Among the crowd was a group of armed Black men and women who call themselves the "Not F**king Around Coalition" or NFAC. The group did not run toward the gunshots or break formation. Instead, they kneeled on the ground amid the confusion, and then walked away after their leader shouted, "fall back! fall back!"
The all-Black, Atlanta-based group has grown in size out of frustration during a summer of protests against questionable policing and the deaths of countless Black people at the hands of police, said their founder John Fitzgerald Johnson.
Their presence has caused a stir in the cities they've visited and the group has drawn some criticism after people accidentally fired a weapon during two of their rallies, including the one in Lafayette.
Started in 2017, the group has marched in Stone Mountain, Georgia, calling for the removal of the nation's largest confederate monument; Brunswick, Georgia, for
Ahmaud Arbery; Louisville, Kentucky, demanding more transparency in the
Breonna Taylor case; and most recently
Lafayette, Louisiana, in the name of
Trayford Pellerin.
Along with protesters rallying in multiple US cities, largely White groups have also showed up and asserted their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Unlike many of those groups, Johnson says his group emerged as a response to enduring racial inequality and police brutality.
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