The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a left-wing political party with affiliates and former members in more than a dozen American states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana and Utah, but none now have ballot status besides California. Its first candidates appeared on the 1966 New York ballot. The Peace and Freedom Party of California was organized in early 1967, gathering over 103,000 registrants which qualified its ballot status in January 1968 under the California Secretary of State Report of Registration.
The party has appeared in other states as an antiwar and pro-civil rights organization opposed to the Vietnam War and supporting black liberation, farm-worker organizing, women's liberation, and the gay rights movement. Its presidential candidates were Leonard Peltier in 2004, Ralph Nader in 2008, Roseanne Barr in 2012 and Gloria La Riva in 2016 and 2020.
Platform
According to its website, the party "is committed to feminism, socialism, democracy, ecology, and racial equality", advocating "to build a mass-based socialist party throughout the country". It is a strong advocate of environmentalism, aboriginal rights, rights to sexuality, government-funded health care, a woman's right to an abortion, public education, subsidized housing, and a socialist-run economy.
History
Founding
The Peace and Freedom Party grew out of the civil rights and anti-war movements on June 23, 1967. The major factors behind the new party were unhappiness with the Democratic Party's support for the war in Vietnam and also a perception that the Democrats were failing to effectively support the civil rights movement.
In the 1966 House of Representatives elections, three people ran under the Peace and Freedom Party banner. Herbert Aptheker received 3,562 votes in New York state's 12th Congressional District; Robert B. Shaw received 1,974 votes in Washington state's 7th Congressional District, and Frank Patterson received 1,105 votes in Washington state's 2nd Congressional District. Late 1966 began a number of voter registration drives in various states with the intent to build a national party. Most notably in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Los Angeles county, activists became deputy registrars of voters as peace organizers, anti-war veterans and civil rights workers.
Election of 1968
The party achieved ballot status in California in January 1968 by registering over 105,000 voters under its banner. It later got ballot status in 13 other states, but in all of those, the election laws and small organization meant that most were unable to retain ballot status after 1968.
The PFP's first national convention to nominate candidates for president and vice president was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 17 – August 18, 1968. Ric Hyland, as California PFP's National Administrator, was convention chair. Eldridge Cleaver was nominated for president over Richard C. "Dick" Gregory by a margin of 161.5 to 54. Cleaver, a convicted felon and Black Panther spokesman, was technically not eligible to run since he would not yet be 35 by the time of the inauguration in January 1969. Due to the needs of the state parties to collect signatures, the party fielded several vice presidential nominees, including Chicago activist Peggy Terry, activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, radical economist Doug Dowd and Judith Mage, who had been nominated at the national convention. Cleaver personally preferred Yippie leader Jerry Rubin. Gregory also appeared on the ballot in several states along with his vice presidential running mate Mark Lane as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate as well as in New York as the candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party. Two states (California and Utah) refused to list Cleaver on the ballot, although each state listed the presidential electors and candidates for vice president (Peggy Terry in California and Corky Gonzales in Utah).