Why Was the Red in the Rainbow Faded? American Indian Activists and Multiracial Coalition-Building in the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign

Abstract: Some of the most notable movements for social justice within the late 1960s and early 1970s involved efforts by activists to create one big coalition consisting of the poor of many “races,” typically labeled as “rainbow coalitions.” Although these rainbow coalitions attempted to bring together many races, most of these coalitions did not have large contingents of American Indians. The original Rainbow Coalition between the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and other racial organizations in Chicago, for instance, did not have a group representing Indians. The 1968 Poor People’s Campaign (PPC), a Rainbow Coalition in all but name, did have a significant contingent of Indian activists. As part of the PPC, twelve caravans of buses left from around the nation converged on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in May 1968. One of these caravans, which departed from Seattle, Washington, consisted of mainly American Indians and became dubbed the “Indian Trail.” The PPC presents a unique historical moment where the difficulties of coalition-building between poor people of different races were entirely on display. Sometimes activists successfully bridged these differences, and sometimes they did not. Differences arose between the African American and American Indian contingents of the campaign, as the former rarely joined the latter in protesting the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior. Behind these negative experiences lay not only external opposition, the lack of coordination, and leadership disputes among campaign officials, but also the distinct histories that shaped each racial group.