The group was founded in 2014 in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent protests in Ferguson, Missouri. In the days following Brown's death, Millere made posts encouraging black people to kill Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Brown and was ultimately not indicted by a grand jury. After a Chicago police officer shot and killed Laquan McDonald, Millere called for the murders of police officers across the U.S. According to Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, Malik Zulu Shabazz once claimed in an online post that he had founded the AADL and handed it over to Millere, but Shabazz's posts have been deleted and the two groups have had little contact. In November 2015, a post on the AADL's Facebook page asserted that "every black person across this nation should find a white police to kill in every state and American/European province around the globe." A day after a Baton Rouge police officer shot and killed Alton Sterling, the group posted on Facebook:
The Pig has shot and killed Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana! You and I know what we must do and I don't mean marching, making a lot of noise, or attending conventions. We must "Rally The Troops!" It is time to visit Louisiana and hold a barbeque. The highlight of our occasion will be to sprinkle Pigs Blood!
Within hours of a mass shooting in Dallas, Texas, that killed five police officers, Millere posted on his Instagram account, "We have no alternative! We must kill white police officers across the country!" The message was accompanied by a photo of Millere with former president Bill Clinton that, according to Millere, was taken in May 2016. The morning after the Dallas shooting, a post on the group's Facebook page appealed to street gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips, saying, "WE ARE CALLING ON THE GANGS ACROSS THE NATION! ATTACK EVERYTHING IN BLUE EXCEPT THE MAIL MAN, UNLESS HE IS CARRYING MORE THAN MAIL!" Another post encouraged violence against firefighters, claiming "they are on the same side as police". In the wake of the Dallas shooting, Shabazz told the press "We don't know whether he is with the movement or not." Shabazz followed that with another statement, "We don't take him seriously... He may, in fact, be a plant. We don't endorse what he says. He's under suspicion as a plant."