Frank Chapman sat in a room of organizers and groups hashing out their priorities for the Democratic Party’s presidential election platform. Among the issues they agreed to pursue was Palestinian rights — the first time the cause would make its way to a major party candidate’s talking points.
That was in 1984 for Jesse Jackson Sr. and the Rainbow Coalition’s push to get the Democratic nomination with progressive, pro-worker and pro-Black liberation proposals. The bid failed, but Jackson and his coalition thrust Palestinian rights further into the mainstream political landscape than ever before.
Forty years later, many of the same struggles persist. Chapman, now 81, helped organize a massive demonstration at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago protesting President Joe Biden’s financial and diplomatic support for Israel in its war with Hamas and the Democratic Party’s continued backing of Israel — even with a different presidential candidate.
“Solidarity is not an act of charity,” Chapman said about Black Americans supporting Palestinian rights. “Of course we all have a moral obligation to oppose oppression. But the reason why we’re opposing the oppression in Palestine and we’re for the liberation of the Palestinians goes beyond that. It speaks to our mutual suffering caused by the same people, caused by the U.S. government’s policies.”
The relationship has grown through struggles in the past decade. A George Floyd mural was painted in Gaza after his murder by Minneapolis police.
Chicago community organizer Nino Brown, who is Black, said his turning point to understanding the shared struggle was when Palestinians joined the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police killing of Michael Brown Jr. in 2014.
“We had tear gas canisters being repelled back by Black people in Ferguson, and they were the same manufacturers, the same tear gas being used to attack Palestinians,” the 33-year-old said. “For me that cemented the idea that we have common oppressors.
“We’re both extremely dispossessed people.”
Earlier this year, when Mayor Brandon Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote for the Chicago City Council’s Gaza cease-fire resolution, he tied the Palestinian cause to the movement for Black liberation.
“I’m not mayor of the city of Chicago if people weren’t pushing the government to recognize people’s humanity and understand the value of what liberation … means for people, groups and nations,” Johnson said at the time. “And in this instance, people should be liberated.”
Historian Michael Fischbach said there is at least a 60-year history of Black Americans speaking out for Palestinian freedom, particularly among Black power groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party, which “completely embraced the Palestinian cause.” But their views differed from the more mainstream African American Civil Rights Movement, which often aligned with some of its white liberal allies who supported Israel.
Revolutionary Malcolm X visited a refugee camp in Gaza in 1964 — a few months after he left the Nation of Islam religious and political organization — to meet with displaced Palestinians.
“Our problem in America is a problem that is worldwide,” he said afterwards.
Six decades later, Fred Hampton Jr., the son of the assassinated Black Panther leader, led a “free them all” chant at the University of Chicago’s student Gaza solidarity encampment, tying Palestinian oppression to incarcerated people in the Cook County Jail. And prominent author Ta-Nehisi Coates took his own trip to the West Bank this year, saying upon his return that “the most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is.
“There’s no way for me, as an African American, to come back and stand before you, to witness segregation and not say anything about it,” Coates said.
Fischbach said “the kind of stuff we see today has a long pedigree” that eventually “filtered into the mainstream.”
Dani Isaily, whose mother is Black and father is half-Palestinian, said she has recognized her own struggles as a Black woman in America when talking to her family in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, and watching videos of Palestinians describing life in the West Bank, from police violence to checkpoints and other forms of racism.
“Black people just getting pulled over for nothing,” she said. “If that’s not an invisible checkpoint, I don’t know what is.”
There have also long been strong bonds between Black and Jewish communities, particularly after some Jewish allies gave their lives in support of the Civil Rights Movement.
While some Jewish American groups support the Palestinian cause, alliances with other Jewish groups that back Israel have been tested in the past 10 months, particularly for Black Christian faith leaders.
“We know oppression when we see it — we’ve been there,” said the Dallas-based Bishop Adam J. Richardson, a senior leader in the national African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of America’s oldest and most prominent Black churches.
“Since 1954, Israel has shown a willful disregard for the human dignity of Palestinians,” the AME’s Bishops Council said in a statement in February. “Since October 7, 2023, in retaliation for the brutal murder of 1,139 Israeli citizens by Hamas, Israel has murdered over 28,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. The United States is supporting this mass genocide. This must not be allowed to continue.”
Israel and the U.S. have denied allegations that genocide has been committed in Gaza.
Richardson said “our names are on those bombs,” and every member of the congregation that he’s talked to “tends to fully understand the position of the Palestinians.
“To have all of these Palestinians being pushed into an area, their housing crumbling all around them, inadequate food, inadequate water, to us it was just unacceptable,” he said.
Richardson said he isn’t worried about strained relationships with Jewish leaders who support Israel because “sometimes friends can say ‘you’re wrong.’” He said the church rejects any notion that “standing up for what is right” is antisemitic.
More than 200 organizations nationwide are signed on to participate in the March on the DNC on Monday. Groups with varying missions felt the Palestinian cause was a natural one to rally around, said Hatem Abudayyeh, a chief organizer of the DNC demonstration and the national chair of the Chicago-based U.S. Palestinian Community Network advocacy group.
“We’ve always said, Black liberation in the U.S. will lead to liberation for all,” Abudayyeh, 53, said. “That’s why there’s a dialectical relationship between the two.”
But it has largely been Black leaders who have stood publicly with Palestinians. There have even been rifts on social media between some Black and Palestinian communities in recent weeks. How do Black voters, who were important to the Democrats’ win in 2020, feel?
One poll shows one in four Black voters identify the war in Gaza as “extremely important” ahead of this presidential election. Another found a majority of Black Americans would like to see the U.S. call for a permanent cease-fire and condition military support for Israel.
