Harriet Tubman’s daughters: Black women bear arms

Citing the political climate and violence against women, Black women seek safe spaces to study firearms, self-protection, second amendment rights

Frances Davis and her husband set out to open a gun club where Black and brown people would feel safe as they learned to protect themselves. image credit: Asiyah Kurtz

I was 9 years old when I learned Harriet Tubman carried a pistol as protection from slave catchers and their dogs. Sitting in Ms. Murphy’s class, imagining a Black woman getting her freedom while carrying a gun struck me as extraordinary. Even now the visual resonates.

A dual citizen of Meridian, Miss. and East St. Louis, Ill., Treasure Shields Redmond is a published poet, educator and the co-founder of Fannie Lou Hamer House, an artist’s retreat. I first saw Treasure in a social media video where she was accurately firing her gun at a paper target while wearing a yellow sundress. The visual was striking: femininity and power holding space unapologetically. Harriet’s daughter.

There are two instances in my life when I have felt most powerful. The first: when I delivered my babies without anesthesia; the second: the first time I fired a 20-gauge shotgun. In an era where protections for gendered healthcare have been eliminated, voters are being removed from registration rolls and women are being targeted for violence, it’s necessary for Black women to at least understand their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The author holds her hunting license. image credit: courtesy of the author

I learned all too well about its complexities when I began the permitting process through Anubis Arms LLC. Anubis Arms is the only Black- and Latino-owned gun club. Owned by Gene and Frances Davis, the club offers assistance with gun licensing, firearms purchases and field training. 

It was on a recent field trip with Anubis Arms where I met Frances Davis and learned the club’s origin story. We met at the Pine Valley Gun Club to practice trap shooting. Trap shooting is a discipline of competitive clay pigeon shooting where you fire at disks flung into the air at high speeds using a voice-activated machine. It was dusk-dark when I arrived at Pine Valley. Just light enough for me to navigate the long dirt driveway with my headlights off as the path wound behind a thicket of trees. 

It was eerily quiet. No birds announcing bedtime. No crickets or frogs calling to each other. Just the staccato sounds of loud gunfire. My senses were on edge as I began questioning the sanity of going to a place where I would be outnumbered by men with guns.

I texted Frances to let her know I had arrived, and she cheerily exited her car to welcome me with a hug. As I surveyed the field behind us, I spied a row of five older white men alternating positions as they took turns saying, “pull,” followed by the blast of 12-gauge shotguns. The sound was deafening. 

Frances Davis shoots a 12-gauge shotgun. image credit: Asiyah Kurtz

Frances and I walked inside to purchase three boxes of shotgun shells for our shoot. As we completed the transaction – show ID, complete form, scan document, swipe, pay – I asked Frances how she got into firearms.

She says, “It was during COVID and everything was crazy. My husband (Gene) mentioned that he had no way to protect our family, if someone decided to break into the house. It was then that we started talking about opening a gun shop.” Through this process the couple found there were no local gun clubs willing to help them learn about firearms, let alone provide guidance in opening a store. 

Like Frances, I had a similar experience when I visited local gun shops looking for help. You know the feeling: that knot in your stomach when you see the oversized trucks with mounted American flags, enter the store, and quickly realize you’re not welcome. As an Afro-Latina, Frances said she wanted Anubis to be a place where Black women could feel safe as they learn to protect themselves.

I heard a similar motivation of using firearms for protection from Mississippi native, Dr. Treasure Shields Redmond. A dual citizen of Meridian, Miss. and East St. Louis, Ill., she is a published poet, educator and the co-founder of Fannie Lou Hamer House, an artist’s retreat located in Illinois. I first saw Treasure in a social media video where she was accurately firing her gun at a paper target while wearing a yellow sundress. The visual was striking: femininity and power holding space unapologetically. Harriet’s daughter.

About her decision to obtain a gun license, she says, “Recently, I made it a point to get my conceal and carry license in Illinois from a Black-owned company run by two former Black policemen. What made me really just own my own personal handgun was what feels like an increase in femicide.”

Femicide is “an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation.” A 2025 study by UN Women reports in 2024, partners and family members intentionally killed a woman every 10 minutes. The numbers add up: 6 women every hour; 144 women every day; 52,560 women every year are intentionally killed by their partners or family.

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation highlights the need for policy to address Black femicide. According to a report by the Violence Policy Center, Black women make up 14% of the U.S. population but are murdered by men at a rate more than twice as high as white women. How then are Black women to ensure our safety when femicide is a universal problem? 

I ask Shields Raymond about the makeup of her concealed carry classes. She notes it was 60% women/40% men and most of the women were young adults. She says, “A lot of them, you know, had small children and lived alone and they wanted to make sure they knew how to protect themselves.”

The day I visited Anubis Arms to complete my firearms application, an older Black woman walked in to pick up the handgun she had just purchased from Frances. In the 45 minutes I was at the shop, there were three Black women and two Black men engaged in various transactions to acquire a firearm and receive training. The diversity at Anubis was striking when compared to Pine Valley.

The National African American Gun Association (NAAGA) has a goal to introduce every African American to firearm use for protection. Since the inception of the United States, Black Americans have been excluded from fully realizing their Constitutional rights. NAAGA says, “Black Codes or laws were put into place in just about every state preventing African Americans from legally owning any type of firearm or weapon.” The organization reports 19% of African Americans legally own firearms and that Black families see “guns not only as a positive thing, but in many cases, a necessity.”

Given the statistics of violence against Black women and current state of our country, I argue we must exercise all levers of society like the Second Amendment to ensure our safety.   

To research the firearms laws in your state, visit the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action - https://www.nraila.org/gun-laws.