Advertisement from the Anachist newspaper The Alarm for an event benefiting the Lehr und Wehr Verein (Photo taken from https://www.lwverein.org/2017/08/14/october-3-1885/ )

June 12th marked the first hearing of a massive suit being undertaken by Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP). Led by former federal prosecutor Mary McCord and assisted by a corporate law firm-that has environmental plunderers TransCanada as clients-the suit is on behalf of the City of Charlottesville and various other plaintiffs supposedly taking a stand against the invasion of “Private Armies” on the fateful day of August 12th, 2017. While most of the fanfare has been focused on the various Far-Right militias and Alt-Right/Nazi parties who are the majority of the defendants, much less media attention has been given to the fact-in a pernicious nod to the far-right rhetoric of “both sides” when it comes to folks defending their communities from white supremacist violence-that two pro-labor and anti-racist organizations-Redneck Revolt and the Socialist Rifle Association-have also been named as “private military forces” as well. In fact-as of June 12th-Redneck Revolt remains one of only two defendants in this lawsuit who have not settled with the city and Georgetown Law.

As the response from Redneck Revolt can also be found elsewhere, I thought it would be best to delve into the history of the laws on unauthorized militias being cited in this suit and their history of being used against movements seeking positive social change. In fact the US Supreme Court decision Presser vs. Illinois which validated these laws involved a case that was explicitly used for this purpose. The law upheld by this decision-and widely copied by many states afterwards (Including Virginia)-targeted the actions of immigrant workers who were setting up a self defense society which was intended to provide a deterrent to paramilitaries employed by factory owners. These paramilitaries-along with police at the service of local political machines-were widely employed against workers organizing for better wages and working conditions. Presser essentially told these workers that you have no right to protect yourself from this terror. This is the tradition of suppression of the human right to self defense that Georgetown Law is operating from.

A lot of what was going on in the US of the so-called Gilded Age should ring a bell to anyone with a sense of social awareness today: Vast disparities in wealth; people not having enough to get by, vicious and out of control police violence and a political and social climate thick with the toxic poisons of racism and xenophobia. It is in the face of all of this that labor organizers, socialists and anarchists organized to fight for better working conditions and work to build a better world. Violence against striking workers and community organizers reached a fever pitch in cities like Chicago. Paramilitary organizations (Such as the Pinkertons) in the employ of factory owners and local police that essentially acted as the armed wing of the local political machine would regularly brutalize immigrant communities, attack and raid union meetings and events and target organizers for arrest or vigilante action.

In the face of this, local Socialist and Anarchist organizers (Ideological distinctions between the two were still rather fluid in the 1870s) decided that the time had come for them to set up their own community defense organizations. Several were formed, but the best known of these was called the Lehr und Wehr Verein (German for Education and Defense Society). It was created in 1875 by primarily German immigrants in the aftermath of the use of the recently formed Illinois State Guard to attack folks demonstrating for the release of aid from the Chicago Relief Society in the aftermath of the Chicago Fire. The Lehr und Wehr Verein, like both Redneck Revolt and the Socialist Rifle Association, helped teach about self-defense and firearms use to working folks and advocated for the rights of marginalized people to be able to defend themselves. They did, however go far beyond anything that these two modern organizations advocated. The Lehr und Wehr Verein was also intended to provide a counter to the armed forces of the police and the State Guard and also to serve as an armed defense force for the working class if a revolution ever came. For the most part though, the Lehr und Wehr Verein helped provide security at labor events and meetings, held marksmanship contests, dances and social events on their own and marched under arms at labor and leftist parades.

As the organization grew and became better known, business-owned press around the country reacted with hysteria. Dire warnings were spread of all sorts of mayhem about to break loose as a result of poor immigrants with guns. At one point there even was a substantial amount of coverage asserting that a certain date-March 23rd 1879-was going to be the date the Verein were going to launch a revolution (Whoever came up with the November Fourth Antifa Civil War conspiracy theory didn’t really have that original of an idea). You can see echoes of this today with the vast amounts of hysteria and condemnation of anti-fascist organizing in most mainstream and far-right media outlets. A lot of it has focused on Redneck Revolt as a result of some members being armed, even though they do not engage in the more confrontational tactics that other antifascist organizations do.

The fear by the rich and their political servitors of groups like the Lehr und Wehr Verein was compounded by events such as the Railroad Strike of 1877, where virtually the entire country was on strike. Militias called out by the government refused to fire on other working class people and eventually the strike was suppressed by federal troops. It was seen that there was a need to have military units loyal to the state government and business interests. A law was passed which declared that the State Guard was the official state militia. Any other group wishing to arm themselves would have to get permission from the governor and subordinate themselves to the State Guard. The Lehr und Wehr Verein took this to court and initially won before a panel of judges, with one judge expressing shock that the state was trying to disarm working people. The state took the Verein to court again, eventually leading to the Presser vs. Illinois verdict in the Supreme Court in 1886 (Presser was the member of the Lehr und Wehr Verein who was arrested for leading an armed group without a license from the state of Illinois).

Now Georgetown Law-which likes to paint themselves as a defender of progressive causes-targets two Anti-Fascist groups who were in Charlottesville to defending themselves and the community from white supremacist terror when the police refused to do so. It almost seems as if they would rather that the people have been at the mercy of the same alt-right thugs they claim they are trying to stop. If they aim to stand by their stated ideals, why are they going after Anti-Fascist groups who helped to defend the community when the police would not? Where were they when Deandre Harris was facing charges from the very people who brutalized him? Where are they when Donald Blakney faces charges and Corey Long is being jailed for standing up to the very same fascists they claim to oppose? People committed to stopping the advance of a revanchist white supremacist movement can do without “allies” like this.

An old union song from the hills of Kentucky asks us “Which side are you on?” When it comes to the question over whether people standing up against the terror of the alt-right have the right to self defense, Georgetown Law and Mary McCord have chosen what side they are on. While they may not be outright Nazis, they certainly don’t stand with anyone truly working to build and defend a better world.