New Black Panther Party for Self Defense

In its own words

“My Blood Brother Joseph, was killed on 9/11/01 and the white-man proves over and over to be the master of deception, even more so when he is teamed-up with the extremely deceptive white woman. Ahmeen.”

– Imam Akbar, former minister of justice, Sept. 12, 2018

“NO GOOD COPS JUST THE GOOD DEAD ONES!!!!!!”

– Jay Jackson, member, July 27, 2018 

“Every white man and every Jew is the devil by nature.”

– Hashim Nzinga, chairman, Sa Neter University, National Black Men's Convention, Washington DC, July 7, 2018 

“The white maans of ferguson, Missouri and the surrounding St. Louis Region are extremely poisonous and extremely deceptive. Ahmeen Rah.”

– Imam Akbar, former minister of justice, March 8, 2018 

“This cracka (Better Know In Some Circles, As the paleolithic-cannibalistic-cave-dwellin’-‘grafted-savage-prototype’-devil) has Pilfriged In Afrika, As he Continues To Do…”

– Imam Akbar, member, Oct. 16, 2015

Background

The origins of the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense can be traced back to 2013. Its founding members formerly belonged to the New Black Panther Party and are acolytes of Khalid Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. The group formed after a dispute occurred among members of the New Black Panther Party in 2013. New Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz resigned from the organization and attempted to install his cronies into leadership positions on his way out the door. Many rank-and-file members disapproved of the chairman’s actions and blocked the move by voting in a new central committee. Krystal Muhammad was voted in as chairwoman and remains the New Black Panther Party leader. As a result of the failed power grab, Shabazz left the group taking his friends and supporters with him. 

Formed in Atlanta by Hashim Nzinga and de-facto member Malik Shabazz, the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP SD) quickly became as controversial as the New Black Panther Party. On May 20, 2013, Florida chapter leader Mikhail Muhammad was arrested for false imprisonment and resisting arrest. Muhammad first gained notoriety when he announced that the NBPP SD was willing to pay $10,000 to anyone who managed to capture Trayvon Martin’s shooter George Zimmerman “dead or alive.” Muhammad’s arrest in 2013 came after his wife, Claudia Lizeth, called authorities on him for keeping her imprisoned in their home.

In June 2013, the group’s National Field Marshal King Samir Shabazz (aka Marcus Heath), who has been quoted as saying, “Kill everything in sight,” was arrested in New York  after illegally wearing body armor and carrying a loaded, unlicensed firearm. King Samir Shabazz hasn’t shied away from expressing his hatred toward white people, and in June 2014 he was arrested again, this time in New Jersey, after police found a rifle and ammunition, including an armor-piercing bullet, in Shabazz’s room while serving him with an outstanding warrant. Malik Zulu Shabazz first announced the news of King Samir Shabazz’s arrest via social media.

On Aug. 19, 2015, members of the NBPP SD were accused by activist Kalonji Jama Changa and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, original Black Panther Party member and cofounder of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), of attacking them. Wahad, members of BLA and other activists attended a public conference hosted by Nzinga on Aug. 8, 2015, in Atlanta, Georgia. At the event, Wahad and members of his group confronted Malik Shabazz about the NBPP SD’s adoption of the Black Panther name and the group’s hateful actions.

Wahad and Shabazz got into a verbal altercation and Shabazz attempted to have Wahad removed, saying, “Get his b*tch ass out of here.” Wahad and Changa have publicly accused NBPP SD members of beating them up when they refused to leave, alleging that 71-year-old Wahad was left with a concussion, a broken jaw and lacerations from the attack.

Elbert “Big Man” Howard, a member of the original Black Panther Party, responded to the incident in the San Francisco Bay View. He condemned the NBPP SD and accused them of using the Black Panther Party name to advance their own agenda, stating, “If this is anything, it is a collective of racist, reactionary thugs and tools of the still-very-much-alive COINTELPRO government agency.”

A year later, in 2016, the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense was again embroiled in controversy when news broke that mass shooter Micah Xavier Johnson was a NBPP SD sympathizer. Johnson was an Army veteran who became obsessed with seeking retribution for the deaths of black individuals at the hands of police. Johnson, a former military sniper, killed five Dallas, Texas, police officers on July 7, 2016, during an otherwise peaceful protest against police brutality. Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown said Johnson was upset with white people and had a vendetta against white officers. Quanell X, former leader of the Houston chapter of the NBPP SD, said Johnson worked as security for some of the group’s events but was asked to leave when he started pushing for the group to acquire more arms and ammo. After the attack, it was revealed that Johnson sympathized with black nationalist organizations and followed several of them on Facebook, including the NBPP SD, the Nation of Islam and the Black Riders Liberation Party, which are all designated hate groups. 

On July 26, 2016, the Los Angeles Times published an interview with Hashim Nzinga, who told them “that homosexuality is evil, that Jews control the media and are responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and that blacks are God’s 'chosen people,' Jesus himself being black."

That same month, Nzinga made headlines when he stated that, if allowed under state law, the NBPP SD would be rallying outside the Republican National Convention with firearms in hand. Not long after, Nzinga backtracked on his statement, claiming Reuters had been “disingenuous” with their reporting.

On May 1, 2017, NBPP SD member Derick Lamont Brown took his own life after killing his godfather, also shooting a neighbor and a paramedic who responded to the incident. Brown was a strong supporter and follower of both Malik Shabazz and Hashim Nzinga prior to the 2013 New Black Panther Party split. According to Babu Omowale, founder of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in Dallas, Brown was a member of the club, as well as the minister of defense for the NBPP SD. The group held a tribute for Brown after his death.

Acts of violence continued to follow the NBPP SD, and on Sept. 24, 2017, Emanuel Kidega Samson, a follower of the group and the Nation of Islam, reportedly stormed the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee, and opened fire on churchgoers using a semi-automatic pistol and an assault rifle. In his vehicle, authorities later found a note referencing the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, church massacre, which was carried out by lone-wolf white nationalist Dylann Roof. Authorities were then led to believe that the attack might have been carried out as retaliation and possible vengeance for the Charleston shooting.

During this time, the NBPP SD was extremely active. In 2017 and 2018 the organization teamed up with former chair Malik Zulu Shabazz to host a men’s conference in Florida, followed by another in Washington, D.C. The D.C. conference, which began on April 18, 2018, was accompanied by a rally next to the White House on April 21, 2018. The rally’s theme was denouncing President Donald Trump and defending Louis Farrakhan, who was in the news for making repeated antisemitic statements. Audience members included Black Hebrew Israelite groups, which used the event to spread their message and recruit new members.

The NBPP SD hosted a National Summit in August 2018. The event was originally scheduled to take place at the First American Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia, but after church staff saw the event flyer promoting “A TIME TO KILL,” church leaders decided to cancel the event’s reservation. This left the group scrambling to find another place to hold the summit, which advertised paramilitary training for all members in attendance.

In October 2018, NBPP SD, through an administrative hearing, sought an arrest warrant against a judge in Glynn County, Georgia, who granted bail to a former Kingsland, Georgia, policeman who is alleged to have subsequently shot someone. The group claimed it was not in his jurisdiction. They also requested a warrant against the Kingsland, Georgia, chief of police for arresting one of the group’s members. These actions were unsuccessful.

NBPP SD also hosted multiple tributes to their hero Khalid Muhammad, former chairman of the New Black Panther Party. Muhammad gained national notoriety after making statements so hateful at a Kean College speaking event in November 1994 that the entire U.S. Congress officially censured him. It included this violent diatribe against white South Africans:

We kill the women. We kill the children. We kill the babies. We kill the blind. We kill the crippled. We kill them all. We kill the f-----. We kill the lesbian. We kill them all. Why kill the women? Because they lay on their back, they are the military or the army’s manufacturing center. They lay on their back and reinforcements roll out from between their legs. So we kill the women, too. You’ll kill the elders, too? Kill the old ones, too. Goddamit, if they are in a wheelchair, push them off a cliff in Capetown or Johannesburg. I said kill the blind, kill the crippled, kill the crazy. Goddamnit. And when you get through killing them all, go to the goddamn graveyard and dig up the grave and kill them goddamn again, because they didn’t die hard enough. They didn’t die hard enough. And if you have killed them all and you don't have the strength to dig them up, then take your gun and shoot in the goddamn grave. Kill them again. Kill them again, because they didn’t die hard enough.

Recently, despite the group’s continued hateful rhetoric, they’ve taken steps toward legitimizing their activities. In 2018 the NBPP SD partnered with religious leaders, business moguls and figures from the entertainment industry in order to launch businesses, appear in a rap music video and take part in disaster relief efforts.

On July 7, 2018, Hashim Nzinga, chairman of the NBPP SD, was nominated for the “Boots on the Ground Award” at the Sa Neter awards show. The nominees list is predominantly made up of black nationalists who actively work to spread their ideology. The nomination came after Nzinga gave an interview to Sa Neter University where he claimed Hitler was a great man and declared, “The Jews always want to control the TV, the newspaper, the radio so they can control the masses of the people.”