Rainbow Coalition

RAINBOW COALITION. The coming-together of diverse progressive and radical movements offered great promise during the 1980s. In the end, though, the inability of Jesse Jackson to build a movement beyond himself, together with the absolute hostility of the Democratic Party mainstream toward the Rainbow Coalition, doomed the movement.

The roots of the Rainbow Coalition go back to Harold Washington’s successful mayoral campaign in Chicago in 1983. Civil Rights activist Jesse Jackson played a strong role in a coalition of progressive groups that registered 100,000 new voters, laying the basis for Washington’s repeated victories. In 1984, Jackson himself ran in the Democratic primary for president. During the campaign, he began to speak about a “Rainbow Coalition,” a concept expressed in 1969 in a small coalition based in Chicago comprising the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords (a Puerto Rican group), and the Young Patriots (mainly Appalachian whites). More deeply, “the rainbow” had historical references going back to the Radical Reformation and to the “Rainbow Sign” in the Bible and in gospel music: with the rainbow, God had signaled to Noah that the Great Flood had ended.

At the Democratic National Convention on July 18, 1984, Jackson delivered an address entitled "The Rainbow Coalition.” The speech called for Arab Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, youth, disabled veterans, small farmers, lesbians and gays to join with African Americans and Jewish Americans to address political empowerment and public policy issues. Jackson’s presidential campaign resulted in the strongest ever showing by an African American presidential candidate to that time: 3.5 million votes in the primaries, third behind Gary Hart and the winner, Walter Mondale. Following the campaign, Jackson officially launched the National Rainbow Coalition. It aimed to gain equal rights for all Americans.

The Rainbow Coalition went beyond the usual boundaries of mainstream politics. Rainbow’s focus was to unite progressive people historically locked out of the mainstream of American politics into a “Coalition of Conscience” dedicated to making society more inclusive. The Coalition demanded enhanced social programs, voting rights, and affirmative action for minority groups left out by “Reaganomics.” Opposition to the administration’s sharp reduction of social programs in particular brought the campaign to millions of people. The Rainbow Coalition also offered the opportunity to take up non-electoral as well as electoral activism, a realistic possibility of working with the Democratic party but also of building an independent structure. At its most hopeful moments, the Coalition seemed to capture the vision of a popular and independent platform, supported widely, across various familiar Democratic constituencies.

Activists from wide sectors of the left flocked to the Coalition. African American revolutionary nationalists joined, such as Ron Daniels who became the first Executive Director. Progressive Black elected officials such as representative Ron Dellums supported the Rainbow. Longtime radical lawyer Arthur Kinoy and the National Committee for Independent Political Action were among the most ardent supporters. So were the supporters of the Guardian newsweekly, the North Star Network and other groups seeking to leave behind the sectarianism of 1970s politics.

Jackson effectively made himself the singular leading figure in progressive politics. For a time, it seemed that the Rainbow Coalition had actually become the crucial link between mainstream electoral strategies and grassroots progressive politics. The Coalition held its first regular convention in October 1987, with 1,200 delegates from thirty-eight states adopting the organization’s program and by-laws. Jackson’s 1988 presidential run stressed an “economic common ground,” and he received seven million votes in the primaries. The Rainbow movement grew still more powerful, energized by and supporting other movements of the day, including opposition to the US wars in Central America, support for Africa-oriented antiapartheid organizing, and opposition to Reagan’s nuclear power emphasis and Star Wars. With the Rainbow and Jackson offering personal support, these movements increased their national visibility, and they, in turn, enthusiastically supported the Rainbow movement.

Manning Marable’s important book, Beyond Black and White (1995), best described the devolution of the Rainbow Coalition after 1988. Since its founding, two major tendencies had tended to pull in different and potentially opposing directions. One perspective emphasized strong leadership, close ties with the Democratic Party and an almost exclusive emphasis on electoral campaigns. Promoted especially by the 1988 campaign director Ron Brown, this tendency drew its main support from Black elected officials, civil rights officials and Black entrepreneurs. The other, more radical block, represented by figures such as veteran political activist Jack O’Dell and Rainbow Coalition leader Ron Daniels, emphasized grassroots activism and bottom-up organizing within and around the Democrats.

Jackson himself wavered between these two tendencies. As long as the Rainbow movement maintained momentum, the competing power blocs could co-exist. During the latter part of the 1988 presidential campaign, Democratic leaders decided that it would be better to incorporate Jackson more fully into the campaign than to marginalize him, but only if the Rainbow’s independent activist politics could be shunted aside. Jackson effectively agreed. The activist grassroots sector of the Coalition, heavily dependent upon his support and patronage, suffered badly.

During the winter of 1989, Jackson centralized the power within the coalition by demanding his right to appoint all Rainbow Coalition leaders at the congressional district level. This action, in turn, effectively throttled the group’s democracy at the local level. Ron Daniels abandoned the Coalition along with hundreds of the most progressive activists. Shortly afterwards, former Rainbow campaign director Ron Brown was named chair of the Democratic National Party. Jackson proceeded to move away from his past radical rhetoric, adopting a more moderate posture.

In the meantime, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, Tennessee senator Al Gore, Virginia governor Charles Robb and others formed the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to shift the Democratic Party toward the center. A vision of meritocracy replaced the familiar progressive aim of further advancing New Deal social programs, with the peacenik aims of many Democrats also shunted aside.

Feeling betrayed, Jackson was also increasingly isolated. Tensions that had developed between Jackson and Clinton came to a head when Clinton was invited to speak at a national meeting of the Rainbow Coalition in Washington, DC. He surprised and angered Jackson by using this opportunity to denounce a Black rap singer who, he said, had called for Black gangs to murder whites. Jackson responded that Clinton was trying to “distance himself” from the Black community.

Privately, Rainbow supporters learned that Clinton would now be considered an enemy. Jackson, for his part, began to float the idea of an alliance with billionaire Ross Perot, then planning to run for president. Days before the opening of the Democratic national convention in New York City, Jackson stunned supporters and critics alike by giving a lukewarm endorsement to Clinton. According to rumor, Jackson had been told that he would not be permitted to speak at the convention or to a national television audience unless he offered this endorsement. Rainbow activists now had no choice but to follow Jackson’s lead or give up the cause. The Rainbow Coalition ceased in all but name.

As late as 1988, Jackson had possessed the various resources, the people and the infrastructure to launch a major independent campaign for the presidency, had he chosen to do so. Nearly all the organized US Left and most independents ardently supported his project. When Jackson effectively dismantled the activist branches by imposing a new, autocratic structure, scores of groups and hundreds of key activists withdrew their support. The Rainbow Coalition suffered a desultory end, leaving little encouragement for a successor as a progressive political force within and around the leftward edges of the Democratic Party.

Collins, Sheila. The Rainbow Challenge: The Jackson Campaign and the Future of U.S. Politics. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1986.

Elbaum, Max. Revolution Is in The Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. New York: Verso, 2002, 2016.

Marable, Manning. Beyond Black and White: Transforming American Politics. New York: Verso, 1995.