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. Unhappiness with the Democratic Party's support for the war in Vietnam and the Democrats' failure to effectively support the civil rights movement were major factors in the decision to build a new party. 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.