
© Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesMembers of the New Black Panther Party protest near the site of the Republican National Convention on July 16 in Cleveland.
Micah Xavier Johnson, who killed five police officers in Dallas, was increasingly drawn to black nationalist ideology and attended several meetings of the People's New Black Panther Party.
Gavin Eugene Long, who killed three officers in Baton Rouge, said he belonged to the Washitaw Nation, an obscure black nationalist group that claims ownership to the huge swath of the United States obtained in the Louisiana Purchase on the belief that they are descended from a U.S. indigenous group.
The People's New Black Panther Party and the Washitaw Nation have vastly different ideologies and no direct ties to each other, but they are part of a broad landscape of black nationalist groups playing a role in the country's violent summer 2016.
"There are a few big groups and a lot of little ones, and they are growing in an echo chamber where all they hear is 'anger, anger, anger, anger, anger,' " said J.J. MacNab, an author and George Washington University researcher who specializes in extremism.
Some of these entities espouse extremist, anti-government views, and their numbers jumped from 113 groups in 2014 to 180 last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism.
Ryan Lenz, an SPLC analyst, said that increase has partly been a response to a rise in white supremacist and white nationalist activity amid the racially charged environment of the past two years, including the 2016 presidential campaign. For example, SPLC figures show that the number of Ku Klux Klan chapters increased from 72 in 2014 to 190 last year.
Comment: Authorities are suggesting this may have been an act of anti-American sabotage.