First Published: Frontline, Vol. 5, No. 20, April 11, 1988.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign is serving as an unprecedented vehicle for mass progressive activism and political empowerment. As such, it has attracted the support of the bulk of the U.S. left, which has pitched in to help spread the campaign’s peace, jobs and justice message and strengthen the momentum toward independent working class politics. Under the guise of playing this kind of left role, however, an unsavory political cult known as the New Alliance Party (NAP) is trying to appropriate the Rainbow banner to itself, sowing division and confusion as the popular movement behind Jackson struggles to grow and mature.
NAP employs a broad arsenal of dubious tactics to accomplish its goal of implying a political connection and complementary relationship between its own initiatives and Jackson and the National Rainbow Coalition. NAP has set up a so-called “Rainbow Lobby” in Washington, D.C., periodically projects itself as the “Rainbow Alliance” and on occasion describes itself as the “party of the Rainbow” or the “real Rainbow.”
NAP and its affiliates have conducted numerous outreach and fundraising activities utilizing the “Rainbow” image rather than its own name. NAP’s strategy for the 1988 election season is entitled “Two Roads Are Better Than One” and projects Jackson’s campaign and the independent presidential candidacy of NAP leader Lenora Fulani as two parts of a unified approach based on the identical set of politics:
“The ’Two Roads’ plan ... entails campaigning hard for Jackson to win the Democratic primaries – the first road – while petitioning for Fulani to guarantee that there is an independent Black candidate putting forward the Rainbow social vision on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia – the second road.” (The National Alliance, newspaper of the NAP, March 31,1988.)
Of course, despite NAP’s implications, there is no connection whatsoever between its activities and either the Jackson campaign or the broad-based National Rainbow Coalition formally founded in 1986. To the contrary, Jackson and other Rainbow Coalition leaders have publicly disclaimed any relationship with the various NAP affiliates; moreover, numerous Jackson supporters and Rainbow members have expressed harsh criticism of the NAP for what they see as deliberate attempts to exploit the Rainbow’s prestige for NAP’s own narrow concerns.
NAP’s approach to Jackson and the Rainbow, and its role in U.S. politics generally, has aroused considerable concern among U.S. progressives. Over the last few years, the group has expanded from its initial base in New York City to become active nationwide, and NAP now claims to have offices in at least 25 states. NAP describes itself as a Black-led, multi-racial, independent political party representing the interests of the working class. But its history and practice have convinced most on the left, including this author, that the organization is in fact a political cult which utilizes psychological manipulation to advance its objectives and which plays a destructive role in the people’s movement.
A major contribution to documenting the damaging role played by the NAP is the report “Clouds Blur the Rainbow: The Other Side of the New Alliance Party” published by Political Research Associates, a research institute which monitors the U.S. right wing. Because of requests from progressive activists for information about NAP, the institute went beyond its usual topics to issue the special report, authored by veteran researcher Chip Berlet, Berlet’s study provides evidence that:
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NAP’s approach to organizing relies heavily on establishing “Therapy Institutes” and “Crisis Normalization Centers” which promise “psychological counseling” but through which individuals are steered toward involvement in NAP activities. It is also reported that part of the fees paid by individuals at such centers go to support the NAP’s work. According to Berlet, the connection between the NAP and the “Social Therapy Centers” is “manipulative and unethical... .How can a group aspire to moral and political leadership when with one hand it reaches out to those in need of emotional help, and with the other hand points to a related political organization as a cure?”
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NAP has covered up the truth about many of its leaders’ involvement with a group led by neo-fascist figure Lyndon LaRouche in the mid-1970s. While NAP claims that the involvement with LaRouche was during a time when his organization was a legitimate left formation, Berlet demonstrates that the period was one in which LaRouche’s organization was already propounding racist, sexist and homophobic ideas and had already engaged in violent attacks against various progressive organizations.
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NAP has engaged in “penetration and disruption of rival groups” and engaged in frequent “smear campaigns” against its critics, up to and including circulating charges that well-known left figures critical of NAP are government agents.
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The NAP’s 1984 presidential candidate, Black activist Dennis Serrette, has since left the party, charging that it “was a racist scheme of using Black and Latino and Asian people to do the bidding of one man, namely Fred Newman [NAP executive board member and primary theoretician] .. .I wouldn’t even be surprised if they’d turn from a so-called left organization to a right-wing organization with a blink of an eye.”
Besides documenting this background, “Clouds Blur the Rainbow” reports on the current disreputable activity of the NAP, in particular its “dishonest misrepresentation of the facts” regarding the relationship between NAP initiatives and the National Rainbow Coalition. And precisely because the Jackson campaign and the genuine Rainbow momentum associated with it are in the forefront of the popular movement in 1988, all progressives have a stake in becoming informed about the New Alliance Party and assisting in the process of exposing its destructive activity.