‘Sovereigns’ in Black
The situation never turned violent, but McGauley’s gut sense that something was amiss was correct. Gaines-El, who politely declined the Report’s request for comment, is a 38-year-old Indiana native whose real name is Jabbar C. Gaines. He’s one of a growing number of black Americans who, as members of outlandishly named “nations” or as individuals, subscribe to an antigovernment philosophy so extreme that some of its techniques, though nonviolent, have earned the moniker “paper terrorism.” Communicating through social media and learning from an ever-expanding network of websites and online forums, they perplex and often harass law enforcement officials, courts, and local governments across the country.
What may be even stranger about Gaines and his black Fort Wayne cohorts is that the “sovereign citizens” ideology to which they adhere — a conspiratorial belief system that argues that most Americans are not subject to most tax and criminal laws promulgated by the government — was originally thoroughly anti-black. But its racist roots have been virtually forgotten by increasing numbers of black Americans who have melded it with selective interpretations of the teachings of pioneer black nationalist Noble Drew Ali, who founded the exclusively black Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA) almost 100 years ago.
The core ideas of the sovereign citizens movement originated in the racist and anti-Semitic Posse Comitatus group, which roiled the Midwest in the 1970s and 1980s and believed that the county sheriff is the highest legitimate law enforcement authority. Posse ideologues argued, in effect, that God gave America to the white man and therefore the government cannot abridge most rights of whites unless they submit to a “contract” with that government. But black people were only made citizens by the 14th Amendment, they argued, meaning that they have permanently contracted with the government and therefore must obey all its dictates.