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Rethinking the Rainbow Coalition: From the Black Panther Party to Barack Obama

Presented by Westlake Porter Public Library at Westlake Porter Public Library, Westlake OH

Feb 24 2020

Rethinking the Rainbow Coalition: From the Black Panther Party to Barack Obama

Join historian Karen Sotiropoulos as she shares how the Democratic Party’s move towards a Rainbow Coalition helped set the framework for the election of the first US President of African descent.

While most people associate the Rainbow Coalition with Jesse Jackson’s 1980s campaigns for president, the origins of the concept were evident in the later 1960s black power movement and Dr. King’s Poor People’s campaign. Dr. Sotiropoulos will trace this organizing strategy from the 1960s through the 1980s to show its importance in creating the conditions that set the stage for President Obama’s election.