The Black Panther Party’s Coalition Building
In February 1969, Fred Hampton met with Cha Cha Jiménez, and they agreed to form the Rainbow Coalition, an antiracist, multiethnic, working-class alliance. Jiménez referred to the organization as the “poor people’s army.”
To expand the coalition, Black Panther Party leader Bobby Lee approached the Young Patriots. Despite their racial and ethnic differences, Lee stressed the similar oppression and neglect experienced by Young Patriots on the North Side of Chicago and Black people on the West Side. As a result of this meeting, the Young Patriots joined the Rainbow Coalition.
Watch the video to see moments from the meeting and interviews with those in attendance.
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HENRY “POISON” GADDIS, Black Panther Party: One day, Bob Lee said, "Hey, man, "I want you to... "take a ride with me tonight. We gotta go to this place called Uptown. I need you to be my security man.”
COMMENTATOR: They were poor, man. Well, I'm talking about a slum. You could smell it. See, you could smell a slum.
GADDIS: We all went to this, uh, community meeting with the joint organization.
BOBBY LEE, Black Panther leader: Panthers are here. Are here. Panthers are here. I am. - For Uptown. - Okay. - We come here with our hearts open, you cats supervise us, where we can be of help to you. What do you want in your community? What do you want here? Are you afraid of... you want us to take the berets off now, or—or what, man?
COMMENTATOR, meeting attendee: There were a lot of suspicions about the Black Panthers, that they were gun-carrying terrorists.
GADDIS: It was a scenario that I had never been in before. I see some guys with Confederate flag patches. I was a little concerned.
LEE: The thing we're going to deal with is concept of poverty, man. We've got to erase the color thing, see.
MEETING ATTENDEE: Buildings not fit for dogs to live in, but humans having to pay $144 a month for the thing, they sold-- they sell the building out to new ownership. What we need is understanding among the people. Coalition between the people to stick together and take them owners and put them over here in the lake somewhere.
LEE: Right on. (applause) Once you realize, man, that your house is funky with rats and roaches, you know, same way a Black dude's house is, you know. Once you realize that your brother's been brutalized by the cops, the same way the West Side and South Side is. Once you realize that you are paying taxes... Taxes for the cops to whoop your ass. You're paying them. (group agreeing) And you're paying them to kill you and deal from there. The same things happen on the South Side…
COMMENTATOR, meeting attendee: Bobby Lee turned out to be quite an organizer. And he says, "Yeah, my name is Bobby Lee, but my real name is Robert E. Lee." (chuckles) And we all laughed. We said, "You gotta be kidding me."
LEE: Who, who's here and wants to see this thing move?
MEETING ATTENDEES: Yeah, man. (group agreeing)
LEE: Right on. Well, the first thing we talk about now is how we gonna organize. You know, where are we gonna organize?
MEETING ATTENDEE: And you know, we're all gonna get run out of here eventually.
COMMENTATOR, meeting attendee: That was a good meeting. It was. It got everybody... it got everybody riled up. It was a good start to a coalition.
BOBBY RUSH, Black Panther Party: We worked very, very hard in the Uptown community. It was two weeks. We went there every day, every night.
COMMENTATOR: (clapping, indistinct talking) Here's a white community asking for help from the Black Panther Party, man. I knew that this was serious.
The Black Panther Party, Young Lords, and Young Patriots often supported each other in their activism, providing security and backing for protests. For example, when one group organized a demonstration, the others would show up in solidarity. Their collective efforts led to tangible outcomes. Leveraging the Black Panther Party’s established network of free health clinics on the West Side, the groups worked together to open clinics in Lincoln Park and Uptown. With Hampton’s assistance, the Young Patriots launched their own free health clinic in 1969. Additionally, all three groups collaborated to secure legal representation for people targeted by corrupt landlords and worked to combat redlining, with the Young Lords and Black Panthers specifically confronting Italian and Irish groups who were enforcing discriminatory practices at the street level.
