On Wednesday (May 6), just days after white protesters staged a volatile protest inside the state’s state house and comparing the Democratic governor’s public health orders to “tyranny,” a group of Black men armed with weapons showed up to escort Black state representative Sarah Anthony safely into the building to work.

The 36-year-old said she wanted to highlight what she saw as a failure of the Michigan capitol police to provide legislators with adequate security during the protest.

“When traditional systems, whether it’s law enforcement or whatever, fail us, we also have the ability to take care of ourselves,” she told the Guardian. Anthony became the first African American woman elected to represent Lansing, Michigan’s district in 2018.

One of Anthony’s constituents, a Black firefighter, organized the capitol escort. Six participants, including two women and one Hispanic man, were armed with assault rifles and handguns. Michael Lynn Jr, a Lansing resident, said he was tired of seeing his representative being intimidated while she was just trying to do her job.

“Being a Black and brown female Democrat in the capitol now is a dangerous job,” he said. “This is an environment that Donald Trump has nurtured.”

Anthony described last week’s protest by a majority white group of hundreds as “one of the most unnerving feelings I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“If I don’t vote the way that these people want me to vote, are they going to rush the and start shooting us?” she said. “You could feel the floor rumbling. You could hear them yelling and screaming.”

Anthony said her goal was not to encourage more armed citizens to volunteer to protect lawmakers but to ensure tax-funded law enforcement officers do a better job of protecting state house employees.

Anthony relayed her appreciation for private citizens concerned about her safety but doesn’t hope the images taken of her escote doesn’t create “an environment that would feel like more guns are needed in order to protect ourselves.”

“The thing that keeps me up at night is the fear that we are becoming more polarized, more angry,” she said, according to the Guardian. “My fear is real that we are creating an environment that is a powder keg, and I don’t want to see citizens of all stripes getting hurt.”