Black Open Carry Advocates Marched In Dallas

Open Carry advocates marched down the streets of Dallas, Texas but this protest was different. This march included members from the Huey P. Gun Club which was named after the founder of the original Black Panther Party. The group which included members of the New Black Panther Party, promoted self-defense and community policing in response to recent police shootings.

“Open Carry Texas all the time gets a pass,” organizer Charles Goodson said. “We hope that the same applies to us, and there is no contradiction from the Dallas power structure.”

The group consisted of about 30 men and women who walked along the street near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X boulevards, according to WFAA.

Before beginning the protest with rifles strapped across their backs,  the group chanted, “Black power!”

“He was kind of scared,” a woman who was leaving a nearby restaurant with her son said. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

The group wasn’t just advocating gun rights, but they also wanted to draw attention to police brutality.

“A lot of people today are talking about Mike Brown. Mike Brown is not an isolated incident. We have many ‘Mike Browns’ in the City of Dallas. Clint Allen was a Mike Brown. Tobias Mackey was a Mike Brown. Bobby Walker was a Mike Brown,” Goodson said.

While inside the South Dallas cafe, demonstrators took a break, resting their guns on the dining tables.

“We have to speak up for the people, because the people haven’t had a voice in a long, long, time,” one man who identified himself only as “Joe” said. “So they are doing what they have to do.”

The Huey P. Newton Gun Club said its goals include an immediate end to “police brutality, harassment, and murder of the people, and asserting the right of the people to bear arms and protect themselves.

“We think that all black people have the right to self-defense and self-determination,” Huey Freeman, another march organizer said. “We believe that we can police ourselves and bring security to our own communities.”

According to Dallas News, Freeman said Wednesday’s marchers planned to patronize several South Dallas businesses to keep their money in the community and teach their neighbors about their “right to self-defense.”

“We need to arm ourselves, not to attack anybody, but in self-defense,” Darrin X, a representative of the New Black Panther Party said.. “We can’t let people just come into our community, whether they are law enforcement or not, and just gun our people down and there is no accountability.”

Dallas police officers appeared to follow the demonstrators in unmarked police cars. A spokeswoman for the police department said that it’s standard protocol.

It was only a matter of time before Open Carry caught on to the rest of the gun nuts.

Watch courtesy of WFAA: