White Panthers
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White Panther Party
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|---|---|
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| Founded | 1968 |
| Dissolved | c. 1980s |
| Ideology |
Anti-racism Anti-capitalism |
| Political position | Far-left |
| National affiliation | Rainbow Coalition |
The White Panthers were a far-left, anti-racist, white American political collective founded in 1968 by Pun Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was asked what white people could do to support the Black Panthers. Newton replied that they could form a White Panther Party. The counterculture era group took the name and dedicated its energies to "cultural revolution." Sinclair made every effort to ensure that the White Panthers were not mistaken for a white supremacist group, responding to such claims with "quite the contrary." The party worked with many ethnic minority rights groups in the Rainbow Coalition.
The group was most active in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan and included the proto-punk band MC5 which John Sinclair managed for several years before he was incarcerated. From a general ideological perspective, Plamondon and Sinclair defined the White Panthers as "fighting for a clean planet and the freeing of political prisoners." The White Panthers added other elements such as advocating "rock 'n roll, dope, sex in the streets and the abolishing of capitalism." Abbie Hoffman praised the WPP in Steal This Book and . The group emerged from the Detroit Artists Workshop, a radical arts collective founded in 1964 near Wayne State University. Among its concerns was the legalization of marijuana; Sinclair had several arrests for possession. It aligned itself with radical politics, claiming the 12th Street Riot was justifiable under political and economic conditions in Detroit.
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