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<b>December 3, 2009<br><br>
<br>
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<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/%e2%80%98i-am-a-revolutionary%e2%80%99/">
‘I am … a
revolutionary!’</a></b></h2><font size=3><b>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/%E2%80%98i-am-a-revolutionary%E2%80%99/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/%E2%80%98i-am-a-revolutionary%E2%80%99/<br>
<br>
<br>
</a></font><h3><b>Commemorate the 40th anniversary of Chairman Fred
Hampton’s assassination on Friday, Dec. 4 – events in Chicago and San
Francisco, details
below</b></h3>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-40th-12091.JPG">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-40th-12091.JPG" width=239 height=308 alt="Details of the commemoration in Chicago are listed below.">
</a></b></h3><font size=3><br><br>
<br><br>
Details of the commemoration in Chicago are listed below.<br>
On Dec. 4, 1969, 40 years ago, Chicago police led by Cook County
prosecutor Edward Hanrahan as part of an FBI Counter Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO) operation stormed into Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman
Fred Hampton’s apartment at 4:30 a.m. Armed with shotguns, handguns and a
.45 caliber machine gun and guided by a floor plan of the apartment
provided by an informant, the police killed Defense Captain Mark Clark
and critically injured four other Panthers. <br><br>
They gunned their way through the apartment into Fred Hampton’s bedroom.
There he lay sleeping, having been drugged earlier by an FBI informant.
As he lay there, the cops stood over him and put two bullets in his
brain, at close range.<br>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Fred-Hampton-Film-Festival1.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Fred-Hampton-Film-Festival1.jpg" width=231 height=355 alt="Details of the Fred Hampton Film Festival in San Francisco are">
</a> <br><br>
<br>
Details of the Fred Hampton Film Festival in San Francisco are listed
below. - Poster art by Emory Douglas<br>
Other Panthers, including Fred Hampton’s eight month pregnant wife,
Deborah Johnson (aka Akua Njeri), were beaten, dragged into the street
and charged with assault and attempted murder. Not one officer ever spent
a day in jail. <br><br>
Following this murderous attack – where the police fired 99 rounds in the
house and were completely uninjured themselves – Hanrahan brazenly lied
that the police were under heavy fire from the Panthers. Among all the
many thousands and thousands of actions that show why the Black Panther
Party correctly dubbed the police “pigs,” few compare to the viciousness
and lies surrounding the assassination of Fred Hampton.<br><br>
The media took up and spread these lies from the authorities as if they
were the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But the Panthers in
Chicago – still shocked and grieving from the terrible loss of their key
leader and with many of their core members now in jail – refused to give
up. Instead, they turned to the people and mounted a defiant political
counter-offensive.<br>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-Hampton-by-Paul-Sequeira1.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-Hampton-by-Paul-Sequeira1.jpg" width=280 height=186 alt="“I am … a revolutionary” was the rallying cry">
</a> <br><br>
<br><br>
“I am … a revolutionary” was the rallying cry of Chairman Fred Hampton, a
leader so powerful that he could draw tens of thousands on a moment’s
notice and therefore such a threat to the system that he was assassinated
at the age of only 21, on Dec. 4, 1969. – Photo: Paul Sequeira<br>
The Panthers organized “people’s tours” of the apartment. Thousands came,
first from the ghettos and then more broadly. Film crews and reporters
were brought in. People saw with their own eyes. And the evidence was
clear: All the bullet holes were coming IN. The famous picture supplied
by the authorities and run in the Chicago Tribune at the time, showing a
door supposedly riddled with bullets coming from the Panthers, was
actually a door with nail holes. <br><br>
Even mainstream commentators felt compelled to speak out. Hanrahan had
claimed that it was only through the “grace of God” that his men escaped
with scratches. Mike Royko, then a columnist at the Chicago Daily News –
and no Panther supporter – wrote in response:<br>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-Hampton-assassinated-dragged-by-wrist-to-doorway-1204691.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-Hampton-assassinated-dragged-by-wrist-to-doorway-1204691.jpg" width=239 height=224 alt="Chairman Fred Hampton was assassinated and dragged by his wrist">
</a> <br><br>
Chairman Fred Hampton was assassinated and dragged by his wrist to this
doorway.<br>
“Indeed it does appear that miracles occurred. The Panthers’ bullets must
have dissolved into the air before they hit anybody or anything. Either
that or the Panthers were shooting in the wrong direction – namely, at
themselves.” (See “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the
Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther,” page 102, by Jeffrey Haas,
Lawrence Hill Books.) <br><br>
Fred Hampton was a 21-year-old leader of the Panthers who inspired all
kinds of people to take up revolution. As Bob Avakian says in his memoir,
“Many people throughout the country had been moved by Fred Hampton and
had made a leap in their revolutionary commitment because of his
influence – the whole way in which, before he was killed, he boldly put
forward: ‘You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the
revolution.’” (See “From Ike to Mao … and Beyond: My Journey from
Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist,” Insight Press.)<br>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Freds-bloody-bed-by-Paul-Sequeira.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Freds-bloody-bed-by-Paul-Sequeira.jpg" width=210 height=319 alt="The cops stood over Chairman Fred Hampton as he lay sleeping an">
</a> <br><br>
<br>
The cops stood over Chairman Fred Hampton as he lay sleeping and put two
bullets in his brain at close range. This is Chairman Fred’s bed after
his murder. – Photo: Paul Sequeira<br>
In one short year from the founding of the Black Panther Party in
Illinois to the time of Fred’s murder, there was a transformation in the
culture of society in Chicago. Based on the teachings of Mao Tsetung, the
leader of the Chinese revolution, there was a “serve the people” ethos
and culture the likes of which Chicago had not seen before. <br><br>
The Panthers set up free clinics in neighborhoods of the oppressed, where
before health care had been virtually unavailable. The Black Panther
newspaper was sold everywhere. Posters from the paper were used for
political education sessions in the communities and on campuses. Former
gangbangers and student intellectuals became revolutionaries. The culture
was so widespread in Chicago that conductors on the el and subway trains
would announce, “All power to the people!” when calling out the stops
where revolutionaries were getting off the train.<br><br>
Hampton’s assassination was part of a broad campaign to smash the Black
Panther Party and the burgeoning revolutionary movement that burst onto
the scene in the 1960s. In September 1968, notorious FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover called the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal
security of the country,” and by 1969 the Panthers were the number one
target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, which included 233 different
documented operations, from assassinations like those of Fred Hampton and
Mark Clark to attempts to turn street gangs against the Panthers, efforts
to create divisions within the BPP and setting up Panthers on false
criminal charges.<br>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-apt-BPP-peoples-tour-after-assassination.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-apt-BPP-peoples-tour-after-assassination.jpg" width=270 height=181 alt="When the Panthers conducted “people’s tours”">
</a> <br><br>
<br>
When the Panthers conducted “people’s tours” of Chairman Fred Hampton’s
apartment after his assassination, thousands of followers lined up in the
cold, and film crews and reporters were brought in.<br>
Hoover specifically aimed to prevent the rise of what he called “a Black
messiah” – that is, he focused on taking out leaders and potential
leaders of the masses. Revolutionaries like Malcolm X, George Jackson,
Bunchy Carter and John Huggins in LA, and Fred Hampton were either
directly murdered by the government or set up. These were
counter-revolutionary criminal acts – not only were innocent people
murdered by the U.S. government, but the ability of the masses of people
to raise their heads and liberate themselves was grievously set back.
<br><br>
Fred Hampton drew out the best from all these sectors of the people,
inspiring them with a revolutionary vision and calling on them to rise to
being revolutionaries. And many thousands heeded the call. His famous
chant, “I am…a revolutionary,” was transformative, as people would take
it up, thinking seriously as they did so about what they were committing
their lives to when they said it.<br>
<a href="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-funeral-home-people-line-up-outside-by-Paul-Sequeira.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Ch.-Fred-funeral-home-people-line-up-outside-by-Paul-Sequeira.jpg" width=272 height=218 alt="People lined up for blocks outside funeral home to honor Chairm">
</a> <br><br>
<br>
People lined up for blocks outside the funeral home to honor Chairman
Fred Hampton. – Photo: Paul Sequeira<br>
Leadership is critical to making revolution. Although revolutionary
leaders like Fred Hampton were taken from the people and others
capitulated to capitalism and gave up on revolution, the spirit of
devoting your life to making revolution and doing all you can to hasten
the day when revolution can be made still lives. <br><br>
<i>This story first appeared on
<a href="http://www.revcom.us/a/184/Fred_Hampton-en.html">Revolution</a>,
the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><h2><b>Accomplishments of the Illinois Black Panther
Party</b></h2><font size=3>• Breakfast for Children Program –
Chicago<br><br>
• Breakfast for Children Program – Peoria<br><br>
• Free People’s Medical Clinic<br><br>
• Free Sickle Cell Anemia Testing<br><br>
• Political Education Classes<br><br>
• Community Control of Police Project<br><br>
• Unified the street gangs of Chicago<br><br>
• Multi-racial united front among the Black Panther Party, Students for a
Democratic Society, the Blackstone Rangers, the Young Lords and the Young
Patriots that was called the “Rainbow Coalition,” a phrase later taken by
Rev. Jesse Jackson<br><br>
<br>
</font><h2><b>40th anniversary events</b></h2><font size=3><b>In
Chicago,</b> “40 Years Later, 40 Years Strong! We Will Never Forgive! We
Will Never Forget!”<br><br>
4:30 a.m. – exactly 40 years later at the same address – at 2337 W.
Chairman Fred Hampton Way (previously Monroe at Western): candlelight
vigil with speakers<br><br>
12 noon, same place: vigil with speakers<br><br>
5:30-10 p.m., at Winnie Mandela School, 7847 S. Jeffrey Ave. (enter from
parking lot): premier screening of “Chairman Fred Hampton Way,” produced
and directed by Ray L. Baker Jr.; keynote speakers Akua Njeri, widow of
Chairman Fred Hampton and chairperson of the December 4th Committee;
Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee;
solidarity statements from Black Panther Party members, POCC Minister of
Information JR, POCC New Orleans and other POCC chapters, James Clark of
the Mark Clark Foundation and brother of Mark Clark, Pam Africa of the
ICFFMAJ, Ramona Africa of MOVE and the Last Poets; panel
discussion<br><br>
For more information, call (773) 256-9451.<br><br>
<b>In San Francisco,</b> “Fred Hampton Commemorative Film Festival”:
Illinois Black Panther Party Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton was killed by
Chicago Police and the FBI on Dec. 4, 1969. Commemorate the history and
inspiration and the lasting impact of our revolutionary leaders!<br><br>
7-9:30 p.m. at 522 Valencia St., San Francisco, near 16th Street, one
block from BART: a showing of films on Fred Hampton, revolutionary and
servant of the people; his enemies: how they murdered him 40 years ago
today; and the lessons for today. Chairman Fred Hampton said, “You can
kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution!” Sponsored by
Collision Course Media, It’s About Time BPP, Freedom Archives, ILPS-Bay
Area Grassroots Organizing Committee, Committee to Free the SF 8, Haiti
Action Committee, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, BAYAN-USA
(NorCal)<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
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