---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 06 Oct 2002 22:15:14 -0700
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Assassination Attempt on Fred Hampton Jr
From:
FNV HIP HOP NEWSLETTER #101
Send comments to mrdaveyd@aol.com
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON FRED HAMPTON JR.
Earlier this week we let you know about an assassination attempt on
Fred Hampton Jr. For folks who are unfamiliar, Hampton is the son of
Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton who was brutally gunned down
by Chicago police in 1969. Hampton Jr became known to alot of people
when the group dead prez rapped about him in the song 'Behind Enemy
Lines'. In recent months Fred Jr has toured the country speaking at
Hip Hop conferences about ways in which the Hip Hop community can
organize and become more politically engaged. He also speaks out
about the prison system, cointel-pro and counter insurgency which is a
touchy subject for a lot of people especially in the aftermath of
9-11. Hampton is quick to remind cats what can happen if you allow
the government to tramp on your civil liberties. Hampton Jr also
appears on stage at a lot of dead prez concerts.. Here's an excerpt
of what went down with him last week....
Assassination Attempt on Fred Hampton Jr
by - Heru as told by Fred Hampton Jr
10/2/02 6:45:56 AM
Chicago - In the last few days, I've been witnessing intense signs of
the state's counter-insurgency efforts - from seeing an increased
number of agent provocateurs to seeing marked and unmarked pig cars
trailing me to the most recent event, an attempt to assassinate me on
Thursday, Sept. 26. My mother, Comrade Akua Njeri, and Sister Tuere
and I were riding on a heavily populated street on the South Side of
Chicago. All of a sudden, at 8:50 p.m., about five shots hit the back
window of our vehicle. The only sound was the shattering of glass,
with a slight pop that sounded something like a silencer was being
utilized. We were all able to escape without injury.
This is not the first time that the state has tried to snatch me from
the streets in one way or another. The fact is that my contact with
the U.S. counter-insurgency started before I was born, when the
Chicago Police Department in collaboration with the federal government
made their move on Dec. 4, 1969. What came to be known as the
Massacre on Monroe resulted in the assassinations of Black Panther
Party Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton and Defense Captain Mark Clark. My
mother's pre-natal care consisted not of a doctor's stethoscope on her
eight-and-a-half-month pregnant belly, but a Chicago policeman's
revolver being pressed there and him telling her, "Nigga, you betta'
not run!"
The counter-insurgency has not let up since then but has become more
intense. The state has leveled trumped up charges against me; I was
kidnapped and held captive behind enemy lines; numerous attempts were
made on my life while I was held captive and later out in the field
(the streets); and I've been constantly harassed in every sense of the
word. This country has a history of dealing with those who struggle
for liberation and demand to be treated as human beings by either
slandering them in attempts to isolate them or trying to buy 'em off,
spook or scare them from engaging in struggle, force them into exile,
frame or kidnap them or resort to sending them to the cemetery -
recognized by revolutionaries as "revolutionary happy hunting ground."
I see this as an indication that we are struggling in the right
direction. As Field Marshall George Jackson assessed, "It is when we
do not incur attacks that we become concerned."
When I was held captive on the same Menard plantation where Chairman
Fred Hampton was held in 1969, many brothers referred to me as "d ja
vu" because of the similarities between the stages of struggle that we
are in now compared with then, as well as the stances that I take with
respect to those of Chairman Fred. We see a climate of intensified
attacks on the Black Power Movement while the state distracts many of
the people into believing that it is only making its moves abroad.
In the '60s and early '70s, while the anti-war protesters were
chanting, "Bring the boys back home," Albert "Nuh" Washington and the
New York 3 were being kidnapped right under their noses in 1971.
George and Jonathan Jackson were gunned down domestically in the most
brutal fashion. Seventeen-year-old Lil' Bobby Hutton was assassinated
by an occupying army on the streets of Oakland, Calif., two days after
Dr. King was assassinated. Chairman Fred and Defense Captain Mark
Clark were murdered in cold blood in one of the most brutal acts of
terrorism that ever occurred on U.S. soil.
Right here today, many peace activists may be willing to challenge
prison conditions abroad, such as prisoners being forcefully medicated
while transported, but they turn a deaf ear to the multitudes of
Afrikan and colonized youth in Menard, Statesville and camps
throughout this country who are being pumped full of thorazine and
other narcotics against their will. Peace activists may recognize
such degrading acts as prisoners outside U.S. borders having bags put
over their heads while they are being transported, but the same
activists have no response for those held captive in Pontiac, Ill.,
who are forced to visit their loved ones with black nets over their
face and rubber grill pieces over their mouths.
Those same activists sit on Oprah Winfrey shows and engage in what I
refer to as "safe struggle," talking about violations that women
endure overseas but making no mention of the women in Cook County Jail
in Chicago who are forced to rinse their sanitary napkins out for
re-use. Those same activists condemn it as undemocratic for the U.S.
to topple the leader of a foreign country but will not say a word
about the countless numbers of Black leaders who have been taken out
throughout this country's history.
How do I recognize the activities of the continuing
counter-insurgency? Why don't I have to wait for some Oliver Stone
type movie to come out for me to say that something is a conspiracy or
a coincidence? Because I went to the same schools that Brother
Malcolm went to. He learned Amerikkkan history through its ghettos
and prisons.
POSTSCRIPT: Fred Hampton Jr. is the son of the legendary 21-year-old
Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton Sr., who was assassinated by
the government in 1969, just before Mama Akua gave birth to Young
Chairman Fred. Email JR at fire@sfbayview.com
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