Black self-defense was suppressed even when no mob attacked

Evidence

In the face of this terror, Black people had no stable right of self-defense. In Brownsville, a Black neighborhood, residents took up their guns and prepared to defend themselves from the onslaught. As policemen approached the neighborhood, African American sentries fired, thinking it was the mob attacking. Instead, one police officer died and four others were wounded. The state militia descended upon Brownsville and ransacked homes, terrorized the inhabitants, and confiscated every gun it could find. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 807