growth of the ideological militia movement. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - A presentation in front of a grand jury trial with the leader of a self-proclaimed militia organization has been delayed. JOHN JOHNSON, WHO GOES BY THE NAME GRAND MTEASR JAY, WAS IN LOUISVILLE TWICE PROTESTING THE DEATH OF BREONNA TAYLOR, INCLUDG ONIN DERBY DAY IN SEPTEMBER OF LAST YE.AR THE DAY BEFORE DERBY, PROSECUTORS SAY HE POINTED A RIFLE AT 5 LMPD OFFICERS POSITIONED ON THE ROOF OF A NEARBY BUILDING. We dont come to chant. Instead they stand, like a praetorian guard for some unseen emperor. Right-wing militias stormed Michigans capitol and were not arrested. The NFAC formations in Louisville were large, but mostly peaceful and without issue. A West Chester man, intent on defending African Americans in the midst of police brutality and racism, has formed a Black militia group that is gaining attention nationwide and around the world. As the founder and commander of Americas largest all Black militia, his organization has stood up to the powers to be in the face of such atrocities as the That's where Grandmaster Jay was indicted on federal charges for brandishing a firearm, assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. On Wednesday, the Jefferson County Grand Jury returned an indictment on Johnson for five counts of wanton endangerment.According to prosecutors with the Commonwealth's Attorney, the charges stem from Johnson and the militia taking part in a protest on Sept. 4, is 2020, in Louisville. We didnt create that. Few paid attention until Jay showed up with dozens of armed followers in Georgia last year, and phrased his new beliefs in a militant idiom. They then have to give us contact information on them and offer a valid reason why they would want to join our organization. On January 6, at the U.S. Capitol, the insurrectionists included militia members from the groups the NFAC has arrayed itself against. In just two days, May 28, it will be the one year anniversary since protests first filled the streets of Louisville in response to the deaths of Taylor, George Floyd and more. RELATED: NFAC leader 'Grandmaster Jay' facing state charges after allegedly pointing gun at officers Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Four decades later, the activist Robert F. Williams wrote the classic text of Black armed resistance, Negroes With Guns, which argues that violence against Black people calls for violence by Black people. Last month,an organization stylized as NFAC UK participated with thousands of protesters who held an anti-racism rally outside the U.S.Embassy in London as Black Lives Matter demonstrations took place in cities across the U.K. John "Grandmaster Jay" Johnson is the founder and leader of the "Not F***ing Around Coalition," or NFAC. Jay is satisfied with how the government has handled the January 6 investigation and glad the Oath Keepers leader has been charged. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive. Federally, he's charged with one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees and one count of brandishing a firearm in relation to a crime of violence in relation to the same incident.The NFAC formations in Louisville were large, but mostly peaceful and without issue. 00:00 / 00:00. Grandmaster Jay is the head of the NFAC-- the Not F**king Around Coalition. At that point, for the first time, the conversation flowed more naturally. Other groups, as far as their movements, we dont really have a position on, but we are specifically adding that we will not be identified with the Black Lives Matter movement., The verdict has yet to come in. The alternate versions of Jay do not seem to cohere into a single person. When I talked with him in February, Jay gloated about his enemies legal jeopardy, with some justification. Case against militia leader 'Grandmaster Jay' heads to Jefferson County grand jury. But Jay has loyal followers, maybe in spite of these eccentricities, and maybe because of them. Members of the NFAC also stood their ground in Louisville after the death of Breonna Taylor. If he is indicted, he could stand trial. They stand in neat, spaced columns. In December, Johnson was federally charged for pointing a rifle at Louisville Metro Police Department officers, FBI and Secret Service agents, who were on top of the Jefferson County Grand Jury Building. Its an extremely top-down, chain-of-command organization, perfect for people who like to take orders, or give them. He is lithe enough to pass for being in his mid-40s. At one point in our conversation, I thought I might have detected such a limit. Jay said, If I assemble 1 million legal guns, I have the fifth-largest ground army on the planet. Thats not what we do., With the NFAC united under his guidance, he describes the groups ethos asan element that has always existed within America, as heshared with The Atlanta Black Star last month. You may have seen its members demonstrating where African Americans have died at the hands of police in places like Louisville and Georgia. On Wednesday, the Jefferson County Grand Jury returned an indictment on Johnson for five counts of wanton endangerment. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The leader of the Black militia group known as the NFAC pleaded not guilty to federal charges in court on Friday. Unlike the NFAC, they were flagrantly breaking the law and, for a time at least, getting away with it. Were not anti-anything. He later claimed to have worked as the director of a global cloud-integration practice and solutions architect. He tried a career as a hip-hop DJ, which took an embarrassing turn when stars including Grandmaster Flash and DJ Jazzy Jeff accused him of plagiarism and rsum exaggeration. Grandmaster Jay told The Atlanta Black Star that the group stood guard to prevent a repeat of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, in which five people in North Carolina were shot and killed by Nazis and Klansmen as citizens gathered for the start of an anti-racism protest. The men and women are ragtag and amateur, and their uniforms are not, well, uniform. The Commonwealth's Attorney said the indictment in Jefferson County also includes three additional local law enforcement officers.Prosecutors said Johnson faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the state charges. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- "Grandmaster Jay," who was accused of pointing a rifle at a Jay had run out of boilerplate. He will be formally arraigned Monday. In his view, January 6 demonstrated that the NFAC is an appropriate response to a country shameless in its hypocrisy: If a disorderly white militia can sack the Capitol and get away with it, on what basis could one object to an orderly Black militia that obeys the law? (By contrast, aerial photos suggest that the white militiamen present that day could have fit in a small school bus.) But the transformation does not appear coincidental. If youre biracial, your father must be Black. The other criteria relate to recruits ability to arm themselves without attracting the attention of law enforcement. He also advises them to destroy police body cameras if they assault cops, to remove evidence. Grandmaster Jay, the leader of a Black militia called NFAC (Not F-cking Around Coalition) a name he says denotes the group's attitude spoke to Atlanta They often carry semi-automatic weapons and wear body armor. Just remember that when Im gone, these will be your instructional videos.. Jay said he does not admire or imitate any Black activists from previous generationshe protested when I suggested a comparison to the Black Panthers, whose aesthetic the NFAC has obviously ripped offbut was quick to defend the Jamaican political thinker and activist Marcus Garvey, who called for Black self-sufficiency and attempted to found a homeland for Black people. The NFAC has room for only one messiah. The FBI provided photos of the moments thats now got Johnson fighting felonies. He grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and New York City. In Jefferson County, Johnson is facing five counts of wanton endangerment, one for each person on the roof at the time. Grandmaster Jay Net Worth miclocksigca1973. From that point on, he was spitting knowledge on social media, much of it about alien spacecraft (visitors) and odd phenomena he noticed in the sky. Unless you have a deep, personal, hands-on experience with the past.. In Jay, NFAC followers have a leader who conjured an army ex nihilo, announced a Black uprising in multiple American cities, and somehow got away with it for months. In meetings prior to the incident, FBI Public Corruption and Civil Rights Task Force Sergeant Chris Lane said Johnson had been told multiple times officers would be on rooftops and to not point firearms, as it would be perceived as a threat. Download the WHAS11 News app now. So he and others showed up to the demonstration. John Fitzgerald Johnson, known as Grandmaster Jay, is the leader of the NFAC, self-described as a Black nationalist paramilitary organization. (He told his YouTube audience that he hated it: You all were the most uncivilized, undisciplined people I had ever seen.) He reenlisted in July 1998, but a year later he faced a court martial for another offense. Just because you love your people doesnt mean you hate everybody else.. There is no problem. Last summer, Grandmaster Jay laid out the groups goals for WVXU. In Germany, Jay was treated with the utmost respect, and he said he enjoyed a reprieve from the American racial hierarchy. How did we get here? That movement accomplished nothing, Jay told me, just a lot of singing, a lot of hand-holding, a lot of sentiments and praise.. WebJohn Fitzgerald Johnson, also known as Grand Master Jay and John Jay Fitzgerald Johnson, claims leadership of the group and has stated that it is composed of "ex military shooters." Iron was a vital commodity, and Leonard was already thinking volume. He named four but refused to identify the fifth. The Ohio Newsroom: A Public Media Collaboration, Reds TV changes could come by end of this week, Updated report shows Springfield Township officer's speed in deadly March crash, O'Bryonville changes its name to O'Piggyville. The cops took his rifles too. Washington man isn't going on a vacation. Du Bois, Jay cut me off to condemn Du Bois as a bourgeois and an enemy to the movement Marcus Garvey started If [Du Bois] was alive today, he would eat his words.. The Ohio Newsroom: A Public Media Collaboration, Reds TV changes could come by end of this week, Updated report shows Springfield Township officer's speed in deadly March crash, O'Bryonville changes its name to O'Piggyville. They look like World War II partisans meeting their clandestine commander for the first time. Moore Park in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 5, 2020. Like Garveys, Jays rhetoric calls for Black self-reliance and segregation from white people. He also ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election. Johnson served in the Virginia National Guard and the Army from 1989 to 2006, leaving at the rank of private. We dont understand why we have to be anti-somebody because we love our people. Grandmaster Jays group, the NFAC, is a Black militia whose goals, other than to abjure Fucking Around, are obscure. Most people do not think it sensible to channel their justified rage by buying an AR-15 and joining a cultlike paramilitary organization. Hearst Television participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Updated: 5:01 PM EST November 9, 2022. Grandmaster Jay might have an easier time describing the group by saying what it is not: neither left or right, not anti-semitic, not a gun club and not a social club. (Source: Oldham County Detention Center), Surveillance images that federal authorities say show John Johnson (Grandmaster Jay) pointing a rifle at officers. [5] [6] It denies any connection to the Black Panther Party or Black Lives Matter. No. Members of the Black paramilitary group attend protests heavily armed. 00:00 / 04:31. Grandmaster Jay says beyond trying to "police ourselves," he would like to work with local governments and community groups. He is a former soldier, a failed political candidate, a hip-hop DJ, a rambling egotist, and a prolific self-promoter. We dont come to sing, Jay told a reporter from Newsweek. The Disturbing History of the So-Called Boogaloo Bois, Blackout Day 2020: What You Need to Know About the Economic Boycott, Patriot Act: What to Know About Your Privacy & Web History, anti-racism rally outside the U.S.Embassy in London, explaining to Roland Martin in a July interview. It has been described by news outlets as a "Black militia ". Outside of thenegligent gun discharge from July, the NFAC has argued that theLGBTQ+ agendais responsible for the Black Lives Matter movements failings. With Black members of the LGBTQ+ community being ostracized and subjectedtowhite terrorism, one hopes that the NFAC is not fucking around when it comes to advocating for all Black people. This is the worry of those who monitor domestic extremist threats: If you recruit an army, equip it to fight, and range it as infantry across from other armed groups, one shot could ignite a skirmish and perhaps turn downtown Louisville into Baghdad for an afternoon. It has yet to fire a shot at its enemies, but its prepared for war. The Commonwealth's Attorney said the indictment in Jefferson County also includes three additional local law enforcement officers. His goal, he said, is for the Black race to come into its ownwhich it has notand to mature as a race, first by building racial esteem. He said Black people have been like the guy who sleeps on your couch that doesnt go home until you have to throw the couch out with him. If they get armed, and get serious, they will no longer have to blame the non-melanated for their failure. To demonstrate its power, Jay said, the NFAC aims to assemble, in one place, a million legal [Black] gun owners, to show that the United Black Kemetic Nation can defend itself. Later, Jay said he had only two MOSs. Grandmaster Jay says he didnt knowingly point weapons at anyone. Washington man isn't going on a vacation. According to Pentagon records, he joined the military in 1989. I dont have to justify my experiences in my position to anyone.). Right: Grandmaster Jay addresses a crowd of NFAC supporters from the steps of the Metro Building in downtown Louisville on July 25, 2020. Ive visited the death camps. He visited Auschwitz, he said, and was indelibly influenced by what he saw. The U.S. government is going around cleaning up all of those other organizations, he said. But Im not. Compare the NFACs military-style discipline, Jay said, with white militias. He is due back in court in February. More. The tradition of armed resistance persisted even as the civil-rights movement succeeded by rejecting this fearful symmetry: Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and John Lewis showed that Black people without guns were much more formidable. After the murder of Walter Scott by a North Charleston police officer, he appeared at the side of Scotts family. His life sometimes seems like a long disinformation campaign about itself. Background: Case against militia leader 'Grandmaster Jay' heads to Jefferson County grand jury. Ive lived five different lives, he told me, enigmatically. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Plenty of Trump supporters believed that their man had a mystical ability to outwit his opponents and bend previously unbendable laws of politics. You all are living in an alternate timeline. After basic training, the Army assigns every soldier a military occupational specialty, or MOS: 11B is an infantryman, 94S is a Patriot system repairer, 12K is a plumber. Jay told me that all the allegations against him are bullshit. By bringing them up, federal prosecutors are trying to character assassinate him. Unfortunately, Jays answercreate a parallel, quasi-fascist race army with its own flag and homelandstrikes me as a particularly bad case of becoming that which you hate.

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