By Stacy M. Brown, Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

The Posse Comitatus Act was born in 1878. It was short, a single sentence, but it carried a promise: soldiers would not patrol American streets. Its origin was poisoned by the retreat from Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, but its meaning grew larger. It became a vow that liberty cannot live where rifles enforce the law of civilians.

Donald Trump has ripped that vow. He sent California National Guard troops into Los Angeles, not with the governor’s consent but against it. He leaned on a statute written for rebellion when no rebellion existed. He placed armed men in neighborhoods where citizens protested his policies, and in doing so, he showed his intent: not to protect the people but to remind them of his power.

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