Introduction
Here is my long overdue review of “Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times,” by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy (Melville House Publishing, 2021). Long overdue, but particular timely, with the recent passing of José “Cha Cha” Jiménez (August 8, 1948 – January 10, 2025). Jimenez was an activist and founder of the Young Lords Organization, one of the key figures in the book. Particularly timely and, quite possibly, even more relevant and urgent today than when it first came out, thirteen years ago, as it provides an antidote for the fear, anger, dismay, and disillusionment so many are feeling with the re-election of Donald Trump and the rise of white supremacy and fascism in the United States.
“Hillbilly Nationalists” is a well-researched and superbly written history of radical, poor white social movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. It focuses on their interracial solidarity with the Black Panthers, Young Lords and other groups of the era. This fascinating and largely forgotten piece of history debunks the myth that poor whites, hillbillies, and rednecks, the “deplorables” as Hilary Clinton derisively referred to them, are incurably racist and incapable of organizing beyond their immediate needs. Rather, Sonnie and Tracy not only provide numerous historical examples of revolutionary and anti-fascist working-class white organizations (e.g., Chicago’s JOIN, Young Patriots and Rising Up Angry; Philadelphia’s October 4th Organization; and White Lightning, from the Bronx), but also describe how these organizations were built through community organizing, providing insight as to how activists can accomplish the same today.
The Original Rainbow Coalition
Perhaps the most well-known, or best remembered, of the radical, multiracial alliances was the Rainbow Coalition. This was an anti-racist, working-class movement founded in Chicago, in 1969, by Fred Hampton and Bob Lee, of the Black Panthers, William “Preacherman” Fesperman of the Young Patriots Organization, and Jose Cha Cha Jimenez of the Young Lords. The coalition engaged in protests, demonstrations, and direct actions to fight poverty, corruption, racism, police brutality. They also fought in support of tenants’ rights and other causes. The coalition’s first alliance was between the Black Panther Party and the Young Patriots Organization (YPO), putting into action the famous Fred Hampton quote: “You don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity.”
The Young Patriots
Most readers are probably quite familiar with the Black Panthers, and possibly the Young Lords. But the YPO, or Young Patriots, were a less well-known part of the radical left of the 1960s and 70s. They were composed primarily of poor southern whites. They were Appalachian refugees from the Great Depression, who had migrated north. They settled in Uptown, Chicago, a neighborhood with so many Appalachian residents that it became known as Hillbilly Harlem.
Young Patriots were proud of their Southern roots. They wore their hair greased back, sometimes covered with a cowboy hat. Some even wore Confederate flag patches on their jackets. Yet, they also wore buttons that read “Free Huey” and “Resurrect John Brown.” In a 1970 issue of “The Patriot,” they called for solidarity with Black Panther Bobby Seale (who was in prison for the Democratic National Convention protests and on trial for murder). They wrote, “Guns in the hands of the police represent capitalism and racism…. Guns in the hands of the people represent socialism and solidarity.”
Solidarity and Community Organizing
It might seem shocking to many readers that the Panthers, known for their militancy and their opposition to racism, would embrace a group of hillbillies sporting Confederate flag patches. And initially, many did not. It was really through the vision, and hard work, of Fred Hampton and Bob Lee, that they were able to convince their comrades that all poor people, including poor whites, had far more in common with each other, than they did with rich people, even of their own ethnicity. That they were subjected to similar police violence, crooked slumlords, and abusive bosses, and therefore had far more to gain by working together, in solidarity with other poor and working-class people, then they did in accepting the bogus claims of the fascists and white supremacists that their problems were caused by other marginalized and oppressed people.
The challenge, of course, is how do you get people to make these connections and start working together in solidarity? The method Sonnie and Tracy so eloquently describe in “Hillbilly Nationalists” is community organizing. The most effective form of which occurred when organizers focused on building relationships, and really listening to the people. When they heard residents’ concerns, the things that mattered most to them. And when they could turn those concerns into actionable items that they could actually fight for and win. This was in contrast to a more top-down approach. Like when Students For a Democratic Society tried to impose their own agenda. Activists found that this relational organizing was much more successful at building trust, solidarity, and a feeling among their constituents that their organizations mattered, and were making a difference in their lives.
Peggy Terry
“Hillbilly Nationalists” begins with the story of Peggy Terry who, by the end of the 1960s, had become one of the leading voices speaking out for the rights of poor whites. She even ran for Vice President of the U.S., on the 1968 Peace and Freedom ticket, as the running mate of Eldrige Cleaver, from the Black Panthers. But Terry did not start out as a radical hillbilly. Quite the contrary. She grew up in Kentucky, in a segregated community where she rarely came into contact with any people of color. Her grandfather was a Klansman, who took her to a KKK rally when she was only three. Her father was a racist, too.
As a young woman, she worked as an agricultural laborer, alongside black and Mexican workers, but without much interaction. It was not until she was 35, when she witnessed Martin Luther King Jr. getting savagely beaten by white vigilantes during the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, that her path toward racial justice really started to change. After emigrating to Uptown, Chicago she became active in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Her first day with CORE, in 1962, she was arrested for blocking an intersection. They were protesting segregation in the Chicago schools.
CORE
A couple of years after joining CORE, her friend and comrade Monroe Sharpe encouraged her to start organizing among poor whites. “You have to really know who you are before you ever know who we are.” Initially, she resisted. On the one hand, she felt she could do far more good if she continued her work with CORE, fighting for racial justice. On the other hand, she knew her own people, and had doubts (just like many on the left do today) about whether she could have any success organizing them to support the rights of people of color.
What she did know from her experience with CORE was that the dilapidated and overcrowded classrooms that black kids in Chicago attended looked very similar to the dilapidated and overcrowded classrooms her children attended. She saw that the disdainful treatment of poor blacks at the hands of caseworkers and bosses was similar to her own experiences. Even the police abuse of white residents looked similar. This particularly hit home when her own son was almost shot to death by the cops. Ultimately, it became very clear that there was common ground for interracial solidarity, and joint organizing. This was particularly obvious around issues like economic justice, education, and police violence.
JOIN
Terry began working with JOIN (Jobs or Income Now), a project of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Some of their early efforts involved organizing tenants, encouraging them to withhold rent, and engage in building takeovers, when landlords failed to make repairs. In 1966, they won a collective bargaining agreement with one notorious landlord, the first such contract in the city. Victories such as these taught participants that organizing worked. That they could win small battles, and helped attract new members to the movement.
The growth of the movement was not without conflict. As early as 1964, women were starting to speak out against the sexism at meetings and in JOIN’s power structure. And tensions also developed early on between the local Uptown residents and the middle-class college kids from SDS who seemed to dominate the decision-making. At the 1967 SDS national convention, Terry told SDS student leaders that “We believe that the time has come for us to turn to our own people, poor and working-class whites, for direction, support and inspiration, to organize around our own identity, our own interests.”
A Run for Vice President
By 1968, JOIN suspended its work to focus on Terry’s vice-presidential campaign. Soon after, two new organizations sprang from its members. Rising Up Angry would spend the next decade organizing for the rights of poor and working-class whites. The Young Patriots Organization (YPO) evolved from the work started by an earlier JOIN offshoot, known as the Goodfellows. They focused on combating police brutality and their abuse of Uptown residents. Rising Up Angry also organized around police abuse. They “trained neighborhood people to perform intakes, write legal briefs and handle basic ‘know your rights’ counseling on immigration, police brutality, housing rights and the draft.” And like JOIN, they helped residents organize to defend themselves against evictions, and abusive landlords.
Conclusion
Following the Panthers’ lead, the YPO released its own Ten Point Program. It included demands for full employment, housing, prisoners’ rights, and an end to racism. As in the title of the book, YPO members saw themselves as an oppressed nationality within the U.S. They demanded the right to self-determination and opposing “the ‘pig power structure’ that created slavery and the capitalist north-south divide.” Their newspaper, “The Patriot,” appealed to whites to abandon racism, and to unite with working-class communities of color.
Their leader, William “Preacherman” Fesperman, didn’t just talk the talk, either. After a contentious Uptown community meeting, in which the YPO and the Panthers tried to convince poor white residents that the Panthers were allies, not threats, Black Panther Field Marshall Bob Lee was picked up by the police. Fesperman brought his people outside and immediately they surrounded the police car, demanding Lee’s release. Afterward, Lee said “I’ll never forget looking at all those brave white motherfuckers standing in the light of the police car staring in the face of death.”
“Hillbilly Nationalists” is filled with interesting and inspiring activist history. It is based on extensive research and interviews with the key players in those social movements. It is an important scholarly contribution to the history of the leftist movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. And it brings hope, optimism, a solid critical class analysis, and practical tools for those organizing in the U.S. Left today.
You can read James Tracy’s interview with Hy Thurman, a former member of the Young Patriots right here.