Commentary by Amazing Grace, Black Kos Editor
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution. You can jail the liberator, but you can’t jail the liberation. You can run the freedom fighter all around the country, but you can’t stop freedom fighting. So believed Fred-so said Fred-so say we all." Chicago Comrades of the Black Panther Party
Much has been discussed and dissected about how Chairman Fred Hampton died, not enough has been said about how he lived. To describe this extraordinary young man as a gifted leader, teacher, motivator and coalition builder would be an understatement and would not even begin to describe the sheer majesty that was Fred Hampton. Who he was, and what he taught continues to resonate in the hearts and minds of all those he touched. The essence of Fred Hampton was the love of poor and working class people of all colors, and the fearless commitment to effect the changes necessary to better their lives.
At the age of fifteen Fred Hampton began his political awareness reading and interpreting Black political authors, including Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and W.E.B. DuBois. He tape recorded and memorized the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The foundation was laid for Chairman Fred’s early activism.
At Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois, Fred encountered inequities that infuriated him. He recognized that the mostly white faculty and entirely white administration did not adequately prepare the Black students for the technological world around them. Black students doing poorly were either counseled out of school or flunked out. He felt many teachers were tired of teaching and had stopped caring. Some used racial slurs when talking about Black students. Fred spoke out and demanded more Black teachers and administrators. In addition he led a student boycott to protest the unfair policy of only white girls being nominated for homecoming queen. This resulted in Proviso East electing its first Black homecoming Queen.
To Fred it was simply a matter of fairness. He found jobs for many unemployed Black teenagers as well and successfully pushed the Village of Maywood to fund a summer jobs program. Because Black children were not allowed to swim at the local pool, Fred and his friends car-pooled Black kids from Maywood to a Chicago Park District pool several miles away.
In 1965 at the age of seventeen, Chairman Fred’s outspokenness earned the attention of the head of the local NAACP chapter and Fred was asked to organize the West Suburban Youth Chapter of the NAACP. Under his leadership young Black people in Maywood accelerated the campaign for a public pool and ultimately a recreational center with access for all. A member of the Maywood Village Board impressed with Fred’s presentations later wrote,
"Fred was a master orator. His rhetoric was stunning as he confronted his white audience with a picture of America’s unjust society that most had never imagined before."
When Fred turned eighteen he refused to register for the draft. He decided with many others "Hell no, we won’t go. Like many of us early in the revolution, he was reading Mao Tse Tung, Che Guevara, and Ho Chi Minh and identified with socialist struggles in the third world. In Chicago he spoke out against police brutality. As the leader of the NAACP Youth Chapter, he organized marches for the raising of police salaries to get more professional police in Maywood. Later he pushed for changes to make the police more accountable and to give Maywood citizens the power to fire brutal cops.
As Chairman Fred’s ideology began to shift away from the non-violent policies of the NAACP he sought a new, more radically defined agenda. In 1968 he met Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and Bobby Rush, then members of SNCC. Bobby Rush remembers,
"I was immediately impressed with Fred’s ability to speak powerfully and engage a young audience. He was physically imposing with a powerful personality and a deep guttural laugh"
A few months later Bobby Rush traveled to Oakland, California to meet with the central committee of the Black Panther Party and returned with a mandate to form an Illinois chapter. The first person he recruited was Fred Hampton and they opened the Panther office in 1968.
Fred Hampton realized that the struggle of poor people could be most effectively addressed by coalition building among the disaffected and disenfranchised of all colors. The result was his "Rainbow Coalition". Yes, that term was coined by Chairman Fred Hampton not Jesse Jackson. With a reputation as a uniting force, he formed an alliance with the Black Panther Party, the former street gang turned activists the Puerto Rican Young Lords, the Young Patriots, a white, "Redneck" organization from Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, the anti-war group Students for a Democratic Society and the Chicano nationalist group the Brown Berets.
"We asked the Patriots if they could work with the Panthers and they said yes. It wasn’t easy to build an alliance. I advised them on how to set up "serve the people" programs—free breakfasts, people’s health clinics, all that. I had to run with those cats, break bread with them; hang out at the pool hall. I had to lie down on their couch, in their neighborhood. Then I had to invite them into mine. That was how the Rainbow Coalition was built, real slow. Then I contacted Cha Cha Jimenez from the Young Lords."
Comrade Bobby Lee
The "Rainbow Coalition" was about class struggle. It was not about Black v. White, it was about the oppressed of all colors uniting against their common oppressor. Only in this manner could the oppressed even begin to throw off the shackles that bound them to the poverty of their circumstances. Chairman Fred’s vision was grounded in the reality of unity.
The programs enacted in the community by the Black Panther Party provided a tangible and immediate benefit to those it served. The Breakfast for Children Program recruited volunteers to donate food and time to provide a hot breakfast for children in the community that would otherwise go to school hungry. The Peoples’ Free Health Clinic provided basic health care and medicine to members of the community that would otherwise go untreated. The Black Panther Party under Chairman Fred also conducted political education classes, community surveys to better address the needs of the poor, getting petitions for community control of the police signed.
Elaine Brown:
"The first thing you remember about Fred [Hampton] is that he was down in the trenches with everybody. And his house, that house on the West Side [of Chicago], was a horrible place to live. But he didn't live above, or elevate himself above. He lived like the rest of the comrades in the party, which was pretty poorly.
We got up with him in the morning. We had come in around two in the morning. He was up all night, which was apparently typical, and around six in the morning, we got out, we drove along to some schoolyard or something, and there were like two hundred, three hundred people waiting for Fred to show up. And the phenomenal part was that, I mean, these are all people from the streets, who are not going to get up and go to work, or anything else, and never had no discipline, and never would, but there they were. And it was six, six-thirty in the morning, freezing Chicago weather. And Fred would have them out there doing push-ups and jumping jacks and getting themselves energized for the day's work. Which included making the breakfast, which included selling papers, which included working in the medical clinic, which included a bunch of stuff. It was a very day-to-day thing, the Black Panther party.
You'd have Fred out there, rallying them. He'd say, "All right, all right, all right, power to the people!"
He'd say, "Now, I'm not going to die on no airplane."
Everybody'd say, "No."
"I'm not going to die slipping on some ice."
They'd say, "No."
He'd say, "I'm going to die for the people. Because I'm going to live for the people."
They'd say, "Right on."
He'd say, "I'm going to live for the people because I love the people."
They'd say, "Right on."
He'd say, "I love the people. Why?"
They'd say, "Because we're high on the people, because we're high on the people."
That was Fred Hampton. This was twenty-one years old. He was unbelievable. You could not not be moved by Fred Hampton. It was like Martin Luther King. You just had to see Fred Hampton mobilize people who wouldn't have moved for anything else that I could imagine on the planet, much less get up and cook breakfast."
The radical change advocated by the BPP, combined with the tangible positive results of their community building platforms, drew the ire and attention of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI. On March 4,1968 he issued this directive:
"Prevent the coalition of militant Black Nationalist groups. In unity there is strength, a truism that is no less valid for all its triteness. An effective coalition...might be the first step toward a real Mau-Mau in America, the beginning of a true Black revolution. Prevent the rise of a "messiah" who could unify, and electrify, the militant Black community. The Black Panther Party is the greatest internal threat to the security of the country."
Chairman Fred was the epitome of the man described in Hoover’s directive. At the age of twenty one, his potential as a "messiah" was already apparent. His skills as an electrifying and unifying force were already tested, his threat to the status quo without question.
In the pre-dawn hours of December 4, 1969, Chicago Police, under the direction of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office raided the apartment of Fred Hampton and his pregnant fiancée. Ninety nine shots were fired into the apartment by the police. One shot was fired out of the apartment from the gun of the then mortally wounded Panther Mark Clark as he fell to the floor. When Chairman Hampton’s fiancée Deborah Johnson, then eight months pregnant, could not wake him, she shielded him with her own body as gunfire riddled the wall above their bed. When police entered their bedroom and pulled Deborah from the room Fred Hampton had no discernible injuries. From the kitchen where they had been corralled, those party members in the apartment heard two gunshots in the bedroom were Fred lay and a loud thump on the floor. The police had shot him twice in the head at point blank range. At twenty one years of age the dynamic man that was Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed.
"A few months after he died, I began to understand exactly what it was about him that separated him from the rest of us. Fred Hampton was fearless, literally without fear. And as we listened to his speeches again and again, it became apparent he had accommodated death. He knew he was going to die, it was OK. And so he set aside the ultimate fear, the one that stopped all of us in our tracks, no matter how courageous, the net fear upon which we base all our other fears, the one that keeps us in line. Fred had simply set that fear to rest. He was free. Thus he was able to speak clean simple truths that hit you like a thunderbolt."
Mike Gray, The Murder of Fred Hampton
All power to the people.
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Today's Featured Artist:
Emory Douglas, Deoliver47, Black Kos, Editor
Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture of the BPP is a prolific artist illustrator, and his work has been presented as part of what is now a traveling exhibition, and is also available as a book: Black Panther The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas
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TODAY IN HISTORY
[] In 1850 Lucy Ann Stanton became the nations first black college graduate. She earned a BA in literature from Oberlin College.
[] Henry Hugh Proctor author of "Burden of the Negro" was born in Fayetteville TN in 1868.
[] Sammy Davis Jr.was born in Harlem in 1925.
[] Flip Wilson (born Clerow Wilson Jr.) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1933.
[] Today in 1936 was the opening of Gibbs v. Montgomery County Maryland. This was the NAACP first lawsuit seeking equal salaries for black and white teachers. Years of several more lawsuits were filed before this
practice was finally abolished.
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THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
[] December 9th 1922. Comedian and actor Redd Foxx (born John Elroy Sanford) was born in St. Louis Missouri in 1922.
[] December 11th 1926. Blues entertainer Big Mama Thornton was born Willie Mae Thornton in Montgomery, Alabama. Thornton is best known for the powerhouse performance of her hit single 'Hound Dog.' Although later overshadowed by Elvis Presley's 1956 cover, Thornton's version held the No. 1 position on the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953.
[] December 12, 1943. Saxophone great Grover Washington, Jr. was born in Buffalo, New York. A talented musician from a very young age, during the '70s Washington pioneered a new style of jazz that crossed over to the mainstream.
[] December 7, 1956. Ohio State University player Jim Parker became the first black college football player to win the Outland Trophy for being the best linebacker in America.
[] December 11, 1961. Langston Hughes' play 'Black Nativity' was performed for the first time on Broadway. Based on the traditional story of the Nativity, Hughes' new version used African-American cultural forms including gospel music and folk storytelling.
[] December 10, 1964. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became the third black person, the second American and youngest man to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. He was 35 years old at the time of his acceptance.
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News and Events by Amazing Grace, Black Kos Editor
Haiti: After the storm As soon as dawn breaks in Port-au-Prince the first children appear, staggering under the weight of five-gallon buckets of water. The water carriers, many as young as 6-years-old, are some of the thousands of children living as virtual child slaves in the country. Given away to other families by parents too poor to feed and clothe them, they cook, clean and fetch water without any payment. Under what is known as the restavek system, the children are supposed to get food, shelter and a place at school in return. But for many, the reality is very different.
"Sometimes they beat me with lengths of electrical cable and sometimes they punch me," says 14-year-old restavek Jenette.
Caribbean urged to keep up HIV fight Caribbean countries have been advised not to become complacent on efforts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS. The advice from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), came Tuesday, on the observance of World AIDS Day. Overall figures from the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) show that infections worldwide have fallen by 17% over the past eight years, with sub-Saharan Africa showing the most progress.
However the senior advisor at PAHO's Caribbean office, Dr Amalia del Riego, told BBC Caribbean that health officials remain concerned about the rates of infection in the region.
"Overall I think we still need to state that the HIV new infections are increasing at a rate that is of concern for this region and that the region continues to have the second highest prevalence in the world," she said.
African-American group challenges Cuba on race
A group of prominent African Americans, traditionally sympathetic to the Cuban revolution, have for the first time condemned Cuba, demanding Havana stop its ``callous disregard'' for black Cubans and declaring that ``racism in Cuba . . . must be confronted.''
``We know first-hand the experiences and consequences of denying civil freedoms on the basis of race,'' the group declared in a statement. ``For that reason, we are even more obligated to voice our opinion on what is happening to our Cuban brethren.''
The Food Stamp Belt: Race, Politics And Poverty in The South The New York Times ran an eye-opening story this weekend about the 36 million people in this country who depend on food stamps:
With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.
While food stamp use has grown more rapidly in other areas, the South — which came into the recession with a higher number of recipients — still claims a disproportionate share, as you can see in the map above.
So who gets food stamps in the South? Recipients are concentrated in two very distinct regions: Appalachia, which is majority white, and the Black Belt, counties with high African-American populations running from Virginia to east Texas.
Black Unemployment Crisis: "Social Catastrophe" in the Making The latest employment figures sadly unsurprising: with about 35 percent of black men aged 16 to 24 unemployed, the epidemic of joblessness in Black America encapsulates a nationwide crisis. Although high unemployment and deep racial disparities are nothing new, the depth and length of the recession has prompted progressive economists and community groups to warn of an impending "social catastrophe."
FDIC: Poor, Minorities Struggle to Access Banks WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a million American households lost access to basic banking services like savings accounts last year, bank regulators say. Those families are among 30 million households that have little or no access to such services, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Poor, minority and immigrant families are especially hard-hit.
In all, 25.6 percent of U.S. households either lack bank accounts or use payday loans, check-cashing services and other costly alternatives to traditional banks, according to the survey. The report is part of an FDIC effort to bring the so-called "unbanked" into the financial mainstream.
Report Examines Civil Rights During Bush Years WASHINGTON — When the Bush administration ran the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, career lawyers wanted to look into accusations that officials in one state had illegally intimidated blacks during a voter-fraud investigation. But division supervisors refused to "approve further contact with state authorities on this matter," according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office auditing the activities of the division from 2001 to 2007. Congress is set to release that report, which did not identify the state in question, on Thursday as the House of Representatives takes up its first oversight hearing of the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration.
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Voices and Soul by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Tuesday's Chile, Poetry Editor
It is a great honor to be included in one of the most important serial diaries on Daily Kos. I hope to not only entertain one's sense of how art and poetics intersect with politics and the human condition; but also to share the voices that so deftly make those intersections known. There will be poets in this series that are immediately recognizable in the pantheon of American Letters; I want to remind those here
of those famous names, but I also want to introduce those not so
well-known.
Bob Dylan wrote in the liner notes of Bringing It All Back Home, that "A poem is a naked person.". And it's true; it is the proverbial "mirror of the soul" dynamic. But it is not just the mirror of the poet's soul, it is also a mirror of the culture, the nation's soul; and in the process of giving voice, poetry then becomes alive. In life, poetry is not a noun; it is not a description or name of something. In life, poetry is an adverb; it's an "Action Word".
This weeks poet, Elizabeth Alexander is most recently known for her recitation at Obama's Inaugural; but I was introduced to her superb work from a much earlier poem:
Peccant
Maryland State Correctional Facility for Women,
Baltimore County Branch, has undergone a facelift.
Cells are white and un-graffitied, room-like, surprisingly airy.
This is where I must spend the next year, eating slop from tin trays,
facing women much tougher than I am, finding out if I am brave.
Though I do not know what I took, I know I took something.
On Exercise Day, walk the streets of the city you grew up in,
in my case, D.C., from pillar to post, Adams-Morgan to Anacostia,
Shaw to Southwest., Logan to Chevy Chase Circles,
recalling every misbegotten everything, lamenting, repenting.
How my parents keen and weep, scheme to spring me,
intercept me at corners with bus tokens, pass keys, files baked in cakes.
Komunyakaa the poet says, don't write what you know,
write what you are willing to discover, so I will
spend this year, these long days, meditating on what I am accused of
in the white rooms, city streets, communal showers, mess hall,
where all around me sin and not sin is scraped off tin trays
into oversized sinks, all that excess, scraped off and rinsed away.
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Black Kos, Tuesday's Chile (our name is taken from the saying "Tuesday's child is full of grace..) is published weekly on Tuesday's at 3PM EST. It is an expansion of the regular Friday, 9:30 AM Black Kos community diary series.
We are a diverse community, of all ages, colors, genders and ethnicities.
If you are reading us for the first time "welcome". Please say hello, and join us in discussion. We like to think of ourselves as a family, gathered on a front porch, to discuss what's going on in the world that has an impact on our diverse community; to learn, to share, to build coalitions, and to provide a place for friendly exchanges.
The front porch is now open. Grab a chair and talk with us for a while.
