Fred and the Panthers didn’t say they were going to make the revolution, they said “we’re going to educate the people and the people are going to make the change.”. The attorneys in that case were Jeffrey Haas and Flint Taylor. “He and his family are institutions in Maywood and his contributions to the park district are endless,” she said. In this case, it led to the execution-style killing of Fred Hampton during a police raid. With Judas and the Black Messiah star Daniel Kaluuya now an Oscar nominee, a primer on his character, Black Panther Party official Fred Hampton, who was assassinated on Dec. 4, 1969. Restricted to residents of Melrose Park, the “non-discriminatory policy” of pool officials somehow allowed white Maywood youth to use the pool while black youth were invariable turned away. [Ted Pearson has been the Co-chairperson at Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression for 30 years. Hampton’s contact with the Communist Party USA also played a role. Fred Hampton was just beginning to make his contribution to revolutionary struggle when he was killed. Both active members of Local 7-507 of the Oil and Chemical Workers Union, Mr. and Mrs. Hampton have devoted their lives, since coming to Chicago from Haynesville, La., almost 25 years ago, to forging a decent life for their family. Early morning, December 4, 1969, fourteen police officers executed a search warrant on a Chicago flat rented by the Black Panther Party. As a teenage criminal, William O’Neal was recruited to infiltrate the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. He led many struggles, most of them centering around the high school. ohtadmin Early in the morning of December 4, 1969, fourteen police officers executed a search warrant on a Chicago flat rented by the Black Panther Party. He could easily have been the one who led the Panthers all those years ago. What is the significance of monetary damages? + A 27-minute documentary film—Death of a Black Panther: The Fred Hampton Story. was made shortly after his killing. on Check Facebook for signing locations, dates and times. I think that in 1969, Fred and many of us felt we were part of a worldwide resistance movement that was actually going to change that power. “Fred got between the two and held up his hands to stop them,” Bill Hampton recalled, “and the police arrested him and beat him.”. Last week he ran onto the Eisenhower Expressway and killed himself. The jury came back with a guilty verdict for second-degree murder and sixteen counts of aggravated battery, one for each shot. After the murder of Fred Hampton, it wasn't until 1971 when details of the deadly raid started coming to light. Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, noted at Fred Hampton’s funeral that he had united the black community and important sections of whites through his death. Material of Interest to People on the Left, Fred Hampton Murdered by Chicago Police 50 Years Ago, Ted Pearson; Norman Stockwell, Frances Madeson interviewing Jeffrey Haas, How Covid Upended a Century of Patterns in U.S. Bill Hampton considered himself the keeper of his younger brother Fred’s legacy, according to a 2018 interview, Still My Brother’s Keeper. Haas has continued to fight for the rights of political protestors and advocates for change. The school administrators turned a deaf ear to proposed solutions and brought in the police. He was an amazing charismatic young man, with a tremendous energy and vibrancy who said many unforgettable things that are inspiring to this day. Killed in police raid in '69 Maywood's police chief attended the event, along with U.S. Transformation only happens if the popular sectors organize and mobilize to go beyond this system that generates poverty, misery, hunger, inequality. In the spirit of Judas and the Black Messiah, here’s the true story of Fred Hampton, Bill O’Neal, and the Black Panther Party. Although not agreeing with everything Fred did, they always supported him. In February 1968, Hampton met “Brother Lenny,” who was in Chicago to speak about the Black Panther Party. | Bill said of his brother’s character, he was a hardworking, caring, community-minded person and self-starter. Hampton was inspired to study law to use it as a defense against police and their brutality. Joan Elbert, a white middle-class Maywood leader in the Lutheran Church, tells how police would follow young Hampton, parking outside any place where he was to speak. The original Black Panther Party was formed in 1966. “There’s no price you can put on the value of his time as a commissioner. Fred Hampton had just started grade school in the summer of 1955, when Emmett Till, by then 14, went to visit his relatives near Money in the Mississippi Delta region. Hampton was a well-liked and charismatic leader at the age of only twenty-one. The two militant youths had long and heated arguments concerning the nature of the struggle, with Brother Lenny insisting the struggle was a class struggle, and Hampton expressing all the disillusionment he had experienced in the recent months with liberal and working class whites. William Hampton, the Maywood Park District commissioner and brother of famous Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, died early Thursday morning. Hampton, most widely known as Bill, died on Feb. 8 after undergoing an unspecified surgical procedure. Fred Hampton was an American civil-rights activist, best remembered for his association with the Chicago chapter of the 'National Association for the Advancement of Colored People' (NAACP) and the 'Black Panther Party' (as its deputy chair). With Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback. Haas: As a deterrent, it’s really questionable as to how much money a city can afford to lose before they change police practices and training. I think that’s why he was so dangerous to them and had to be killed.”. Now a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Haas travelled to Chicago this week for the book launch and other events on the fiftieth anniversary of the killings. Sine then, thousands have visited the apartment where the two youths were gunned down in their sleep. Fred’s assassination had a huge impact on the south and west sides of Chicago. He may not have been quite as articulate as his brother, but he was a mighty speaker for justice.”, amily are institutions in Maywood and his contributions to the park district are endless,” she said. And the fact that an officer can be charged and sentenced to substantial time will certainly have an impact on the officers willing to pull the trigger, so we see some things changing. Hampton’s death was confirmed by close friends, his nephew and workers at Symphony at Aria, a nursing home and rehabilitation facility in Hillside, where he had been recovering from an unspecified surgical procedure. Bill Hampton, brother of Fred Hampton, reads a statement during a 1974 press conference with, to his right, family members of slain Panther Mark Clark. It is reprinted now on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his murder. In late summer 1968, he formed a Maywood chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. | William Camargo/Staff Bill O’Neal Allegedly Drugged Fred Hampton Before A Deadly Police Raid. 'This was nothing but a Northern lynching.' In December 1969, the Chicago Journalism Review published a special edition devoted to the murder of Fred Hampton. ”It’s something he tried to live with and couldn’t.” That was Dec. 4, 1969. Jeffrey Haas: In the course of our thirteen-year lawsuit, including an eighteen-month trial, to expose what happened to Fred and the other Panthers that night, we learned that the government had a plan in place to deal with any black leaders emerging “who could unify and electrify the masses,” in the words of the FBI documents. Fred said: “All power to the people because that’s where it belongs, in the hands of the people.” If that wasn’t clear in 1969, it’s even clearer today, when we see corporate greed destroying people of color’s communities, setting the world on fire—and it seems unstoppable. “He was really loved here in the community — him and his whole family,” said Maywood Mayor Edwenna Perkins. “You are as oppressed as we are,” Hampton told them, “ ‘cause you aren’t even together.”. As the suburb’s black population gradually increased, certain students from nearby lily-white Broadview and Melrose Park increasingly attacked and insulted the black students from Maywood with encouragement and help from some of the teachers. Bill O’Neal Allegedly Drugged Fred Hampton Before A Deadly Police Raid. Hampton did all this while fighting for the regularity and expansion of the free breakfast program and for the new free people’s health center, dedicated this past Christmas Day (1969) to Jake Winters. Always, in his brief life, people observed his eloquent hate for exploitation and racism but he never hated working people, black or white. The Short Story of Fred Hampton, Assassinated Black Panther Leader. Daniel Kaluuya has won the best supporting actor Oscar for Judas And The Black Messiah. He went on to Proviso East High School, graduating with high grades in 1966…. This appears to be one of the first contacts Hampton evidently made with the Panthers and the basic idea of Marxism-Leninism. There is no doubt that Mrs. Hampton, her warm concern for people, played an important role in shaping the future of her youngest child, Fred. Fred said to them, “Why are you preying on your own people? ”The act (of being an informant) he committed was unjust and ignorant,” Bill Hampton, a brother of Fred Hampton, said in 1990. ”The act (of being an informant) he committed was unjust and ignorant,” Bill Hampton, a brother of Fred Hampton, said in 1990. The Panthers had an analysis that said capitalism was the enemy of the people, and that until the people took that power away, they would be exploited. 36:48 real audio. But mostly he will be remembered as a man of deeds—deeds performed for his people every moment of his short life…. Bill O'Neal infiltrates the Black Panther Party per FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. Though he had his share of contradictions and seemingly anti-white frustrations, his thrust was towards the unity of black and white. Hampton’s father, Francis, today works at the same job he did when Fred was born—a painter at the sprawling Argo, Ill., refinery of the Corn Products Company. Fred Hampton touched the lives of many people, white and black, both those with whom he agreed and those with whom he disagreed. So, in a way, it was a political victory for the community, because the movement was so tenacious. The Murder of Fred Hampton at IMDb (A 1971 documentary film directed by Howard Alk) FBI files on Fred Hampton; From COINTELPRO to the Shadow Government: As Fred Hampton Jr. Is Released From 9 Years of Prison, a Look Back at the Assassination of Fred Hampton. In the eyes of thousands who knew him, he was a young Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, of their stature. During the summer of 1967, Hampton sensed that the need for recreational facilities for Maywood’s black youth was a key to uniting the community. [Norman Stockwell is publisher of The Progressive. Fred Hampton was Iberia’s legacy and a freedom fighter who was second to none.” Montgomery, who said he was deeply influenced by, and admired, Fred, said that the slain activist died fighting “for a cause that’s never going to die.” . Bill O’Neal was the FBI informant tasked with spying on Hampton. About Bill The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther book launch begins November 2009. He will be sorely missed.”, He represented so much history in regards to keeping the legacy of Fred Hampton alive and being able to provide opportunities for so many through the Fred Hampton Scholarship Foundation. Why can’t we form a coalition?” And they did. Why was he assassinated? Hampton’s death was confirmed by close friends, his nephew and workers at Symphony at Aria, a nursing home and rehabilitation facility in Hillside, where he had been recovering from an unspecified surgical procedure. WARNING: Spoilers for Judas and the Black Messiah. The seven survivors were put under arrest for attempted murder, owning weapons, and armed violence. Fred was doing that. I think that will leave a major impact in the community.”. Among other projects he has volunteered his legal skills on behalf of the water protectors opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline project in South Dakota. A hail of police gunfire from rifles, a sub machine gun, shotguns and handguns left Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead and four other Panthers wounded. In spite of some harsh clashes with Communist leaders, the direction of his changing approach is reflected in remarks of Eugene Charles, the Panthers’ Lieutenant of Information. Check Facebook for signing locations, dates and times. The Murder of Fred Hampton On December 4, 1969, at 4:30 a.m., Edward Hanrahan and his squad of special police raided the Black Panther Party apartment at 2337 W. Monroe Street in Chicago. Q: In 1982, you won a $1.85 million settlement for the Hampton and Clark families and the raid survivors. He was 71 years old. Last week he ran onto the Eisenhower Expressway and killed himself. But money damages are not enough. Our lawsuit was a long crusade, with many appeals, and it was ultimately successful. Directed by Shaka King. Now we’re in a counter-revolution, yet we see that people are arising everywhere. In The Assassination Of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas, Hampton himself recounts an incident in which police had arrested him for an old traffic … According to Bill, she had been involved with the Fred Hampton Memorial Legal Assistance Scholarship Fund, an annual award that given to law students. Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya: Fred Hampton's legacy will continue. One of Hamp’s first arrests came during an early “disturbance” in November 1967 when he tried to stop a fight between black and white youth outside the school. + In the 1999 TV mini-series The 60s, Fred appears, serving free breakfasts. It had only been a year and a half since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And now, a beloved Black Panther was dead at the hands of the police. Access to social goods too was made difficult, if not curtailed, in the areas with heavy black populations. Some have been critical of the decision to cast 31-year-old Daniel Kaluuya as 21-year-old Chicago Panthers chairman Fred Hampton, and 29-year-old Lakeith Stanfield as then-20-year-old Bill O’Neal. They understood that he was dedicated to the liberation of black people. Now streaming on HBO Max, Shaka King's 2021 feature explores the unique relationship between the FBI and a Chicago informant who managed to infiltrate the Black Panther organization. Thursday, February 8, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews William Hampton, the Maywood Park District commissioner and brother of famous Black Panther leader Fred Hampton… The municipal swimming pool in adjoining Melrose Park was the only one in the area. Bill Hampton, the brother of Fred Hampton, in their childhood home in Maywood, flanked by photos of their mother Iberia's grandparents, Edmond and Christine White, who were the children of slaves. Fred Hampton was born Aug. 30, 1948, to Francis and Iberia Hampton, two factory workers among the millions of black people who are mislabeled “middle class’ by bourgeois sociologists. If we want real change, we need to return to the grassroots work of popular education. He was 71 years old. J. William O'Neal (April 9, 1949 – January 15, 1990) was an FBI informant known for playing a role in the 1969 assassination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton. Already at that time, his brother Bill could say, “He was a leader to whites as much as to the blacks at the school.” On one occasion, friends recall, Fred met with a group of long-haired, leather-jacketed white toughs who had been mainly involved in the troubles. “The people’s mind-set was no more turning the other cheek,” said Shaka King, whose fiery and fiercely original new drama “Judas and the Black Messiah,” out next month from Warner Bros., recounts the story of slain Black Panther leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and the FBI informant William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), who led his security team. On one such occasion, the young leader was to address a group of Lutherans, many from the conservative Missouri Synod, at the St. James Lutheran Church in Western Springs, an all-white suburb far south of Maywood. Hampton was the primary steward of his brother Fred’s legacy and a reservoir of knowledge on the black experience in Maywood and across the country, friends say. Tape: Fred Hampton, Deborah Johnson. But it was not the horror and barbarism of these murders alone that united the community. Not even the Maywood police, but the Cook Country police, under the command of the notorious racist Sheriff Joe Woods, whose plan for arming a vigilante “posse” to deal with “riots” brought him national attention in 1969. He may not have been quite as articulate as his brother, but he was a mighty speaker for justice.”. However, the powers that be had other ideas. Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. • The Marxists Internet Archive: Fred Hampton Archive Transcribed speeches and collected works. This, and his ability to work with everybody is why I guess they had to kill him,” as Karen Nye, a white nurse put it. His mother has also worked at that refinery on an assembly line for 14 years…. He will long be remembered for many things, his humor, his rapid but poetic speech, his warmth and kindness. Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed after an FBI informant named Bill O’Neill, the eponymous Judas played by Lakeith Stanfield (“Sorry to Bother You”), drugged him so that he would be unable to wake when the FBI raided his apartment. Q: Fred Hampton was not a well-known national leader. That’s really an open question, I think. DMCA NoticesNewspaper web site content management software and services, he [Black Panthers] started programs, such as the breakfast programs for children, that affected Maywood and the world. He was gifted in academics and athletics. According to The Assassination of Fred Hampton, O’Neal had begged the Hampton family to allow him to be a pallbearer, to which they agreed. Representatives Danny Davis and Bobby Rush, a co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party. Why do you think it took forty-five years for a Chicago police officer to be convicted in one of these killings? In a statement about the bill, Cohen added: I am pleased to see the outpouring of support for this long overdue righting of an egregious wrong. The first major comprehensive study of those arrested for participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol strongly indicates that the true motivation of these rioters was not some quasi-patriotic reaction. Hampton helped Mrs. Elbert play host to Brother Lenny, who came from the Panthers’ national headquarters in Oakland, Calif., to speak to church groups there. Equal to that is the nagging thought on the mind of everyone who knew anything about him: “It wasn’t the guy next door, but it was the power structure, Mayor Daley, and the industrialists. His whole family will be missed.”. Black Panther Party members, left to right, Bobby Lee, Billy 'Che' Brooks, and Fred Hampton, at a rally, Chicago, Illinois, 1969. He had brought together a coalition of Puerto Ricans, Appalachians, and left people in Chicago to demand new things, including an end to police brutality and mass incarceration, community control of police, free breakfast programs, health clinics, and so forth. The short political biography appeared just weeks after the assassination of Fred Hampton, a leader of the Black Panther Party. He will be sorely missed.”, “It’s such a tragedy that he is gone,” said Maywood trustee Isiah Brandon. Fred Hampton was Iberia’s legacy and a freedom fighter who was second to none. About Bill The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther book launch begins November 2009. The people became incensed when Woods’ men arrested Hampton and brutally beat him before the yes of the demonstrators and onlookers for peacefully petitioning the village board. It was this that led him inexorably towards Marxism-Leninism and a class analysis of the capitalist system. Frances Madeson has written about liberation struggles in the United States and abroad, and is the author of the comic novel Cooperative Village. By Frances was the only sister of Bill and Fred, and the only daughter of Francis Allen and Iberia Hampton. Judas and the Black Messiah suggests that Bill O'Neal drugged Fred Hampton in 1969, so is that information historically accurate? Under his leadership and through his own personal efforts, he brought basic classes in Marxism-Leninism to these groups, emphasizing the need to overthrow capitalism and the necessity for class unity. A real coalition came together and they demanded that Van Dyke be charged with murder, which had never happened before. In 1982, a civil rights suit brought by the families of the two slain men was settled for $1.85 million, with the money coming city, county, and federal authorities. This film depicts the betrayal and assassination of Fred Hampton, ... "There was a trail of blood from where they had dragged Fred’s body. Bill Hampton on the activities of his brother, Fred Hampton. It was a result of his obvious leadership abilities that the NAACP Maywood branch approached him then to work with their Youth Council. Evidently, the administrators…preferred to have “racial trouble” rather than face the united demands of the working-class black and white students at the school, led by Fred Hampton. Fred Hampton was born Aug. 30, 1948, to Francis and Iberia Hampton, two factory workers among the millions of black people who are mislabeled “middle class’ by bourgeois sociologists. February 08, 2018, Thursday, February 8, 2018 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews. 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