White Panther Party - Michigan Years

Michigan Years

The group was most active in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan and included the proto-punk band MC5 which Sinclair managed for several years before he was incarcerated. From a general ideological perspective, Plamondon and Sinclair defined the White Panthers as "fighting for a clean planet and the freeing of political prisoners." The White Panthers added other elements such as advocating "rock 'n roll, dope, sex in the streets and the abolishing of capitalism." Abbie Hoffman was part of the White Panthers, mentioning it in Steal This Book. The group emerged from the Detroit Artists Workshop, a radical arts collective founded in 1964 near Wayne State University. Among its concerns was the legalization of marijuana; Sinclair had several arrests for possession. It aligned itself with radical politics, claiming the 12th Street Riot was justifiable under political and economic conditions in Detroit.

Plamondon was indicted as a co-conspirator with Sinclair in connection with the bombing of the CIA office in Ann Arbor a year after the founding of the group. Upon hearing on the left-wing alternative radio station WABX that he had been indicted, he fled the U.S. for Europe and Africa, spending time in Algeria with exiled Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver. After secretly reentering the country, and on his way to a safe house in northern Michigan, he was arrested in a routine traffic stop, joining Sinclair, who had been sentenced to nine and half years in jail for violating Michigan’s marijuana possession laws, in prison. Plamondon was convicted and was in prison when Sinclair was released on bond in 1971 while appeals were being heard on his case. Sinclair's unexpected release came two days after a large "Free John" benefit concert, with performances from John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Stevie Wonder, was held at the University of Michigan's Crisler Arena.