Patriot Party | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1970; 55 years ago (1970) |
| Dissolved | Mid-1970s |
| Preceded by | Young Patriots Organization |
| Headquarters | Chicago |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Party flag | |
.svg) | |
The Patriot Party was asocialist organization of the early 1970s in theUnited States that organizedpoor, rural whites in theAppalachian South andPacific Northwest. The party was formed after a split with theYoung Patriots Organization. The YPO's membership was drawn fromstreet gangs of Appalachian whites in theUptown neighborhood ofChicago, Illinois; it became politicized after working with theYoung Lords, aPuerto Rican activist group, and the African-AmericanBlack Panther Party.
The Patriot Party was founded in 1970 after infighting among members of the leftistYoung Patriots Organization in Chicago.[1][2] The group sought to improve the condition of disadvantaged whites, particularly recent immigrants, drug-users, the unemployed, welfare-recipients, blue-collar workers, and "dislocated hillbillies" who had leftAppalachia.[2]
The Patriot Party was a member of the originalRainbow Coalition, formed byFred Hampton of theBlack Panther Party and others to create a broad-based, multi-racial political coalition. It formed after theUnited Front Against Fascism conference held inOakland,California, in 1969. The coalition included the Young Lords, theBrown Berets andI Wor Kuen. Hampton's intention was to have multi-ethnic gangs working together to accomplish peaceful solutions, rather than battling each other.
The Patriot Party borrowed strategies of community organizing from the Black Panthers.[2] For instance, they established aFree Breakfast for Children program.[citation needed] They established "liberation schools" to teach their ideology to children.[2] TheEugene,Oregon, chapter, location of theUniversity of Oregon, garnered much community support with its "Free Lumber" program. At this time in the Northwest, some poor people still relied onwood-stoves for cooking and heating, and cheap wood was hard to come by.[3]
The Patriot Party believed that whites would abandon racist beliefs after identifying the capitalist system as their true enemy.[2]
Despite theConfederate flag's association withwhite supremacism,[4][5][6] the Patriot Party used it as a symbol. In addition to easy access at military surplus stores, the flag was used, according to Amy Sonnie and James Tracy, "as a symbol of southern poor people's revolt against the owning class". Buttons with the slogan "ResurrectJohn Brown" – a reference to the avowedabolitionist – were also commonly used. Pamphlets contained slogans such as "The South will rise again, only this time with the North and all the oppressed people of the world."[2]
In 1970, theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested the entire central committee of the Patriot Party[who?] and charged them with various felonies.[7] They later dropped the charges, but, by the mid-1970s, the FBI'sCOINTELPRO program had effectively suppressed the organization.
The group was also strongly opposed by far-right white militias.[2]
In 1982, thecivil rightsactivistJesse Jackson adopted the name of "Rainbow Coalition" for organizing multi-ethnic groups to support and vote forliberal (generallyDemocratic) candidates for public office, in order to strengthen minority voices by acting in collaboration.
