In a room in Chicago in 1968, a surprising alliance was born. A Black Panthers leader named Bobby Lee addressed a gathering of poor white Southern migrants known as the Young Patriots, urging them to recognize their shared struggles. Uniting around the problems of police brutality, poverty, and worker exploitation, the Chicago Rainbow Coalition left an undeniable mark on the history of poor people’s struggles in Chicago and across the United States.

The story and images of the Young Patriots continue to shock and fascinate due to their decision to use the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of their anti-racist and anti-capitalist organization. Interest in the Young Patriots has been especially renewed in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in 2016, which has turbocharged discourse about the political challenges and potential of the white working class. Because many now discover the Young Patriots through isolated, context-free images posted online, the popular understanding of the Young Patriots is murky, as are many of the lessons people claim to have gleaned from the group.

Here to clarify the record is Jesse Montgomery’s deeply researched book, It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story, which provides a corrective to the mythologized and imagined Young Patriots and sets them upright on their own two feet in the long march of working-class resistance. Jacobin’s David Griscom spoke to Montgomery about the real lessons of the Young Patriots, which are much more valuable than the fantasy.