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White Panthers Party (U.S.)

image by Jean-Marc Merklin, 24 July 2022

White Panther Party
Variant flag

See also:

White Panther Party

I came across the existence of a "White Panther Party" (WPP) flag.

The WPP was created in November 1968 "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 leaders were Leni & John Sinclair and Pun Plamondon, all active part of the far-left Beatnik movement and essentially based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
It has been renamed Rainbow People's Party (RPP) in July 1972, to avoid confusion with White supremacism. The RPP, which used new and different symbols, disappeared in the beginnings of 1980's but its influence still lives on in the very diverse Rainbow movement.

Sources:
- WPP history & logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party
- WPP flag: https://crossculturalsolidarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screen-Shot-2022-06-16-at-12.04.01-PM.png
- WPP History, in French: http://www.slate.fr/story/213738/histoire-meconnue-white-panther-party-contre-culture-utopie-annee-1960-activistes-soutien-black-panthers-egalite-raciale-brutalites-policieres-marijuana
- on the RPP: https://aadl.org/node/194535

It remains unclear to me is whether those who continued the movement did so as members of the WPP or of the RPP.
Jean-Marc Merklin, 24 July 2022

More information at www.loeser.us/flags/hate3.html#wj

It is my understanding that both organizations disappeared in the 1980s. As with most of the memberships in these organizations the diehards scattered into other extremist organizations or were absorbed into more normal less-extreme pastimes as violent individuals joined their ranks. I recall some in Michigan renamed themselves the Rainbow People's Party for a very short time. I also don't think they were ever really closely aligned with the Black Panther Party as they were born out of an interview with Huey Newton where he snarked (sarcastically commented) that "they should form their own party" when asked what white people could do to support the Black Panthers.
Pete Loeser, 24 July 2022

My own understanding is that as early as 1972, John Sinclair transformed White identitarianism into Rainbow, in other words the White can no longer manifest himself alone and without associating others. This is only speculation, but I think it's fairly unlikely that the WPP flag survived beyond 1972, as it would have perhaps been seen as a stubbornness to risk being identified as a supremacist. Beyond the extremisms, exaggerations and profiteering of this rather troubled time, this seems to me to be an important root to explain the current antiracist logic of speech of the white sympathies for the BLM movement.
Jean-Marc Merklin, 25 July 2022

Variant flag

image by Jean-Marc Merklin, 24 July 2022