YOUNG PATRIOTS AND PANTHERS: A STORY OF WHITE ANTI-RACISM

This article first appeared in the original Redneck Revolt blog site.

More than forty years ago, two young black men were killed in Chicago. Members of the Black Panther Party, they were murdered by the police as they slept.

Fred Hampton had proved to be a prolific organizer in the Southside of Chicago. His skills were not just relegated to the black community, however. Through a long and arduous process, he had succeeded in building a “Rainbow Coalition” of working class blacks, latinos, and whites.

Black Panther Bobby Lee recalled his work with the white members of the Young Patriot Organization:

"First of all, the Patriots’ leader William 'Preacherman' Fesperman was one of the best human beings I have ever met. He was originally from North Carolina before he moved to Chicago.

However, many of the Panthers left the group when we built alliances. Some didn’t like the Patriots, some just didn’t like white people in general. They were heavy into nationalism. To tell the truth, it was a necessary purging, except for these niggers took themselves out of the organization. The Rainbow Coalition was just a code word for class struggle.

Preacherman would have stopped a bullet for me, and nearly tried. Once, I was in a meeting up in Uptown, and I decided to leave by myself. I immediately determined that the police were following me. I made the mistake of leaving alon