Why the US government murdered Fred Hampton

december 4th 1969. akua and jerry was 19 years old and sleeping next to her fiance the illinois black panther party chairman fred hampton the next thing i remember was someone in our room shaking chairman fred chairman chairman wake up wake up plaster was flying off the ball you could smell the chordite from the gunshot if you've ever been under gunfire five minutes it's five hours to you it seems like forever the shooting started back again then another voice unfamiliar to me said he's good now i knew they were talking about chairman fred fred hampton was murdered by his government [Music] but before that he was a leader in a movement practicing a new kind of activism a movement targeted because of its power to unite people 1964 has a historic year in race relations on july 2nd president johnson signed into law of a civil rights act it was the strongest in the 1960s racial progress in the u.s was at a turning point activists won major civil rights victories and the era of jim crow laws came to an end but at the end of the decade there were still deep social and economic gaps for black people across the country black americans continued to face high poverty poor housing and unemployment and they still had little to no political representation these disparities and an increase in brutal police violence led to uprisings across the country many young black activists grew frustrated that the changes they'd hoped for hadn't come it's just the opposite of being a white man that's about the best i can abbreviate that fight after the police killing of an unarmed black teen in san francisco two activists in oakland california bobby seal and huey p newton founded what was initially called the black panther party for self-defense newton had studied law and knew it was legal to carry arms in california as long as they were not concealed the panthers began to patrol their communities as the movement grew several highly publicized confrontations with police would bring about mainstream awareness of the black panther party the allegations in these confrontations were serious but the public accounts of them were typically one-sided and shaped largely by police media coverage depicted party members as a caricature of black militancy the black panther party was portrayed as a marauding gang they say their goal was to kill all the white people in reality the panthers did call for radical change what they were hoping for was a revolution a revolution to overthrow the capitalist enterprise but what they called revolution might not actually sound so radical today focused on socialism as a way of solving economic means they look to places like canada which always had a democratic political system but the economic system has always been socialism they want a democratic socialist country here in the united states which they saw was a more equitable more humane system they released a 10-point plan for broad social reform that called for an end to police brutality and for black employment housing education and freedom from prison and jails chapters began forming across the country they started to implement social programs which they called survival programs the panthers would say put that theory into practice if you really want to change minds and you really want to meet the people where they are you have to give them the services which they need the programs included food and clothing drives free health clinics and sickle cell disease testing and were funded largely by volunteers and donations from businesses one of their biggest programs was a free breakfast for children initiative here we are living in 1966 67 is the most wealthy nation in the world and kids were going to school hungry especially african-american communities so one of the first community service programs were free breakfast for school children and all the children had to do was come it was during this time that akua and jerry then known as deborah johnson met fred hampton i was a student at wright city college and chairman fred had come up to the school to speak and he said at the breakfast program we're feeding over 3 000 children a week we're serious about making power to the people of reality we're not just sitting up here jaw jabbing and talking [ __ ] you know we about work and i said damn he's serious about this business fred hampton grew up in maywood illinois just west of downtown chicago he became president of his local naacp youth council in 1967 at 19 years old shortly after he was recruited by a founder of the illinois chapter of the black panther party because of his charismatic skills he quickly rise to the top of the crop here he is at age 21 building and leading the illinois chapter black panther party soon after they met and jerry and hampton became a couple anybody that has met him or heard him speak they say he wasn't [ __ ] he was for real you got to understand that jesus christ if your dad a struggle you better win and you did not discover this goddamn that you don't deserve to win let me send peace to you if you're willing to fight for it chicago in particular was a place where the party's ideals especially resonated it was then the second largest american city and due to decades of discriminatory policies also one of the most segregated chicago's mayor at the time richard j daly opposed neighborhood integration and in the 1950s the city had begun to redevelop certain neighborhoods pushing low-income residents out and into densely packed high-rise public housing in already overcrowded neighborhoods black people were pushed primarily to the south and west side of chicago a large puerto rican population was here in lincoln park and poor white people were concentrated here in uptown these groups all faced similar problems they all had the lapradega schools they all had dilapidated homes they were all being drafted into vietnam very few of those communities had health care in 1969 hampton led the panthers towards an unexpected alliance a coalition of activists working across racial lines against a corrupt city government that threatened their communities we're going to fight racism racism what they had in common was their poverty so they was building a revolution based on class solidarity that transcends race that they all had the same hell to pay hampton named the group the rainbow coalition it included the black panthers a puerto rican group called the young lords and a group called the young patriots made up of largely poor white migrants from appalachia who had moved to chicago seeking economic opportunity we don't hate the [ __ ] white people we hate the oppressive whether he be white black brown or yellow i don't mean seeing kumbaya and make a quilt i'm talking about bringing them together on common things they could unite on not everything but who could say that children do not deserve to have a healthy meal if we work with anybody from coalition with anybody that has revolution on their mind we're not a racist organization because we understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism hampton and other panthers helped the young lords and young patriots launch their own social programs they organized protests together and it was working members were traveling across the country to organize rainbow coalition chapters particularly where black panther chapters were but also in these rural white communities as well to bring the revolution to bear this blows people's minds these people are not supposed to get along but here they are operating as brothers of the struggles as revolutionaries against the capitalist structure and that was the threat to the state at the local level but also at the national level in 1968 the fbi had sent around this internal memo it outlined goals to prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups and prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement it wasn't written about hampton specifically but by 1969 chairman fred hampton was the one that fit the bill the revolution was in the air and the ways in which the panthers able to transcend those racial lines especially charismatic leadership but one like fred hampton they saw him as a greater threat a greater threat even than martin luther king or malcolm x ever was in one fbi memo about the black panthers breakfast program they claimed their real purpose was to poison minds with anti-white propaganda and indoctrinate youngsters in hate and violence the fbi under the leadership of jade edgar hoover had deemed the black panther party as the number one threat to the internal security of this country the fbi operated a counter-intelligence program called cointelpro it was a program that targeted dissident political groups in the u.s their methods typically went outside the law they were using tactics such as assassination discrediting false narratives they were falsely putting people in prison and exile which were all illegal several black panthers were killed or imprisoned including the party co-founders in chicago the party was also targeted by mayor daley and the chicago police our office was burned down at least three times people would disappear you never see their bodies again before you go to bed and i say i am a revolutionary make that the last word in case you don't wake up then somebody might believe it and you might you know end up in what they call a revolutionary happy hunting ground hampton a rising star at just 21 years old knew he was a target too he'd been arrested in 1968 for allegedly robbing an ice cream truck and handing out 71 dollars of ice cream in 1969 he was sentenced to two to five years in prison he appealed and was released on bond but lost the appeal he'd have to return to prison by december 6. on december 4th around 4 a.m 14 chicago police officers arrived outside hampton's apartment on chicago's west side inside hampton and jerry and seven other panthers were asleep i was very pregnant and the first thing i remember was chairman fred had fell asleep while talking on the phone the next thing i remember was someone in our room start shaking chairman chairman wake up wake up the pigs are vamping and i'm seeing chairman fred look up and then he laid his head back down real slow officers kicked open the door and shot mark clark a visitor from another party chapter they shot a sleeping 18 year old named brenda harris then they shot in the direction of hampton's bed going you matthews feel the bullets going into it i had moved over on top of chairman fred because there was shooting into our mattress the person that had come into the room kept shouting stop shooting stop shooting we have a pregnant assist in here eventually the shooting stopped and jerry was forced into the kitchen when she heard another voice someone said he's barely alive he'll barely make it i assume they're talking about chairman fred pig said he's good and dead now as they took me out and jammed a revolver to my stomach as i was handcuffed behind my back i didn't look towards a bedroom because i didn't know what i would see or how i would respond the police fired nearly 100 shots fred hampton and mark clark were dead the seven surviving panthers were arrested and police smiled as they removed hampton's body from the scene the chicago police and the state's attorney's office quickly shaped the narrative to call it a gun fight a battle and a shootout officers involved in the raid testified that they were fired on from four different rooms in the apartment by shotgun before i could get past the threshold there were three shots fired from the rear bedroom they played back a story that you could not even phantom they gave a fictional account of what happened again vilifying the black panther party i mean they were firing at police yes sir we saw the shots coming out of the two bedrooms this attack by the black panthers on the police clearly demonstrates the true character of the black panther party but experts and lawyers hired by the panthers along with other journalists inspected the crime scene the panthers even opened the apartment so that anyone could examine it and a drastically different picture emerged it was clear that the police had fired unprovoked of the nearly 100 shots fired only one possible shot could have come from a panthers gun likely from mark clark at the front door the bullet holes that the police said came from black panthers were nail heads later it also emerged that the fbi had assisted chicago police with the raid the fbi had an informant within the black panther party named william o'neill who had become chief of security and hampton's bodyguard o'neil had provided the fbi with a hand-drawn floor plan of the apartment which the fbi then gave to chicago police and evidence strongly suggests that before the raid o'neill had drugged hampton in the years after hampton's assassination the police and the fbi continued to imprison dozens of party members across the country the official black panther party would continue to exist until 1982 but membership decreased dramatically and it would never be the same you know that each one of you will be died in international protest revolutionary struggle and i think that struggle is going to come why don't you live for the people why don't you struggle for the people why don't you die fred hampton wanted revolution those in power wanted to destroy him and what he stood for but they weren't totally successful chairman fred lives you know what i'm saying through the military assault through the uh destruction of the party as an organization itself you know by the state the legacy of the party is is still still here today the work of fred hampton is alive through some of the same programs that marked him as a threat many of the programs that the parents created are now staples of our society we didn't have free breakfast in schools prior to the black panther party's free breakfast program those free clinics almost every major college campus got a free legal aid clinic the ways in which sickle cell testing is now respected as a disease by the cdc and others none of that stuff existed before the party i think that's revolutionary the history of the black panther party is going toe-to-toe with this government will never die never die thanks for watching this video if you want to learn more about fred hampton there's an amazing 1971 documentary called the murder of fred hampton available to stream via the chicago film archives at the link in the description they also have a film called american revolution 2 which documents the work of the rainbow coalition in action and the many activists who helped to spearhead the movement thanks again for watching our piece and stay tuned for one more episode in this season of missing chapter

Channel: Vox

Views: 2,708,794

Keywords: Vox.com, explain, explainer, vox, Fred Hampton, FBI, Cointelpro, socialism, Black Panther Party, Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, free breakfast, social programs, sickle cell anemia testing, legal aid clinics, police raid, police brutality, civil rights, 1960s, racism, hidden history, missing chapter, ranjani chakraborty, revolution, jakobi williams, Akua Njeri, Deborah Johnson, The Murder of Fred Hampton, Rainbow Coalition, Young Lords, Young Patriots, Chicago, Illinois

Id: mzZTLT8WpcQ

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021