Supporters of Jan. 6 Rioters and Black Second Amendment Activists Hold Dueling Protests at Texas Capitol

Sarah RumpfSep 26th, 2022, 3:13 pm
 

The First Amendment grants us all the freedom of speech, but offers no reassurances that the exercise of that right will be free from chaos, as two very different groups discovered this weekend in Austin, Texas.

Your friendly neighborhood Mediaite contributing editor was in the Lone Star State’s capital city for the Texas Tribune Festival, and Saturday featured “Open Congress,” in which several blocks of Congress Avenue (the main street through the center of downtown Austin that leads directly to the Texas Capitol building) were closed to traffic, with tents set up for several panels, sponsors’ exhibits, refreshments.

As I walked north towards the Capitol to the last group of tents, I could hear someone speaking on a megaphone. Protesters are a common sight here, voicing their free speech rights for or against a wide variety of causes.

The voice I heard was calling for reparations and advocating for Black Americans to use their Second Amendment rights to defend themselves, but the banners I saw were calling for “Justice for January Six” — two topics that I had not previously seen together.

It was, in fact, two separate groups of protesters, which I confirmed by asking several of the people with each group. One group was advocating for the defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the other group was with the Elmer Geronimo Platt Gun Club, which “was created for the advocacy of Black Americans exercising their 2nd Amendment Right,” according to their Twitter bio.

A protester with the Jan. 6 group told my friend that they had attempted to work out some sort of rotating schedule, for each group to take turns with their speakers, switching back and forth every 10 minutes, but negotiations broke down and the video at the top of the post was the result, with both groups attempting to broadcast their messages via dueling megaphones.

I also captured a short video of just the EGP Gun Club group. Several of their members were open carrying, which is legal in Texas.

Filmmaker Ford Fischer was at the Capitol documenting the “Black Second Amendment Unity Walk,” and posted a Twitter thread with multiple video clips of the interactions between the two protester groups. According to Fischer’s videos, at least one of the Jan. 6 protesters expressed his support for reparations to the gun club members but then the situation “escalated” when one of the Jan. 6 group claimed the defendants charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot should get reparations too.

Video by Sarah Rumpf for Mediaite.

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Sarah Rumpf - Contributing Editor

Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law & Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Bluesky and Threads.