3LACX ?AffP!t PAIACK1/.Î FS inted fran ïhc NY. Time-, iiche&l Kaufman The Black Panther party hen joined with two farmer Chicago street form of "•/est Side Story Liberation Fronte The union af the three groups - the two others are the Puerto Rican Young Lords Organization and the Appalachian Young Patriots - was formalized last spring in Chicago and the coalition is now recruiting in New York City. The coalition announced its arrival here last month when its representatives were the only speakers at a march at Fort Dix held to protest alleged brutallity in the st^kade. The number of members in the c^mp^nent groups is something their leaders refuse to disouss for what they say are security reasons. But a consensus of various police and radical sources indicates that the Panthers, who recently completed a purge of suspected police agents and "cultural nationalists" from their ranks, have about 210 fully committed members in the city* Their sympathizers probably number in the thousands» Other Groups Smaller The Lards are believed to have fewer than 100 members while the Patriots, who began organizing here within the last monthj WW said to have several dozen activists. • In the refracted political spectrum If today's radical move­ ment, the three groupa share an unusual position on the left. Like the Progressive Labor party, they are pro-Chinese Communist, but unlike the P.L.P. they do not revile the North -Vietnamese for having gone t* the negotiating table, '• Like some elements in the Students for a Democratic Society, they profess to believe that armed revolutionary struggle will ultimately be necessary to bring about a socialist order. But they regard the recent/ confrontation of Chicago police by the Weatherman faction of 3.D.S. as "prcvocational and Custeristic"- the -latter a reference to Gen. George Custer's inept and fatal Indian war stategy,. But the sharpest distinction between the Rainbow Coalition and other radical groups is the coalition's rejection or college campuses and to some extent, even factories as potentially fer­ tile recruiting ground fir revolutionaries, It is in the slums and shacks of Appalachian squalor that the Panthers, the Lords, and the Patriots say they are looking for • "their cadres. "Our analysis is that you have to start with* the most oppressed elements in society- the hungry, the 'badly housed and badly dressed," explained Arthur Turco, a 25-year-old Patriot defense captain, who has come here from Chicago to organize ,,.., chapters, He and leaders of the Panthers and the Young Lords .see the coalition as a "vanguard of the dispossessed" that will act as a "revolutionary spearhead". Since the Panthers are the best organized of the groups and since the left generally feels that blacks are the largest oppres­ sed element in American society, Mr, Turco sees the black group as the leaders of the coalition. As for students, Mr, Turco, who is himself a New-York born law-school graduate, feels that they too' are oppressed but not as "severely as âthe po«s>r, and while he welcomes them as allies he insists-that they recognize the leadership of Mtae most down­ trodden". He agrees with Yiruba,'the 19-year-^Id minister of infor­ mation of the. Lords, and Carltin Yearwood, the marine veteran who heads the Manhattan Panther group, that the present stage of the"revolutionary struggle" Is one of "education and information to raise revolutionary consciousness". At the Lords storefront office, on Madison Avenue and 111th Street, where young men and women i» purple berets congregate throughout the day and night Yoruba explained the organization's work. "All the Lords are on duty 2k hou.es a day, whereever they aiv •In' the street, in homo;:;, in stores, They talk to the people to • shrw therm hrw it is the capitalist system that k? Inside the office a bookshelf contains the works of Mao Tse- tung, Che Guevara, and the late Pedro Albizu Compos, the leftist Puerto Rican nationalist, A poster on the wall says "Free ChaCha Jiminez", reffering to the man who, his supporters say trans­ formed the Chicago Lords from a fighting gang into a political organization after having read the works of Eldridge Cleaver. Mr. Jiminez was recently imprisoned in Chicago on a charge of aggravated assault. In the office Yöruba discribed the present task of the Lords and of the whole coalition as educating the people. Like the Narodniki reformers who worked among the peasants in Czarist Russia, the coalition workers regard themselves as messengers,. "See, the man has psyched the people into thinking they have the power," said Yoruba, who recently dropped out Of college*to devote all his time to the organization. "But people are aware and pretty soon all of them will have to decide as Eldridge Cleaver says, if they're part of the solution or part of the problem." As a mobilization tactic the group will focus on particular issues that they feel have neighborhood support. Last August, for instance, they dumped garbage and blocked traffic in some East ' Harlem streets to protest poor refuse collection. VWe'll take a reformist idea for a revolutionary end but we aiways point out that on reformist issues alone the man can always co-opt the people. We used the garbage to point out the internal contradictions- that in a society as rich as this, they can't pick up garbage in the barrio while they don't seem to have any ' trouble on Park Avenue south of 96ht Street," Yoruba said. • ACTIVE IN YORKVILLE Mr. Turco said that he hoped the Patriots he recruited here would apply the same technique among poor whites. At present,' he said^ several members have taken apartments in Yor'kville where, he said there were many poor white's being threatened with eviction. As Mr. Turco talked a chorus'of eight .Patriot girls wearing denim jackets decorated with Panther buttons and Confederate flags / periodically cut in with a "right on" whenever they felt a point had been made. When two girls left they parted with the Panther salutation "All power to the people". The others immediately answered "All power to the people," The Panthers are the stylistic and ideological leaders of the coalition. Their paper "The Black Panther" published in San Fran­ cisco and distributediin several cities throughout the nation, plans to let the Lords •and 'the Patriots run their own articles on the back pages. At the Panther office in Harlem, Mr, Yearwood, a graduate of Flushing High School, said the major significance of the coalition was that it showed that capitalism and not racism was the major problem. "We believe that racism comes out of the class struggle, its just par£ of the divide and conquer tactics of. the Estab­ lishment and a product of capitalism. When we provide free break­ fast for poor kids, we provide provide them for poor whites and poor blacks," Mr. Yearwood said. Suppose, the leaders of the three groups were asked, all ' Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and peer whites as well as most students were ultînaéély enlisted in the effort to establish a, "revolutionary base" wouldn't that still leave mere people against them than with them in a polarized acciety? IDftNCE FROM MAO • -„a answered by citing Mae Tse-tung. "'All my enemy affirms I reject and all my enemy rejects I affirm.'" • do I know there are enly 2r million black people in the country"" Yoruba asked. "I've never seen a census taker. There may be 80 million or more," * Whito. the coalition is established along ethnic lines, with a unifying rallying cry of Black "Powre, Brown Power, and'Whtte Power", the leaders all oppose what they call cultural nationalism. While they work in their individual areas and while the Lords wear buttons with the Spanish legend, si Hold Puerto Rico in MY Heart ", and call fcr poltical and economic independence for Puerto Rico they all talk of "revolutionary solidarity". "We believe that ta fight only for the interests, of your close cultural brothers and sisters is not in the interests of all the people." says one plank of the Young Patriots plat»m, (reprinted by the Patriot Party, Dec, 2 3, I969) ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!! ! The Patriot Party 174-2- Second Ave. 831-^503 N.Y., N.Y. •-•.w-v.**,.*>.•,- • **.- - i««»%saatiÄJ*wÄ*ü. .- : h^A^UNWVHtMi nori' •••^.^.'«Bhwv«*»-' <f 6 /-/0-70 -»&-*,& PATRIOT pkRTY I7fX SeconD five. Pbôiue 23J-fäuiä NtrrtOMAL HÙQ. Phone. £3i-%££7 « 3*0^ PATRIOT PARTY Or January 5th the Patriot Party is starting a Fiee Breakfast Program for children. The program will be at our office, L742 2nd Avenue (between 90th-9ist) from ? s 00-8:30, Mon. through Fr?.day. ' Many children in our community go to school without breakfast, or without a good breakfast. The Free Breakfast Program «rill serve a hot meal—everything children need for a füll day—eggs, bacon, toast, juice and hot chocclate. We bel:'eve that all people are entitled to adequate food, clothing» shelter and radical care, regardless of income. People who are lacking such necessities are either unable to work or work at low-paying jobs,-, The Free Breakfast Program will allevi­ ate some of the burden of an already tight budget. • 'We believe that businessmen who make a living in our community have a responsibility to contribute to the Free Breakfast Program. The best way*yeu can help 'us continue this program is to make a regular weekly contribution of food. CHILDREN ARE HUNGRY AND MUST BE FED J *. ! 2 b 'I ~W -$• G-wiZ 3 7 ALL P0WER T0 THE PE0PLEi all p^wer tm the people 1 THE PATRIOT PARTY, NEW fORK The Patriot Party started as the Young Patriot organization (originally a street gang) in Uptown, Chicago, an area made ^p of poor whites from Appalachia.