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<h1 id="reader-title">An Arc of Solidarity: Remembering Bob Lee
(1942-2017)</h1>
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<div style="[object Object]"><a
href="https://www.viewpointmag.com/author/jakobi-e-williams/"
title="Posts by Jakobi E. Williams" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Jakobi E. Williams</a> <time
class="published" datetime="2017-03-29T10:06:15-07:00"
title="Wednesday, March 29th, 2017, 10:06 am">March 29,
2017</time></div>
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<figure id="attachment_7643" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a
href="https://i0.wp.com/www.viewpointmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bob-Lee.jpg?ssl=1"><img
data-attachment-id="7643"
data-permalink="https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/03/29/an-arc-of-solidarity-remembering-bob-lee-1942-2017/bob-lee/"
data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.viewpointmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bob-Lee.jpg?fit=728%2C396&ssl=1"
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data-image-title="Bob Lee" data-image-description=""
data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.viewpointmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bob-Lee.jpg?fit=300%2C163&ssl=1"
data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.viewpointmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bob-Lee.jpg?fit=600%2C326&ssl=1"
class="size-full wp-image-7643"
src="cid:part3.561C02AA.F23BBD59@freedomarchives.org"
alt="" moz-reader-center="true" height="334"
width="614"></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Bill
“Preacherman” Fesperman, Bob Lee, Lamar Billy
“Che” Brooks, and Fred Hampton at a Rainbow
Coalition rally in Grant Park, 1969.</figcaption></figure>
<p><span>Bob Lee, a key member of the Illinois Chapter
of the Black Panther Party (ILBPP), founder of the
original Rainbow Coalition in Chicago, and
self-described lifelong community organizer,
passed away Tuesday March 21, 2017 after a battle
with cancer. He was 74 years old. He leaves behind
his wife Faiza, two brothers, a son, and a long list
of activists and organizers influenced by his
dedication to the poor and underserved.</span></p>
<p><span>I last saw Bob Lee less than two weeks before his
death in his hospital room in Houston, Texas.
Still the consummate organizer, he was trying to
organize the hospital’s nurses and dining staff
from the confines of his hospital bed! As I watched
his efforts in amazement, Bob reminded me that “one
should never pass up an opportunity to organize
those in need.”</span></p>
<p><span>Bob Lee, named Robert E. Lee, III, was born on
December 16, 1942, to Robert and Selma Lee. He grew
up in Houston, Texas where he attended </span><span>Phillis
Wheatley High School along with two other deceased
infamous classmates, Houston Congressman Mickey
Leland, and Carl Hampton, slain leader of People’s
Party II, a local black revolutionary group
inspired by the Black Panthers whose name was
suggested by Lee to avoid police repression, all to
no avail.</span></p>
<p><span>He acquired effective grassroots organizing
skills by observing activists in his mother’s
nightclub, the civil rights activism of his father,
and the labor struggles of the Longshoreman’s Union
that was directly across the street from his
childhood home. Lee once declared, “I was raised
around organizing. Any nightclub in the South
during segregation; all the conversations that
I listened to in the club were organizing work. So,
I had an instinct by being raised in an
organizing world.”</span></p>
<p>Lee moved from Houston, Texas, to Chicago in 1968 as
a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America)
volunteer stationed at the Isham YMCA. He was the
recreation leader of the facility during the day
and a counselor at night. Lee worked exclusively with
gang members in the area, including African
Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Southern whites. After
the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in
1968, Lee joined the Illinois chapter of the Black
Panther Party for the purpose of conducting
community organizing. Due to Lee’s familiarity
with and experience as an organizer of white youth
on Chicago’s North Side, ILBPP Deputy Chairman Fred
Hampton appointed Lee as field secretary and
section leader for the area. The North Side
consisted mostly of segregated, nonblack
neighborhoods.</p>
<p>In late 1968, Fred Hampton and Bob Lee indirectly
created the original Rainbow Coalition. Led by the
ILBPP, the Rainbow Coalition included the <a
href="https://www.gvsu.edu/library/specialcollections/young-lords-in-lincoln-park-22.htm">Young
Lords</a>, a socially conscious Puerto Rican gang;
and the <a
href="http://www.youngpatriots-rainbowcoalition.org/ypo-resources/">Young
Patriots Organization</a> (YPO), a group of
Confederate flag-wearing southern white migrants.
This political formation later became famous when
Harold Washington used it as a base for his
successful bid for mayor of Chicago in 1983.</p>
<p>Lee was joined by fellow Panthers Hank “Poison”
Gaddis, Jerry Dunnigan, and Ruby Smith in
organizing with the <a
href="https://www.viewpointmag.com/2015/08/10/young-patriots-at-the-united-front-against-fascism-conference/">Young
Patriots</a> on Chicago’s North Side, specifically
<a
href="http://areachicago.org/uptown%E2%80%99s-join-community-union/">Uptown</a>,
unbeknownst to Hampton and other Illinois Panther
leadership. After Lee informed Hampton of their
activities, the two men met on the roof of the
Panthers’ headquarters alone. Both were well aware of
the great promise but potential fragility of
multiracial coalition-building. Bob Lee remembered:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Fred Hampton and I] believed that solidarity in
Chicago was stronger than anywhere else. We knew our
organization would not last long, and we knew that
we had to move fast. We didn’t fool ourselves… There
was a mystique in the Party about my cadre because
no one knew what Poison and I were doing. I only
dialogued with Fred.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lee would insist that “Fred Hampton introduced <a
href="http://areachicago.org/the-original-rainbow-coalition/">class
struggle</a>” to the growing movement in Chicago,
citing “rallies and his speeches that set up the
ideology in which I was able to apply.” Fred Hampton
was the face of the Rainbow Coalition, and Bob Lee
served as the legman. Hampton gave speeches and sat
for interviews on behalf of the organization, but it
was Bob Lee who was the mover and shaker of the group.
Lee was out in the street politicizing North Side
groups and introducing them to the Black Panther
Party.</p>
<p>The first encounter between Lee and the <a
href="http://www.youngpatriots-rainbowcoalition.org/ypo-resources/">Young
Patriots</a> actually happened by accident. Lee
was invited to speak at the Church of Three Crosses on
the Near North Side by Charlotte Engelmann, a white
attorney. The congregation of the church consisted
of predominantly upper-middle-class whites.
Engelmann had also invited the Young Patriots to
speak that night. Lee remarked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In theory, one does not put southern whites and
the Panthers together. It was a mistake in
programming. When I got a phone call and was asked
to speak, I was not informed about the Young Patriots
attending. My intention was to introduce the
Illinois Black Panther Party because the
organization was new to the city of Chicago… The
event was my first speaking engagement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Young Patriots had been invited to speak about
police brutality. Bob Lee was surprised by the
intense hostility and class dialogue between the two
white groups, and he was unaccustomed to the way that
the middle-class group verbally attacked the Young
Patriots.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Coming from the South, it was a culture shock for
me. I had never seen that before, because in the
South whites were united around race… I had never
seen whites attack poor whites before. I had never
seen poor whites having to explain themselves to
other whites before… When I was called upon to speak,
I made my speech, and it was an emotional tie-in
with the Young Patriots because I felt the
hostility towards them. And that was the beginning
of our alliance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bob Lee introduced the youth gathered that night to
the ideology of the Black Panther Party and its
community service programs. The Young Patriots
were easily persuaded to work with the Panthers,
being receptive to the concept of class
solidarity. The YPO’s introduction to class
solidarity that transcended racial divisions,
courtesy of Bob Lee, also forced members to reassess
its vestigial identification with the
Confederate flag. As Lee and others helped organize
the Young Patriots around Panther ideology, the
group quickly became the leading political
representatives of the <a
href="https://www.mhpbooks.com/revolutionary-hillbilly-an-interview-with-hy-thurman-of-the-young-patriots-organization/">Uptown</a>
neighborhood, an alternative to the electoral
clientelism of then-mayor Richard Daley. Together,
the Panthers, the YPO, and the Young Lords in Lincoln
Park helped to form the Uptown Coalition of Poor
People. The community coalition united residents
against owners they now identified as slumlords.</p>
<p><span>The first Rainbow Coalition was short-lived, as
it fell apart after Hampton’s tragic assassination
in December 1969. Lee wasn’t entirely bitter about
Rev. Jesse Jackson’s appropriation of the concept
for his own political gains and agendas during the
1980s – in his opinion, Jackson “</span><span>gave
it a new set of legs</span><span>.” But he had a
greater appreciation of Harold Washington’s
mayoral campaign of 1983, which recognized the
historical roots and power of the earlier
iteration of the Rainbow. According to Bob Lee,</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was not until the election of Harold Washington
that organizers realized the actual strength of
the Rainbow Coalition, which also helped members to
understand the local power structure’s commitment
to eliminating the group, as it was a real
political threat to machine politics in Chicago.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Lee left the Panthers and returned home in 1970,
where he continued his work as a grassroots
community organizer until his death. I first met
him in 2007, at his home in Houston, where I first
interviewed him for my book, </span><i><span>From
the Bullet to the Ballot</span></i><span>. Before
he would sit with me for an interview he wanted to
check my commitment to organizing those in need.</span></p>
<p>Lee was bound to a wheelchair later in life, due to
multiple sclerosis. Nonetheless, he drove me around
the Fifth Ward, where he was known as the “Mayor.” An
elderly African American woman flagged down our car,
and we pulled over. She told Lee that she needed a pair
of shoes, taking care to mention her shoe size, and
Lee told her he would find her a pair. A few blocks
later, an older African American gentleman asked
to have his lawn cut. Shortly thereafter, Bob Lee
approached a young man who told us he had not eaten in
a few days.</p>
<p><span>A few hours later, we borrowed a lawnmower
from a neighbor. Lee made a stop at a community
center and picked up a few pair of shoes for the
woman. The young man who needed food mowed the
older gentleman’s lawn, then he met us at the
elderly woman’s home, who needed the shoes. We then
sat down for a meal and all ate heartily. Everyone
he helped that day assured Lee that they would vote
for <a
href="https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fleee">El
Franco Lee</a>, Bob Lee’s brother who preceded
him in death, for </span><span>Harris County
Precinct 1 Commissioner,</span><span> and for
other candidates that Lee supported.</span></p>
<p>Lee did all this important work from a wheelchair.
His example inspired me to become the activist that I
am today. He trained me how to connect with those in
need, how to meet people at their level, and the
significance of relationships in fostering
grassroots community organizing. In our current
climate of racial and political polarization,
aggravated by the election of our orange president,
Lee’s work in organizing across race within the class
is all the more necessary.</p>
<p>If Bob Lee could unite folks across deep-seated racial
differences—especially folks like the Young Patriots—in
the segregated 1960s, then we have no excuse not to
equal, if not eclipse Lee’s success in our current
polarized context. Speaking as an historian, I see
no need to reinvent the wheel in order to address
Trumpism today.</p>
<p><span>It was activists like Lee, his fellow Black
Panthers, and the original Rainbow Coalition who
created change in our nation, by daring to enter
distant neighborhoods and forge alliances. It is
through the continuing nuances of applying the
methods of the past to the grassroots organizing
tenets of today, including social media, databases,
digital archives, algorithms, and so on, that the
extremes of our moment’s polar opposites will be
connected to establish a conduit of
understanding, communication, and respect. As a
political symbol, the Rainbow didn’t refer just to
a series of colors; it signified an arc of <a
href="http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/the-original-rainbow-coalition-an-example-of-universal-identity-politics">connection</a>
between different places and people. For Lee and
others who participated with him in struggle,
this was the only possible starting point for
revolutionary solidarity.<sup id="rf1-7641"><a
href="about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.viewpointmag.com%2F2017%2F03%2F29%2Fan-arc-of-solidarity-remembering-bob-lee-1942-2017%2F#fn1-7641"
title="For more about Bob Lee’s long history of
organizing poor people regardless of race and
ethnicity see Jakobi Williams, From the Bullet to
the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black
Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in
Chicago (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2013); Amy Sonnie and James Tracy,
Hillbilly Nationalists: Urban Race Rebels and
Black Power (Brooklyn: Melville House, 2011); and
Mike Gray’s 1969 documentary, American Revolution
II." rel="footnote">1</a></sup></span></p>
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