“Repeat after me. I am a revolutionary. I am a revolutionary”, chanted Daniel Kaluuya portraying the socialist activist Fred Hampton, in the trailer for Judas and The Black Messiah. This noble leader, whom I had never heard or learned about, immediately transfixed and mesmerized me. The discourse around African-American civil rights history for most of us starts and ends with Rosa Parks, Dr Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. So who were the Black Panther Party and who was this revolutionary vanguard that history seldom mentions?
In 1966, two Californian college students and activists, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, formed the revolutionary Black Panther Party (originally named Black Panther Party for Self Defense), fueled by the assassination of Malcolm X, and the continued police brutality. The Panthers used militarism to patrol and surveil the brutal treatment of black citizens by the Oakland police department. This resulted in their wide visibility which to an extent, reduced police violence during their patrolling. The party slowly developed and grew into a Marxist revolutionary group, advocating their Ten Point Program that called for issues such as the right to housing, education and employment for Black citizens, reparations for the African- American community for the centuries of exploitation by the white Americans, end to police brutality and, for the stop of capitalistic exploitation of the Black community. The BPP were vanguards for many initiatives- such as the Free Breakfast for Kids Program, the first national sickle cell anaemia screening, and schools that taught pro-Black education. Yet, they were widely considered as notorious extremists and violent radicals by white citizens, the FBI and political figures alike, as their mere existence ‘threatened’ the capitalist hegemony of America. His joining the BPP, and becoming the Chairman of its Chicago chapter is what would ultimately lead to the FBI assisted assassination of the 21-year-old Fred Hampton.
Years before the BPP’s existence, a teenage Fred Hampton was already becoming a powerful leader and orator for the young Black community in Chicago. Educating himself by reading books written by Black political leaders and recording and memorizing their speeches verbatim, he became passionate about helping his oppressed community. Challenging his school's majorly white administration that did not cater to the needs of the Black students, he successfully campaigned for the hiring of more Black teachers and administrators. Upon learning that only white girls were nominated for homecoming queen, he organized a student-led protest and walkout to challenge this policy - leading to the school’s students electing their first Black homecoming queen. Fred’s ability to boldly speak out about such issues earned him a lot of respect, making him the Head of the Interracial Council at his school. Soon, 17-year-old Fred was asked to join the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and began its Western Suburban Youth Chapter.
Becoming more outspoken about issues such as police brutality, he took a pro-Vietnam stance during the Vietnam War after reading and identifying with their proletariat socialist struggles. In 1967, 24 men and 6 women panthers went to the California legislature bearing rifles to protest the overturning of the law that legally allowed them to carry unconcealed guns for self-defence. This incident created a big shockwave throughout America - mostly among white citizens feeling terrorized. By November 1968, Fred had joined the BPP’s latest Illinois chapter and quickly rose to prominence with his strong leadership and organizing skills - becoming its Chairman. His radical approach to the proletarian struggle through speaking arrangements and education moved people, irrespective of their ethnicities. By early 1969, around the trial of the Chicago 7, Fred had formed BPP’s own Rainbow Coalition. This alliance brought together BPP and the varied revolutionary groups in Chicago - the Puerto Rican Young Lords and the white southern youth Young Patriots, unifying their struggles against police brutality and exploitation of the working class. It was apparent to everyone that Fred Hampton was a revolution that could not be stopped - including the Chicago P.D. and the FBI.
Placed in the FBI’s Key Agitator Index since 1967, Fred was under constant vigilance. The BPP’s office in Chicago was raided multiple times throughout the months leading up to his assassination. Every raid was meant to disrupt the growing party - resulting in stolen funds, destruction of property, and dumping the cooked meals for their Free Breakfast Program. A petty criminal William O’Neal provided the intel for these well-planned raids. To evade jail charges, O’Neal became an FBI informant and provided information instrumental in the assassination of Fred and, to a larger extent the eventual downfall of the BPP. He provided the floor plan for the apartment that Fred and his pregnant fiancé lived in, and drugged Fred with barbiturates the night of December 3rd. At the dawn of December 4th 1969, the Chicago P.D. murdered a drugged and asleep Fred Hampton during another planned raid. At the age of 21, a leader wise beyond his years - ceased to exist.
“I believe I was born not to die in a car wreck or slipping on a piece of ice, or of a bad heart, but I’m going to be able to die doing the things I was born for. I believe I’m going to die high off the people. I believe that I’m going to be able to die as a revolutionary in the international proletarian struggle. And I hope that each of you will be able to die in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle or you’ll be able to live in it. And I think that struggle’s going to come. Why don’t you live for the people? Why don’t you struggle for the people? Why don’t you die for the people?” - Fred Hampton.
As the 51st anniversary of Fred Hampton’s extrajudicial killing looms, we are compelled to think about where the revolutionary needle would be if he’d been alive. The international proletarian struggle that he stood for still persists. Capitalism is still wrecking the working class and bleeding the oppressed out to death. Black people in America and all around the world are still subjected to police brutality. Racism has mutated into more micro-aggressive forms, and diversity has become yet another capitalistic endeavour. Fred was giving speeches on sexism being anti revolutionary, advocating for the equal status of the panther women, and creating a safer workplace. Half a century later, we are still struggling with ideas of feminism. Compared to the mountains moved during the civil rights movement, actual revolutionary change may seem stagnant now. But the fight is ever present. From Colin Kaepernick kneeling to protest racism to the millions of protestors marching for the Black Lives Matter movement - the proletarian struggle still perseveres. To put it best in Fred Hampton’s words,“You can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail the revolution. You can run a freedom fighter around the country but you can't run freedom fighting around the country. You can murder a liberator, but you can never murder liberation”. In an almost biblical sense - the Black Messiah continues to live on.
(Cover Image by AP images)
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