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<h2><font size=4><b>J. Edgar Hoover informed of United Front Against
Fascism in Omaha</b></font></h2>
<ul>
<li><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/user-richardsonreports">Michael
Richardson</a>, COINTELPRO Examiner
<li>March 19th, 2011 12:50 pm ET
</ul><b>Omaha Two story: Sept. 22, 1969<br>
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/j-edgar-hoover-informed-of-united-front-against-fascism-omaha" eudora="autourl">
http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/j-edgar-hoover-informed-of-united-front-against-fascism-omaha<br>
<br>
</a></b>For reasons that remain unclear the Black Panther Party in Omaha,
Nebraska disbanded in the summer of 1969. Many believe the closing
of the chapter and expulsion of Eddie Bolden, head of the Omaha chapter
of the Black Panthers, was a result of
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-fbi-sets-up-cointelpro-unit-and-j-edgar-hoover-targets-black-panthers">
COINTELPRO</a> dirty tricks by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.<br><br>
COINTELPRO was a massive, illegal, and clandestine operation of the FBI
directed against the Black Panthers and other groups under
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/j-edgar-hoover-directs-cointelpro-plot-against-omaha-chapter-of-black-panthers">
J. Edgar Hoover</a>. Hoover personally monitored the COINTELPRO
campaign of misdeeds and crimes against the Black Panthers.<br><br>
In June, during the riots that ravaged Omaha’s Near North Side following
the police shooting of 14 year-old
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-police-officer-kills-14-year-old-vivian-strong-triggering-race-riot-1">
Vivian Strong</a>, Hoover ordered Paul Young, Special Agent-in-Charge of
the Omaha office to take a “new approach” to eliminate the Black
Panthers.<br><br>
In Oakland, California, the Black Panthers sponsored a national
conference of the United Front Against Fascism.
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-mondo-we-langa-on-cointelpro-and-omaha-two-case">
Mondo we Langa</a>, then David Rice, was a community activist and
anti-poverty worker in Omaha who traveled to California to attend the
conference.<br><br>
Not long after Mondo’s return to Omaha, he and
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-ed-poindexter-on-cointelpro-and-the-omaha-police">
Ed Poindexter</a>, a member of the Omaha Black Panthers, decided to
revitalize the group under the United Front Against Fascism banner.
Unknown to the two leaders, the Omaha FBI was watching the organizing
efforts closely.<br><br>
On September 22, 1969, Paul Young sent a COINTELPRO memo to J. Edgar
Hoover updating him on developments in Omaha.<br>
<br>
Young wrote to Hoover: “JUNE HILLIARD, Assistant Chief of Staff,
National BBP Headquarters, in August, 1969, announced that the Omaha BPP
Chapter had been disbanded and its leader [Eddie Bolden] expelled from
the BPP, however, he announced that the BPP might reestablish a Omaha
chapter at a future date.”<br><br>
Young continued: “In late August, 1969, an organization known as
United Front Against Fascism (UFAF) was formed in Omaha and this
organization has been described as a replacement for the BPP. The
activities of this group are being closely followed.”<br><br>
In October 1969, the newly formed UFAF chapter began the Vivian Strong
Liberation School, following the Black Panther model of liberation
schools. The Omaha school was located in Mondo’s house on Parker
Street and his living room became the classroom. Children attending
the Vivian Strong Liberation School were taught black history not
included in their public school curriculum. Critics said the school
was indoctrinating the youth with Black Panther ideology.<br><br>
Meanwhile events in Chicago, where the secret FBI war on the Black
Panthers was proceeding with lethal ferocity, would have a powerful
effect on the Panthers nationwide. On December 3, 1969, the Chicago
FBI office sent a COINTELPRO memo to headquarters, which Hoover vainly
called the “Seat of Government”, outlining a planned police raid against
the Black Panthers.<br><br>
The FBI had been able to recruit Chicago Black Panther leader Fred
Hampton’s bodyguard, William O’Neal, into becoming an informant.
O’Neal provided the FBI with a map of Hampton’s apartment interior for
the raid.<br><br>
On December 4, 1969, a special squad of Chicago police operating under
Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan conducted a pre-dawn raid
against the Black Panther leadership. The heavily armed raiding
party riddled the apartment of Fred Hampton killing Hampton and Mark
Clark, a Black Panther leader from Peoria, Illinois. Three other
people in the apartment were wounded in the police fusillade.<br><br>
Fred Hampton was killed in his bed and did not fire a single shot.
The police shoot-in during the December raid against the Chicago Black
Panthers sent shock waves through black communities nationwide and
increased animosity between police and the Black Panthers.<br><br>
In Omaha, Ed Poindexter, the new leader of the UFAF, altered his routine
and began staying in different safe houses each night to prevent a
similar fate as Fred Hampton.<br><br>
Poindexter's fears were well placed since he and Mondo we Langa became
Hoover's chief targets in Omaha as the FBI director sought to break the
Black Panther Party.<br><br>
<b>To view all the Omaha Two story articles click
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national">HERE<br><br>
</a></b><i>Permission granted to reprint<br><br>
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