White Panther Party

The White Panthers were a political collective founded in the United States in 1968 by John and Leni Sinclair, and Lawrence (Pun) Plamondon. The group, which took its name in emulation of the Black Panthers, dedicated its energies to "cultural revolution." The group was most active in Detroit, Michigan and Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party was asked in an interview what white people could do to support the Black Panthers. Newton replied that they could form a White Panther Party. 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."

References

• Essay: The Political Economy of the White Panthers
• "'60s radical takes long trip back to his roots," Marsha Low, Detroit Free Press, Oct. 27. 2004, Sec B.
• "White Panther Manifesto," John Sinclair, 1968, accessed 17 Nov. 2004 http://www.signal66.com/music/lostindc/00_0324b.html
• Adapted from the Wikinfo article, White Panther Party http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.php?title=White_Panther_Party, used under the GNU Free Documentation License