---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 14:23:37 -0800
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Dec. 4: Remember Fred Hampton
Dec. 4: Remember Fred Hampton
from: http://www.providence.edu/afro/students/panther/hamptonsr.html
Fred Hampton was a high school student and a promising leader when he
joined the Black Panther Party at the age of 19. His status as a leader
grew very quickly. By the age of 20 he became the leader for the Chicago
Chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was in involved in a lot of
activities to improve the black community in Chicago. He maintained
regular speaking engagements and organized weekly rallies at the Chicago
federal building on behalf of the BPP. He worked with a free People's
Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6am, and
launched a community control of police project. Hampton was also
instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program. Hampton had the
charisma to excite crowds during rallies, he was suppose to be appointed
to the Party's Central Committee. His position would have been Chief of
Staff if he did not have an untimely death on the evening of December 4,
1969.
Events Leading up to The Death of Fred Hampton
The social climate of the late 1960s was definitely NOT on Hampton's
side. The government was not supportive of any radical political
organization, and in fact turned out to be downright suspicious at any
attempt to challenge or change the status-quo. Discriminating against
the black community was the norm. When word of a "Days of Rage" rally
came to the government's attention, it was known that some members of
the BPP supported this "attack on the pig power structure." Allegedly,
Fred Hampton and the majority of the Chicago Panthers did not support
this rally, but to the FBI they were guilty by association. This
information, combined with the general suspicion the government had of
the BPP, and Fred's powerful speaking and organizing skills, made Fred
Hampton a wanted man. The Federal Bureau of Investigation saw Fred
Hampton as a threat to society that needed to be eliminated. They
conspired with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and William O'Neal to
spy on Fred to give them information about his daily itinerary in order
to have O'Neal's felony charges dropped. His job was to serve as a
bodyguard of Fred and director of the Chapter's security. He was suppose
to notify the FBI of the Panther's apartment floor plan and how many
residents lived in the apartment. When the FBI got its information a
raid was authorized by the state attorney Hanrahan. FBI special agents
sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover stating that "a positive course of action
(was) being effected under the counterintelligence program." (quoted
information from Shane Smith's Fred Hampton Page)
That Unforgettable Morning
That evening Fred Hampton and several Party members including William
O'Neal came home to the BPP Headquarters after a political education
class. O'Neal volunteered to make the group dinner. He slipped a large
dose of secobarbital in Fred's kool-aid and left the apartment around
1:30am, a little while later, Fred fell asleep. Around 4:30am on
December 4, 1969 the heavily armed Chicago Police attacked the Panthers'
apartment. They entered the apartment by kicking the front door down and
then shooting Mark Clark pointblank in the chest. Clark was sleeping in
the living room with a shotgun in his hand. His reflexes responded by
firing one shot at the police before he died. That bullet was then
discovered to be the only shot fired at the police by the Panthers.
Their automatic gunfire entered through the walls of Fred and his
pregnant girlfriend's room. Fred was shot in the shoulder. Then two
officers entered the bedroom and shot Fred at pointblank in his head to
make sure that he was dead, and no longer a so-called menace to society.
It has been said that one officer stated, "he's good and dead now." The
officers then dragged Fred's body out of his bedroom and again open
fired on the members in the apartment. The Panthers were then beaten and
dragged across the street where they were arrested on charges of
attempted murder of the police and aggravated assault. The incident also
wounded four other Panther members. For more information look at our
page about COINTELPRO and Government Oppression of the BPP.
The Big Conspiracy
Immediately after the incident FBI, CPD, and state attorney Hanrahan
started their cover-up. They showed false re-enactments on TV,
fabricated photographic evidence, and went as far as making a fake
investigation. Hanrahan had the audacity of saying, "We wholeheartedly
commend the police officers bravery, their remarkable restraint and
discipline in the face of this vicious Black Panther attack, and we
expect every decent citizen of our community to do likewise." The
members of the Black Panther Party did not take this incident lightly.
They immediately opened up the apartment to the public to show the
brutality of the police. A later investigation found that no more than
four bullets left the Panther's apartment while approximately two
hundred entered the apartment. As explained by this resource, there are
many inconsistencies in the accounts of what really happened when Fred
Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered. Information about the civil trial
that the BPP filed against the government can be found here also. The
civil trial was the longest civil lawsuit in the history of the United
States of America according to the National People's Democratic Uhuru
Movement (NPDUM). Despite a ridiculously long trial, not one officer
spent a day in jail. Fred Hampton's murder has never been vindicated,
other than through speaking engagements, accusations of government
wrong-doing on the web, and literature published on the subject. The
facts presented by this case seem so crystal clear in retrospect that it
is difficult to see how a jury could acquit the perpetrators of such
blatant violence. One would hope that the passing of time and increased
social awareness has changed behavior in this country enough to prevent
something like this from happening again. Sadly, accusations of
conspiracies past and present seem to surface daily. These violations of
Civil Rights endanger the freedom of all Americans and the integrity of
the structures that govern us. Surpressing those who express
controversial ideas are surpressing the voices of justice. Motivated by
fear, oppressing these voices oppresses the voices of all Americans.
Fred Hampton's Legacy Lives on
His legacy is still alive in the members of the Black Panther Party.
They are following the statement that Fred once said, "You can kill a
revolutionary, but you can't kill a revolution!" The son of Fred
Hampton, Fred Hampton, Jr. is a political prisoner in Chicago. [Fred Hampton,
Jr. was freed in September 2001.] He has
not stopped his crusade, even from jail he struggles to keep his
father's name alive.
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