Freedom Now Party

Last updated April 02, 2019

The Freedom Now Party was a short-lived political party in the United States founded in August 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It had a black membership. It was indirectly linked to the Socialist Workers Party. It existed from 1963 to 1965.

A political party is an organized group of people, often with common views, who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Major demonstration of the civil rights movement

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a communist party in the United States. Originally a group in the Communist Party USA that supported Leon Trotsky against Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, it places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba. The SWP publishes The Militant, a weekly newspaper that dates back to 1928. It also maintains Pathfinder Press.

In 1963 elections, the party appeared on the ballot in Connecticut, Michigan, New York and Washington, D.C. Hoping to earn one million votes, the party fell far short of its initial goal. In 1964, the party's efforts were primarily directed toward Michigan. In that year, 39 members ran for office. Most prominent was Rev. Albert Cleage, who ran for Governor of Michigan.^[1] Cleage, a black pastor at the Central Congregation Church in Detroit, received 4,767 votes (0.15%) and the party soon collapsed.^[2]

Albert B. Cleage, Jr. was a Christian religious leader, political candidate, newspaper publisher, political organizer, and author. He founded the prominent Shrine of the Black Madonna Church, as well as the Shrine Cultural Centers and Bookstores in Detroit, Michigan and Atlanta, Georgia and Houston, Texas. All locations still open and functioning under the BCN mission. Cleage, who changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman in the early 1970s, played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement in Detroit during the 1960s and 1970s. He became increasingly involved with Black Nationalism during the 1970s, rejecting many of the core principles of racial integration. He founded a church-owned farm, Beulah Land, in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, and spent most of his last years there. He was the father of writer Pearl Cleage.

Detroit is the largest and most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan, the largest United States city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of Wayne County. The municipality of Detroit had a 2017 estimated population of 673,104, making it the 23rd-most populous city in the United States. The metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music and as a repository for art, architecture and design.

Membership

One of its most prominent members was Paul Boutelle. Boutelle ran for State Senate in Harlem in 1964 and, following the collapse of the FNP, was the Socialist Workers Party nominee for president in 1968.^[2]

Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu was the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Vice President in 1968. He and presidential candidate Fred Halstead were on the ballot in 19 states. Boutelle toured throughout the United States during that campaign and appeared on numerous radio and television shows, including William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Firing Line, and in interviews with Joey Bishop and Dick Cavett. He spoke at numerous community meetings, universities, forums, conferences, and other venues.

Prominent black intellectuals and activists were involved in the party's founding, including:

journalist William Worthy,
Daniel Watts, chairman, Liberation Committee for Africa,
Civil Rights attorney Conrad Lynn,
Reverend Albert Cleage,^[2]
Reverend Milton Henry

William Worthy, Jr. was an African-American journalist, civil rights activist, and dissident who pressed his right to travel regardless of U.S. State Department regulations.

Conrad Joseph Lynn was an African-American civil rights lawyer and activist known for providing legal representation for activists, including many unpopular defendants. Among the causes he supported as a lawyer were civil rights, Puerto Rican nationalism, and opposition to the draft during both World War II and the Vietnam War. The controversial defendants he represented included civil rights activist Robert F. Williams and Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown.

Related Research Articles

1972 United States presidential election 47th presidential election in the united states

The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.

Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.

Congress of Racial Equality United States civil rights organization

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background."

Peace and Freedom Party American political party

The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a left-wing political party with affiliates and former members in more than a dozen American states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana and Utah, but none now have ballot status besides California. Peace and Freedom's first candidates appeared on the ballot in 1966 in New York. The Peace and Freedom Party of California was organized in early 1967, gathering over 103,000 registrants which qualified its ballot status in January 1968 under the California Secretary of State Report of Registration.

Third party is a term used in the United States for American political parties other than the Republican and Democratic parties.

The Freedom Socialist Party is a far-left socialist political party with a revolutionary feminist philosophy that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. The party views the struggles of women and minorities as part of the struggle of the working class. The party's Seattle branch, with support from individuals in other cities, split off from the SWP over what it described as the SWP's entrenched opportunism and undemocratic methods. The current National Secretary of the FSP is Doug Barnes.

Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist grassroots activist organization. It has branches in numerous United States cities as well as in Melbourne, Australia.

Socialism in the United States began with utopian communities in the early 19th century such as the Shakers, the activist visionary Josiah Warren and intentional communities inspired by Charles Fourier. Labor activists—usually British, German, or Jewish immigrants—founded the Socialist Labor Party in 1877. The Socialist Party of America was established in 1901. By that time, anarchism also established itself around the country while socialists of different tendencies were involved in early American labor organizations and struggles which reached a high point in the Haymarket affair in Chicago which started International Workers' Day as the main workers holiday around the world and making the 8-hour day a worldwide objective by workers organizations and socialist parties worldwide.

James Harris is an American communist politician and member of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. He was the party's candidate for President of the United States in 1996 receiving 8,463 votes and again in 2000 when his ticket received 7,378 votes. Harris also served as an alternate candidate for Róger Calero in 2004 and 2008 in states where Calero could not qualify for the ballot. In 2004 he received 7,102 votes of the parties 10,791 votes. In 2008 he received 2,424 votes. More recently Harris was the SWP candidate in the 2009 Los Angeles mayoral election receiving 2,057 votes for 0.89% of the vote. Harris served for a time as the national organization secretary of the SWP. He was a staff writer for the socialist newsweekly The Militant in New York. He wrote about the internal resistance to South African apartheid and in 1994 traveled to South Africa to attend the Congress of South African Trade Unions convention. In July 2012, Harris was named the Socialist Workers Party nominee for president. The vice presidential nominee was Maura DeLuca.

Willa Kenoyer was the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) candidate for President of the United States in the 1988 U.S. presidential election. The SPUSA was not on the ballot in 1984 due to a lack of interest among its members, and only hoped for a vote total of five digits, expecting to do better in the next century, according to the chair Anne Rosenhaft. Kenoyer's running mate was Ron Ehrenreich; they also ran on the Liberty Union Party (LUP) line in Vermont, defeating Herbert G. Lewin of the Internationalist Workers Party by a vote difference of 199–66 in the LUP primary, which socialists use to gauge the relative strength of their campaigns. They hoped to spread their ideas, finding some similarities to the goals of Jesse Jackson's campaign, with significant differences regarding the military and intelligence agencies, and faulted him for, in their opinion, attracting more people to the Democratic Party. The Democratic party's ultimate nominee Michael Dukakis and platform were criticized by the campaign.

Gloria Estela La Riva is an American socialist activist with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and the Peace and Freedom Party. She was previously a member of the Workers World Party. She was the PSL's 2008 presidential candidate, and ran as the PSL's presidential candidate again in the 2016 race, with Eugene Puryear and Dennis J. Banks as her running mates.

Clifton DeBerry (1924–2006) was an American communist and two-time candidate for President of the United States of the Socialist Workers Party. He was the first black American in the 20th century to be chosen by a political party as its nominee for president.

The American Left has consisted of a broad range of individuals and groups that have sought fundamental egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States. Leftist activists in the United States have been credited with advancing social change on issues such as labor and civil rights, as well as providing critiques of capitalism.

Jerome "Jerry" White is an American politician and journalist, and is the Labor Editor reporting for the World Socialist Web Site. He is a member of the Socialist Equality Party of the United States, and was a member of its predecessor the Workers League, joining the movement in 1979. White ran as the SEP candidate for United States President in 1996 and 2008, and again in 2012 with running mate Phyllis Scherrer. White was again the SEP presidential nominee in the 2016 election.

The Walk to Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement on June 23, 1963 in Detroit, Michigan. It drew crowds of an estimated 125,000 or more and was known as "the largest civil rights demonstration in the nation's history" up to that date.

The Australian National Socialist Party (ANSP) was a minor Australian Nazi party that was formed in 1962. It merged into the National Socialist Party of Australia, originally a splinter group, in 1968.

The 1928 United States presidential election in Washington took place on November 6, 1928. Washington State’s voters selected seven voters to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Reverend Velma Maia Thomas is an author and academic from the United States of America.

References

↑ Ali, Omar H. (2008-08-13). In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States. Ohio University Press. pp. 141–. ISBN 9780821442883 . Retrieved 13 May 2016.
1 2 3 Sheppard, Barry (2005). The Party: The Socialist Workers Party, 1960-1988. Resistance Books. pp. 120–. ISBN 9781876646509 . Retrieved 12 May 2016.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Ali2008-1] Ali, Omar H. (2008-08-13). In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States. Ohio University Press. pp. 141–. ISBN 9780821442883 . Retrieved 13 May 2016.

[Sheppard2005-2] 1 2 3 Sheppard, Barry (2005). The Party: The Socialist Workers Party, 1960-1988. Resistance Books. pp. 120–. ISBN 9781876646509 . Retrieved 12 May 2016.