History Can Teach Modern Activists About Coalition Building

Time​ Magazine

3 days ago

In an era of doomscrolling and political anxiety, collective action and grassroots political organizing remain a powerful antidote to despair and disempowerment, and a force for change and progress.
That has helped spur opponents of President Donald Trump to take to the streets. Protests throughout the spring and summer have demonstrated significant (and even international) opposition to the Trump Administration's agenda, particularly its attempts to consolidate power and undermine key institutions and services. And many marginalized populations (including migrants, the poor, people of color, women, and LGBTQIA+ folks) have been disproportionately impacted.
Yet, commentators also have noted that, like many protests during Trump's first presidency, participants at protests such as the "No Kings" protest were overwhelmingly white (and older).
This is problematic because history suggests that collective action is far more durable and effective when it transcends racial, class, age, and gender boundaries. From the Mississippi Freedom Movement to various Rainbow Coalitions, collaboration and coalition-building across social positions—despite the challenges and potential for tension—attract participants with a wider toolkit of resources, opportunities, and tactics.
Multiracial and cross-class coalitions may be underemphasized in the historical record, but they existed and had a profound impact in the 1960s.
In Chicago, for example, white working-class migrants from the South, known as the Young Patriots Organization, worked closely with the Illinois Black Panther Party and the Puerto Rican Young Lords Organization to fight against racism and poverty through protests and community programs. Drawing on the blueprint from Black and Latino community organizing, the Young Patriots successfully involved previously disenfranchised poor whites in their activism. The group developed free health clinics that treated thousands of people in the Uptown neighborhood, which was then known as 'hillbilly haven.' The Young Patriots' work demonstrated the power of organizing across social boundaries to create new, more powerful blocs that could bolster communities.
Yet, cultivating such coalitions often presented difficult challenges. No group epitomized this better than the Mississippi Freedom Movement during the southern civil rights push.
This effort emerged from the activism on college campuses that produced the creation of groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was formed in 1960 and was known for organizing sit-ins and the Freedom Summer voter outreach project in 1964. Though Black college students founded SNCC and largely led the group, their organizing enabled them to recruit over 1000 Northern white college students to the cause.
In 1964, the group turned its focus to Mississippi, where, despite the apparent dismantling of overt racial restrictions thanks to the newly passed federal Civil Rights Act, state and local laws empowered white officials to erect barriers to voter registration. Further, whites used the threat of racist violence, tacitly approved by elites, to stifle efforts to empower the Black population. SNCC allied with other national Civil Rights organizations to form the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). COFO's voter registration efforts catalyzed the Mississippi Freedom Movement and helped build the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Working-class African Americans from Mississippi led the MFDP.
The party advocated for political representation of Blacks in Mississippi and challenged the white supremacist 'Dixiecrat' politics of the state Democratic Party. Between 1961 and 1966, the coalition of SNCC and the MFDP pamphleteered and organized both on northern college campuses and in impoverished Southern communities. It mobilized and brought into the movement two disparate populations: working-class and poor Southern Black people, as well as white middle- and upper-class Northern college student activists recruited through SNCC. Each group brought unique and robust experiences and tactics.
The leaders of SNCC and the MFDP recognized that holding together such a diverse coalition required intentional steps to communicate the stakes of their efforts in language that would resonate with the interests and moral ideology of both groups. The MFDP focused on outreach to working-class and poor Black people in the South by emphasizing how Black political rights directly shaped their quality of life and mattered for the advancement of their interests. The group's pamphlets didn't present the gaining of political rights as a moral good in and of itself, but rather as a means to obtain greater security, resources, and influence. One pamphlet, 'The Congressional Challenge,' argued plainly, 'Congress does not do the things we want because we do not have anyone in Congress to speak for us.'
Simultaneously, SNCC helped northern white students understand Black political rights as a matter of moral injustice. Many whites were aware of a lack of Black voter participation in the South but often lacked a deeper understanding of its causes and consequences. The pamphlets the group distributed on Northern college campuses covered the historical and legal aspects of this problem. It explained racial inequality by emphasizing the racism of southern white elites and the rank moral injustice of violence and discrimination.
In 1964, the MFDP challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention, and while it failed to gain seats for its own delegation, the group helped transform the Democratic agenda by cultivating support for Black political rights from liberal Democrats and alienating segregationists. This push and pull reshaped the Democratic voting base and helped force the party to advocate for additional civil rights legislation. These efforts also shone a national spotlight on how the Democratic Party in the South disenfranchised Black people from the political process. In doing so, it permanently shifted the racial politics in the U.S.
Yet, despite its major success, MFDP's efforts to coordinate actions between groups with vastly different approaches and interests posed a significant challenge for organizers and participants. Disagreements between white and Black participants about tactics and goals fractured the coalition and eventually SNCC itself. In contrast to other, more mainstream Civil Rights organizations, SNCC leaders began to emphasize Black separatism, which alienated white participants. In 1966, the group banned white members altogether, which undermined its stability, collaborative potential, and impact in the following years.
The work of the MFDP and the Young Patriots shows the promises and perils of diverse coalitions as opponents of the Trump Administration look to effectuate change. Their history offers a blueprint for how a good communications strategy, and intentional collaborative outreach can enable the construction of such broad coalitions. Yet, this history also reveals how coalitions between groups with disparate world views and social positions can be as fragile as they are powerful.
My own research suggests that too often today, progressive organizers are highly educated whites who fail to build bridges with diverse communities and activists of color. Instead, they frequently direct the burgeoning movement around their assumptions and habits—without cultivating and supporting the people most impacted by the Trump Administration. Even in ostensibly multiracial coalitions, this approach leads to burnout and disengagement for activists of color.
This blind spot threatens to torpedo activists' success. But the nuanced collaboration and communications strategy employed by groups like the MFDP and the Young Patriots offers a solution, one that could dramatically increase the chances of achieving activists' goals. Adopting such tactics won't guarantee success or unity. But they offer a far better possibility than many of the methods being employed today.
Michael L. Rosino is assistant professor of sociology at Molloy University, studying racial politics, democracy, and media. His most recent book, Democracy is Awkward, is available from the University of North Carolina Press.'
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.