Fred Hampton, We Remember You! Long Live the Spirit of the Panther

by Calvin Parrish Jr.
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

August 30, 2008, marks what would have been the 60th birthday of the well-known Deputy Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Fred Hampton – had he not been murdered while he slept at the age of 21 years-old, by Chicago police almost 40 years ago.

Fred Hampton was born in Chicago in 1948. Early in his life, Hampton would become a well respected and beloved progressive community organizer who struggled against class and race oppression.

A brilliant student, Hampton graduated from high school with honors before taking pre-law at Triton College. After joining the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966, Hampton became a remarkable community organizer in Chicago. He was influential in starting free breakfast programs for children and a free medical clinic for people in his community that could ill-afford to pay for pricey medical bills. Everyday at 6:00am he would run and assist in political education classes for his community. Also, he used education as a way of converting Chicago street gangs into socially conscious and active members of the community.

At 4:45am, December 4th, 1969, Fred Hampton was murdered, as he lay in his bed, by a FBI-sponsored police raid. Between 82 and 99 shots were fired from machine guns, carbines and .357 magnums into his room – both Fred Hampton and his comrade Mark Clark were killed. He was 21 years old.

As mentioned, August 30 would have been Fred Hampton’s 60th birthday. Let us remember Fred Hampton and all our brothers and sisters, past and present, who have fallen during the struggle.









As Fred Hampton once said, “You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.” The above graphic was originally designed by Black Panther artist Emory Douglas.

Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of the P.O.C.C. Speaks, Part 1

In August 2008, Steve da Silva and N. Zahra of Basics Community Newsletter met with Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee in Chicago in front of the historic site of the assassination of his father, Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton of the Illinois Black Panther Party. They spoke about police terror in Chicago, the legacy of the Black Panther Party, the hype around Obama, and the importance of people’s self-determination. This is Part 1 of our transcript of the interview...

Basics: Chairman, what exactly is going on here now in Chicago right now?

Chairman Fred Hampton Jr: Revolutionary appreciation for having me here today. Basically it’s been business as usual for the city of Chicago. We are standing in front of the site which we refer to as one of the “ground zeros” of black and other oppressed communities. And I say ground zero because it’s the site on which one of the most brutal acts of terrorism occurred on U.S. soil and when I say that I’m not talking about September 11th, I’m talking about December 4th, 1969 when the United States government via the Chicago Police Department assassinated Chairman Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. At that time the mayor of Chicago was Daley who we refer to as Gangster Daley Senior. He was a part of the brutal counter-insurgency program against the Panthers.

Lately especially, they’re continuing war, they’re continuing attacks on our leadership, on our movements and on the people in general. It’s in the numbers: 12 shootings by Chicago pigs, and 6 murders in one month. I want to point out too that the present mayor of Chicago is Gangster Daley Junior, the son of the mayor who was in place in 1969. This is the modus-operandi, how the police get down, cause the reality is there’s no war on drugs, there’s no war on guns, there’s no war on gangs, this is war on black and other oppressed communities and in case after case, you know what I’m saying, as soon as the shootin’ go down you hear the police say stuff like, ‘Well, it was a justified shooting,’ but I just want to point out also it’s met with resistance. Just recently, this past July 25th, I was locked up in response to resistance that was waged against Chicago pigs on the south-west side of Chicago in the heart of Englewood.

It’s important that the world hear this and see what’s goin’ on, especially in contrast to what U.S. propaganda’s been putting out, especially this whole election or selection, whatever the case may be, with people getting caught up with this whole façade about the first black, they say African American, running for President. A lot of people are under the impression that everything is okay in the States and in Chicago in particular. In fact, let the record reflect that Barack Obama is U.S. Senator from Chicago who has never addressed or acknowledged the atrocities that go down on a day to day basis right here in this city, and even atrocities such that the United Nations itself acknowledged Chicago as the torture capital of the country. I think it was last month, myself and our Minister of Defense, Aaron Patterson, who’s a political prisoner was also tortured by Chicago police.

Obama and all of these minions of Gangster Daley haven’t addressed or acknowledged these contradictions, you know what I’m sayin’ and when they do, if they do, they try to put it in some sort of abstract nostalgia, ‘Well this is how bad things was in the 60s and continued in the 80s,’ but the reality is in those numbers, and let the record reflect also a lot of these cases of police terrorism are not even documented. The black community is put in such a state of terror that when they get terrorized they acknowledge it as terrorism. In response we’ve also put several campaigns forward. We’ve got the African Anti-terrorism Bill. We say police brutality is a euphemism. The reality is it’s police terror.

Basics: Could you speak about the legacy of the Panthers?

Chairman Fred Hampton Jr.: The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary organization that fought for self-determination, so that people can speak in their own interests and that’s something that should not be taken lightly. A lot of different organizations playin’ that they support that but they’re really not with it. People say, ‘Let us articulate your plan for you’. We say what Stephen Biko said in the Black Consciousness Movement, that people must learn the ability to distinguish intelligence from the ability to articulate. And the reality is that the masses, they may not be too articulate but the reality is they’re very intelligent. We’re the POCC, we’re the official caretakers of this legacy. They’ve tried to say that the Black Panther Party was a racist organization, a gang. So it’s very important that we show that this was a revolutionary organization that stood up fighting for self-determination. In closing, revolutionary appreciation, ears up, eyes open and fists clenched. Power to the People.

The Foundation of the Revolution is Love: Interview with Political Prisoner Robert “Seth” Hayes

Interview by N. Zahra and Steve da Silva
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
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In June 2008, Basics visited political prisoner and former Black Liberation Army member Robert ‘Seth’ Hayes at a prison in upstate New York known as Wende Correctional Facility.

Robert Seth Hayes is one of the longest held political prisoners in the U.S.A. In 1973, Hayes was sentenced 25 years to life in prison on trumped-up charges.

This interview was pieced together by Basics members Steve da Silva and N. Zahra from our written notes, because we were not allowed to bring anything into the prison to record the interview.

Basics: What is a political prisoner?

Seth Hayes: We have people in these prisons who are just coming into a revolutionary consciousness, and we have people in here who have always been revolutionaries, agitating against the state. They are all political prisoners…

But one thing that more brothers in here need to be able to do is develop patience and a sense of appreciation for the scale of the struggle we have ahead of us. Things aren’t going to change overnight.

Unless you have a very strong sense of appreciation for the deep exploitation and oppression of the people and unless you are driven by strong love for the people, you will not last long. If you don’t love yourself and the struggle, you won’t last long at all.

Another problem in here is that many people think that by becoming political they will become modern-day Assata Shakurs or George Jacksons, but they end up breaking down under the pressure of the system because they are not working from a foundation of revolutionary love.
If we are to build a revolutionary movement, we need a strong foundation to stand on, and that foundation is love.

Another problem is the baggage that a lot of people come in here with. We have a lot of people who come from gangs, and they are accustomed to living by very different principles. So we are patient in our work with these people. It is a long, protracted pedagogical process.
We are trying to teach analytical thinking and social investigation, but the youth today are so used to instant gratification, and give little time to reading and writing. If the foundation is not secure, then anything that we build upon it will collapse…

Basics: So you’re saying that study is a prerequisite for revolutionary change?

Seth Hayes: It’s absolutely necessary. Our struggle is protracted in all senses.
A major aspect of the work of the Black Panther Party was our Political Education classes. Every member of the Party had to carry out political education. When I came back from serving in the Vietnam War, I didn’t know the first thing about Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, or Mao Tse-Tung. But I soon learned the value of studying these revolutionary thinkers, and why the ruling class does everything they can to prevent us from studying these thinkers.
After carrying out our community work, we would always have to carry out our educational work. We would have these educational raps whereby each of us would have to study a different revolutionary thinker, and then we would have to debate one another on the merits of the various thinkers. These dialogues proved incredibly fruitful in advancing our thinking.
It was such a pleasure to study back then, at a time when we weren’t wasting ourselves away with all the distractions of modern entertainment.

Basics: What was the significance of studying history in the foundation of the Party and what is the significance of the history of the Party itself?

Seth Hayes: In the Party, we summarized and criticized what had come before us. Previous movements of Blacks in America had no clear sense of direction and no clear revolutionary program. We did. Unfortunately, the generation after us has been left with no memory of what we did, despite the fact that our legacy lives on vividly today.

Basics: How does the legacy of the BPP live on today?

Seth Hayes: Before the Black Panther Party, there was no such thing as a Black politician.
Why? Because before the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, there was no strong force in the Black community upon which Black opportunists could refer back to in their own compromising with the system.

So all Black politicians, Obama included, can thank the BPP for paving the way for this small advance in the Black community…

Basics: Is struggle still possible today?

Seth Hayes: We must realize that it may take us some 25 years of struggle for our work to really begin to make its mark felt. More importantly, we must realize that the capitalist class is itself planning its next 25 years of terror.

When we look at the runaway inflation that the capitalist economy is experiencing, and the dying away of the American dollar, the ruling class’s response here is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). And to make this all a reality, they will need to suspend any outstanding liberties we have. This is all a hell of a legacy to leave for our children. So it’s just as clear that we have a hell of a fight ahead of us.

Interview with an African-American Revolutionary: Muhammad Ahmad

Basics: This is Basics Community Newsletter, and I’m here with Muhammad Ahmad, a long time revolutionary brother from the U.S., involved in a number of organizations, including the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the African People’s Party. I’m with him here at Ryerson University tonight, after finishing up a presentation. Good evening, Muhammad.

Muhammad Ahmad: Good evening.

Basics: During your presentation tonight, one brother came up during question period, trying to suggest the problems African peoples face on this continent in terms of the breakdown of the Black family. You had a good response to that question. What was it?

MA: The capitalist system is extracting more and more profit from the African-American community, because it is in structural crisis right now. Being in a structural crisis right now, it has to lower the wages of its domestic working-class. Now, whoever is on the lowest rung of the domestic working-class in each capitalist country receives the brunt of the exploitation. So you have the disintegration of the African-American, or African-Canadian family first…

Basics: And the indigenous peoples too…

MA: Definitely the indigenous peoples too. The market is such that to get around paying higher wages they have created the prison-industrial complex. Prisoners are put to work through the privatization of prisons and paid slave wages. This leads to a complete ruinization of the community. At the same time then, those on the outside – women – are reduced into the service economy being paid the lowest of wages in the domestic working-class.

Basics: Well those social forces would certainly ruin any family… Now the people up here, African-Canadians, indigenous peoples, new migrants from around the world, are facing the same sorts of victimization and brutalization as in the United States. What do people facing police brutality, gentrification, and exploitation need to do?

MA: Well, one: we need to build organizations that are based on collective leadership. Those organization that have been most successful have studied Marxism [dialectical and historical materialism] in conjunction with their own histories. The need is to develop cadre and leadership. One problem in the development of organizations has been the uneven level of development in organizations: you need to be able to have people who can carry on the organization if anything happens to the leadership, and that takes time.

More importantly is the choosing of issues that are winnable. Some of our biggest mistake is that we have attacked the stronger points of the system and been defeated, and this has demoralized people. So once building that organization we have to pick our issues strategically in order to get small victories, because getting five small victories is better than getting one big defeat. For the time being, we have to rebuild the people’s will now. We have to rebuild the movement now, picking our issues carefully so that we can see what we can win. We need to train people.

One really important thing is to get young people off of drugs, so that they can struggle to get into the working-class. In my day, we didn’t have to struggle to get into the working-class. You know, I could quit a job, and walk across the street and get another job. When I talk about ruinization, I’m talking about the young brothers and sisters today who have to fight and train themselves to even get a job. We have to struggle to even reach parity with white workers wherever they are.

Basics: I know that some of the work of organizations like the Black Panther Party, or the Puerto Rican Young Lords Party, back in your day where doing work to organize street gangs into revolutionary cadre. There are some groups in Toronto trying to do similar peace work amongst street gangs, such as the Bloods and the Crips. Can you say a few words about the history of that kind of work?

MA: First of all, those of us who have come through the struggle have come to the consensus that we have to be drug free. You can’t be a revolutionary and drink alcohol. You can’t be a revolutionary and smoke marijuana, or do other drugs.

Also, we have to teach basics, we have to teach reading and writing; we have to teach scientific thinking, and we have to teach leadership. And to do all this you have to have absolute moral superiority to the system that your fighting against. The Bloods and the Crips should know a little something about this: the esprit de corps. To break any military establishment you have to be able to break the esprit de corps. When you break the esprit de corps of your enemy, you have won 90% of the battle.

Basics: One of the terms that the Black Panther movement popularized was the term “Blaxploitation”, which was what they called capitalism and white supremacy culturally exploiting African-American peoples through images and music. You mentioned something in your presentation tonight about gangster rap and its relationship to capitalism. Can you elaborate?

MA: Well, gangster rap serves as a negative role model sending out counter-revolutionary message to young people and turning them against themselves. Its all about the glorification of gangsters, and there’s a big difference between a gangster and a revolutionary. A gangster is all about him or herself, against the people, and a gangster subdues the people through what he or she sells the people. It’s all about getting rich in capitalist society by any means. As revolutionaries, we are socialists and communists, and so we are anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, anti-colonialists, and anti-oppression. And a revolutionary does this out of the spiritual will to serve the people. A revolutionary comes from the people and serves the people, not hurts the people. And the hope is that your work advances the interests of the people. So that’s the difference: a revolutionary is a positive role model, working for the collective, not money.

Basics: There are some more radical groups popping up in Toronto – anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-gentrification, anti-police. Would you have any words of wisdom for them from your own history of revolutionary struggle?

MA: All I would say is that everything in the universe is constantly changing, and that we should not think about things abstractly or in sectarian terms, but to think dialectically: that we learn through change in our tactics and strategy as conditions change. If we do not change, if we do not constantly assess our work, constantly do criticism and self-criticism, as Fidel Castro said, our movement will not be around for long.

Basics: Well, let’s leave it at that then Mr. Ahmad.

MA: Salaam-aleykum

Basics: Wa-aleykum a salaam.