ContrabandCamp

ContrabandCamp

A History of Deploying the US National Guard to Make White People Feel Safe

Since its humble beginnings as a colonial militia, the National Guard has served as slave catchers, civil rights suppressors and a historically anti-Black police force.

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Michael Harriot
Sep 05, 2025
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(Master Sgt. Matthew Hecht/U.S. Air National Guard)

When England sent John Stone to America, it was not sending its best people.

Stone was described as “a drunkard, a lecher, a braggart, a bully and blasphemer,” and by 1634, the undocumented immigrant’s rap sheet included arrests for theft, blasphemy and sleeping with the wives of settlers in the Massachu…

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