Sovereign citizens now consist of all colors and creeds | The Kansas City Star

While today’s movement remains largely white and still has some followers with racist leanings, a surge in the number of nonwhite sovereign citizens is underway across the country. And the biggest growth, experts say, is within an African-American branch called Moorish sovereigns, which is disseminating its ideas to a whole new batch of recruits.

“It’s a new world,” said J.J. MacNab, an author who for two decades has been tracking anti-government extremists. “And Missouri is like ground zero.”

The common denominator between sovereign citizens and more left-wing black separatists, MacNab said, is the sense of being powerless and having no voice.

“You have a group of right-wing people who feel voiceless,” said MacNab, who also is a fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. “You look at the angst in Ferguson and you hear a lot of the same things. They would not recognize it in each other, but they have a lot of the same complaints, which is that the world is changing and we don’t get a say in it.”
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“They are much more reflective of the demographics of society today,” he said. “You have white people, you have African-Americans, you have Asians, you have Native Americans. The sovereign citizen movement has really become a melting pot.”

And Moorish nationals are increasingly occupying a bigger portion of the pot, experts say.
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Although most of their criminal activity has involved mortgage and property fraud, the proliferation is a concern, Harris said.

“Right now, they’re more into the social upheaval movement rather than attacks on law enforcement,” he said. “But with their loose affiliation with the New Black Panther Party, who have called for the killing of police officers, that could change.”


Sovereign citizens now consist of all colors and creeds | The Kansas City Star