John Alexander Sinclair Jr. (October 2, 1941 – April 2, 2024) was an American poet, writer, and political activist from Flint, Michigan. Sinclair's defining style is jazz poetry, and he released most of his works in audio formats. Most of his pieces include musical accompaniment, usually by a varying group of collaborators dubbed Blues Scholars.
As an emerging young poet in the mid-1960s, Sinclair took on the role of manager for the Detroit rock band MC5. The band's politically charged music and its Yippie core audience dovetailed with Sinclair's own radical development. In 1968, while still working with the band, he conspicuously served as a founding member of the White Panther Party, a militantly anti-racist socialist group and counterpart of the Black Panther Party. Arrested for distribution of marijuana in 1969, Sinclair was given ten years in prison. The sentence was criticized by many as unduly harsh, and it galvanized a noisy protest movement led by prominent figures of the 1960s counterculture. He was freed on March 9, 1972, by the Michigan Supreme Court when the possession of marijuana law was declared unconstitutional.
He was indicted for an alleged terrorist bombing of a covert CIA office. That matter involved substantial litigation – his case against the government for illegal domestic surveillance was successfully pleaded to the US Supreme Court in United States v. U.S. District Court (1972). It took the form of a Writ of Mandamus, which was won at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and an appeal on certiorari to the Supreme Court. The wiretap evidence was suppressed, and the criminal case dropped.
Sinclair eventually left the US and took up residency in Amsterdam. He continued to write and record and, from 2005, hosted a regular radio program, The John Sinclair Radio Show, as well as producing a line-up of other shows on his own radio station, Radio Free Amsterdam.
Sinclair was among the first people to purchase recreational marijuana when it became legal in Michigan on December 1, 2019.
John Alexander Sinclair Jr. was born in Flint, Michigan, on October 2, 1941, and grew up in Davison. He was a member of the Class of 1960 at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, but he dropped out after his first year. Sinclair subsequently attended the Flint College of the University of Michigan, now the University of Michigan-Flint. During his time at UM-Flint he served on the university's Publications Board, school newspaper The Word, and was the president of the Cinema Guild. He graduated in 1964.
Sinclair was music editor and columnist for the Detroit underground newspaper, Fifth Estate, during the paper's growth in the late 1960s. Fifth Estate continues to publish to this day, making it one of the longest continuously published alternative periodicals in the United States. In an era before the internet, he was an influential publisher, columnist and editor of counter cultural newspapers and other documents, some of which still survive.
Sinclair also contributed to the formation of Detroit Artists Workshop Press, which published five issues of Work Magazine. Sinclair worked as a jazz writer for DownBeat from 1964 to 1965, being an outspoken advocate for the newly emerging Free Jazz Avant Garde movement. Sinclair was one of the "New Poets" who read at the seminal Berkeley Poetry Conference in July 1965.
In April 1967, he founded the Ann Arbor Sun, a biweekly underground newspaper, with his wife Leni Sinclair and artist Gary Grimshaw.
He was front and center on the issue of legalization of cannabis, and promoted its benefits while decrying its illegality. He was there to prominently buy legal cannabis when it became legal in Michigan. Magdalen "Leni" Sinclair is credited as an unsung hero of the fight for legalization—she took over for John during his two years in prison.
The argument for legalization was summed up in a 2011 Sinclair interview, which highlighted the original goal of Hash Bash was total legalization. He said:
"They need to get rid of this idiotic, hypocritical war on drugs. Marijuana, there's nothing wrong with it," he said. "It doesn't harm anybody, it's not a dangerous substance, and millions of people use it—and they're just characterized as criminals by these people whose drug of choice is alcohol. So the first thing you get rid of is tremendous hypocrisy."
Sinclair and Pun Plamondon established a commune at 1510 Hill Street. They founded the White Panther Party, which supported the goals of the Black Panther Party. He was indicted for bombing a CIA office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on September 29, 1968.
Sinclair was somewhat dismissive of the fact that he was imprisoned — something like, 'it comes with the job.'
During the 1960s, the White Panther Party, the precursor to the Rainbow People's Party, billed itself as an "anti racist political collective." They hosted free live concerts in Ann Arbor's West Park, until city council ended them. While Sinclair ventured the opinion that LSD was the catalyst that would bring the downfall of Western civilization. Some donned long guns and ammunition belts for photo opportunities and target practice. Some claim that was as aggressive as they became. "One member of the Black Panthers reportedly dismissed the dope-smoking Panthers from Michigan as 'psychedelic clowns.'" However, the dramatic poseurs got the attention of civil authorities. who called "the Panthers "potentially the largest and most dangerous of revolutionary organizations in the United States.""
"Everybody was on acid at West Park. We just had a ball at that motherf*****," he once recalled, noting they called themselves "acid freeks," spelled with two Es like "free."
Sinclair managed the proto-punk band MC5 from 1966 through 1969. Under his guidance the band embraced the counter-culture revolutionary politics of the White Panther Party, founded in answer to the Black Panthers' call for white people to support their movement.
The album Kick Out the Jams caused some controversy due to John Sinclair's inflammatory liner notes and the title track's rallying cry of "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" According to Wayne Kramer the band recorded this as "Kick out the jams, brothers and sisters!" for the single released for radio play; Rob Tyner claimed this was done without group consensus. The edited version also appeared in some LP copies, which also withdrew Sinclair's excitable comments. The album was released in January 1969; reviews were mixed, but the album was relatively successful, quickly selling over 100,000 copies and peaking at #30 on the Billboard 200 chart in May 1969 during a 23-week stay.