Walter “Hawk” Newsome was born on April 4, 1977 in the Bronx, New York, where he was raised with his sister and now-fellow Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist Chivona Newsome. Hawk Newsome claims to have been “brought up to have a revolutionary heart” by his parents, who were products of 1960s liberal activism in their youth. His mother, Doris, was a member of the Black Panther Party in the Sixties.

Although he was a high-school dropout, Newsome later obtained his GED and then graduated from Concordia College in 2003, after which he became a paralegal at the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office. He later worked as a Project Manager for the Wilson Elser law firm in White Plains, New York.

Newsome eventually attended law school at the Howard University School of Law before ultimately receiving his J.D. in 2012 from the Touro Law Center in Long Island.

In 2013 he ran an unsuccessful campaign, as a Democratic candidate, for New York City Council, securing just 3% of the vote. That same year, Newsome also joined the recently created Justice League NYC.

In 2016, Newsome and his aforementioned sister Chivona co-founded Black Lives Matter of Greater New York (BLM-GNY), which never became an official chapter of the BLM Global Network (a.k.a. BLM). In June 2020, the Managing Director of BLM Global, Kailee Scales, released a statement distancing her organization from Newsome and his BLM-GNY: “As BLM [National] has told Mr. Newsome in the past, and as is still true today, Mr. Newsome’s group is not a chapter of BLM and has not entered into any agreement with BLM agreeing to adhere to BLM’s core principles. The only official chapter of BLM in New York is Black Lives Matter NYC.”

Listed on Newsome’s BLM-GNY website are the group’s 9 major “demands,” which read as follows:

1. Prosecute police who falsify information in the course of an investigation.
2. Mandatory and immediate medical response for suspects/ subjects who complain of illness or injury.
3. American citizens who are incarcerated should never lose their right to vote.
4. Reinstate the right to vote to all incarcerated citizens.
5. Independent investigator and prosecutor for all police shootings of civilians.
6. Establish an independent unit to investigate and prosecute all police shootings.
7. Independent investigative unit under the DOJ to prosecute all police shootings.
8. Create a comprehensive national database of police shootings.
9. Establish a national Day of Remembrance for victims of police brutality.

BLM-GNY boasts that it was “the first group in NYC to endorse Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” The organization’s website, meanwhile, sells sweatshirts that bear the slogan, “Donald Trump is a White Supremacist.”

In 2017 and 2018, Newsome filed two civil lawsuits alleging that policemen in New York City had unlawfully assaulted and arrested him for his participation in two separate anti-police protests. At one of those events, Newsome was displaying a sign that read, “Blue Klux Klan.”

In January 2020, Newsome appeared in a Fox Nation interview during which he made the following claims:

• “We [BLM activists] had to become anti-police just to wake America up.”
• “Policing as a whole is racist.”
• “The white supremacists who built this country never earned anything peacefully.”
• “If it were up to me, the [American] flag would be waved upside down because it’s a signal of distress.”

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s infamous death in May 2020, Newsome announced his plans to carry out a retaliatory “war on police.” Akin to the armed militants of the Black Panthers in the 1960s and ’70s, Newsome’s newly established “Peace Officers,” he explained, would “defend our communities from police who will murder us and get away with it.” “We have black Special Forces officers advising us, and we will teach and train people in our communities, the Black Ops department of Black Opportunities,” said Newsome, adding: “We pattern ourselves after the Black Panthers, after the Nation of Islam. We believe that we need an arm to defend ourselves…. I don’t see us working with police. I see us policing ourselves. I see us teaching black people how to police their own communities.”

In June 2020, Newsome defended the widespread rioting and looting that was being carried out by activists affiliated with BLM, Antifa, and other far-left entities: “You’re talking about people who have been told time and time again that their black lives don’t matter…. You’re talking about a people who witnessed their peers and their family members incarcerated at unfair rates…. You’re looking at people who are miseducated and then to add insult to injury, the government allows police to come in and kill us and allow police officers to continuously get away with killing us. Any person would be outraged.”

Newsome also claimed that black looters in particular were merely responding, in an understandable manner, to the immense harm that capitalism had allegedly done to African Americans: “They want to go out and grab all those things that America told them that they should have, but they couldn’t have….People are poor. People are desperate. People are frustrated. So what do you expect them to do? People want to destroy because they’re angry and they’re frustrated…. Black Lives Matter didn’t create this violence. Black Lives Matter is a product of this violence. The rioters are the product of the violence.”

In June 2020 as well, Newsome agreed to be interviewed by a reporter from the New York Post. Referring to his native borough of The Bronx, Newsome said: “We don’t want white people here…. [W]e don’t want white people coming in and raising our rents. You can’t be a supporter of black people if you come gentrify their neighborhoods. Stay the fuck out of our communities.”

In the same interview, Newsome denounced nonwhite minorities who chose to become police officers: “Black and brown guys that join the [NYPD]? You can’t trust ‘em. They go blue as soon as they become cops and the blue line is ruled by white men. We don’t want them here telling our people what to do.” Moreover, Newsome recounted the thoughts and feelings that had filled his mind while he observed a recent riot in Minneapolis, the site of George Floyd’s death: “I was standing in front of Wells Fargo [Bank] when it was burning in Minneapolis. It was very liberating. F–k that. Burn, man. They only listen when we destroy things. America doesn’t care about people; they care about property.”

On June 24, 2020, Newsome was interviewed by Fox News Channel host Martha MacCallum:

• MacCallum asked Newsome: “You … have said that violence is sometimes necessary in these situations. What exactly is it that you hope to achieve through violence?” Newsome replied: “Wow, it’s interesting that you would pose that question like that, because this country is built upon violence. What was the American Revolution, what’s our diplomacy across the globe? We go in and we blow up countries and we replace their leaders with leaders who we like. So for any American to accuse us of being violent is extremely hypocritical.”
• When MacCallum then clarified that her question was based on pro-violence remarks she had heard Newsome make during other interviews, Newsome responded: “I said, if this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking … figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation…. I don’t condone, nor do I condemn, rioting.”
• Later in the interview, Newsome stated that the BLM movement was dedicated to “saving lives,” and that its adherents deserved to be “applauded” for their support for the Second Amendment. “Nobody’s talking about ambushing police officers. We’re talking about protecting lives,” he explained. “There’s nothing more American than that. We talk about uplifting and upholding the Second Amendment, but it seems to be the hypocrisy of America that when black people start talking about arming themselves and defending themselves, [that] talk is ‘violent’. But when white people grab assault rifles and go to our nation’s, their state capitals, it’s all good.”
• “Jesus Christ is the most famous black radical revolutionary in history,” Newsome added in the interview. “And he was treated just like Dr. [Martin Luther] King. He was arrested on occasion, and he was also crucified or assassinated. This is what happens to black activists. We are killed by the government.”
• As the interview drew to a close, Newsome told MacCallum: “I just want black liberation and black sovereignty, by any means necessary.”

In November 2021, Newsome warned that there would be “riots,” “fire,” and “bloodshed” if then-mayor-elect Eric Adams were to follow through on his previously stated plan to reinstate the NYPD’s controversial anti-gun units amid the historic surge in violent crime that New York City was experiencing at that time. “If they think they are going back to the old ways of policing, then we’re going to take to the streets again,” Newsome said outside Brooklyn Borough Hall immediately after having spoken with Adams. That same day, Newsome told followers of his Instagram account: “You and I both know that we are up against an evil and violent system.”

In April 2022, Newsome condemned New York City Mayor Eric Adams for having recently pointed out the hypocrisy of Black Lives Matter as follows: “Where are all those who stated Black Lives Matter? If Black lives matter, then the thousands of people I saw on the street when [George] Floyd was murdered should be on the street right now stating that the lives of these Black children that are dying every night matters.” During an April 21, 2022 airing of Fox News Channel’s American Newsroom, co-host Bill Hemmer said to Newsome: “The subject is African-Americans. I would also argue White lives matter, too. Everybody’s life matters here. What the mayor contends, though, is that the same reaction is not given. What would you say to him?”

Newsome replied to Hemmer: “It was smooth the way you threw White Lives Matters in there. Our problem is when black lives are oppressed and don’t receive justice. Nobody cares. Nothing happens. Something happens to a white person. The world moves, right? So, let’s get back to Eric Adams. This mayor who’s a Democrat, but he spews conservative and Republican talking points. At the end of the day, we have a name for someone like this. And this is someone we’d call a coon, right? He is a black man – he’s a white man in blackface, and a very conservative-minded white man, at that. So what we have is a man with hundreds of people on the city’s payroll, billions of dollars in budget, and 40,000 police officers. He has 10 [shooting] victims in one night. The night before, he had 16 shooting victims on the train, and they say ‘what are you going to do about policing,’ and he says, ‘what about BLM?’ Is America not smart enough to see him deflecting?”

On June 18, 2024, Newsome attended a Bronx Criminal Court hearing for NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran, who was facing second-degree manslaughter charges stemming from an August 2023 drug bust during which he had thrown a cooler containing soda cans at drug suspect Eric Duprey while the latter was trying to flee the scene on a motor scooter. Duprey died when the cooler struck him on the head and caused him to crash his scooter.

While Newsome was speaking with Duprey’s sobbing relatives following the June 18 hearing, he suddenly became involved in an angry altercation with a New York State Court officer. “You think I’m scared of you?” the 6-foot-6 Newsome screamed at the much smaller white officer. “I’ll beat the shit out of you! You must be out of your fucking mind! You pussy! You see how I’m all up on you? You’re a vagina! A fucking vagina!” At one point, Newsome also grabbed a female officer’s hand and batted it away as she attempted to move on a woman who was with Newsome. As a result of his actions that day, Newsome received three summonses for disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. In an Instagram video which he posted later that same day (June 18, 2024), Newsome claimed that the court officer, whom he identified as a policeman, had told him and the Duprey family members, “You got to move.” “So I had words with him to defend the family,” Newsome explained. “You’re not going to re-traumatize them.”

In addition to his aforementioned affiliations, Newsome is also a member of the AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus, an affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America.