A white panther is a white specimen of any of several species of larger cat. "Panther" is used in some parts of North America to mean the Cougar (Puma concolor), in South America to mean the Jaguar (Panthera onca) and elsewhere it refers to the Leopard (Panthera pardus). A white panther may therefore be a white cougar, a white jaguar or a white leopard. Of these, white leopards appear to be the most common, although still very rare.

The White Panthers were a far-left, anti-racist, white American political collective founded in 1968 by Lawrence Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was asked what white people could do to support the Black Panthers. Newton replied that they could form a White Panther Party. The group took the name and dedicated its energies to "cultural revolution." Sinclair made every effort to ensure that the White Panthers were not mistaken for a white supremacist group, responding to such claims with "quite the contrary." The party worked with many ethnic minority rights groups in the Rainbow Coalition.