What is the gun-carrying NFAC that was in Louisville for Derby, Breonna Taylor protest?

The NFAC returned to Louisville on Kentucky Derby Day and demanded justice for Breonna Taylor, who was killed when officers served a search warrant on her apartment.

Charges have not been filed, which the NFAC said previously is unacceptable.

What does NFAC mean?

Not F****** Around Coalition.

What is NFAC?

The organization is a self-funded militia that is made up of Black former military members founded and led by John Fitzgerald Johnson, known as Grandmaster Jay, according to multiple media reports and leaders’ remarks. As such, it uses the term formation to describe its presence at protests.

Johnson, Grand Master Jay, told Newsweek, “We aren’t protesters. We aren’t demonstrators. We don’t come to sing. We don’t come to chant.” He stressed they are not affiliated with Black Lives Matter. And in other publications, the group has said it isn’t affiliated with the Black Panther Party.

When did the NFAC surface?

The group appeared in Brunswick, Georgia, in May after a Black jogger was allegedly killed by white men. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, and their neighbor William Bryan, 50, were each charged with murder and aggravated assault in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, 25. The NFAC were outside the home of at least one of the suspects and in the neighborhood where the killing occurred, according to media reports.

On July 4, members were in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and at Stone Mountain Memorial Park, where there is a Confederate monument to Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson. There have been calls to remove the monument.

In July, the group first appeared and marched in Louisville at the same time as a smaller group of “Three Percenter” militia, also heavily armed. There was no violence, but three members were hurt when a gun went off as they were gathering, according to WHAS11 and others.

But Grandmaster Jay said the city would “burn” if the group returned in four weeks with no charges against the officers involved in Taylor’s death. The group said it wanted to attend Derby as the eyes of the world were on Louisville. And in an interview before the Louisville appearance Saturday, Johnson told WAVE 3, “We don’t break the law.” He clarified that “‘Burn it down’ means to take down the systems that are in place that have held us up. In other words, we need those answers, and we need those answers now.”

This story was originally published September 5, 2020 at 8:57 PM.