More about Fred Hampton
More about Fred Hampton, the Black Panther leader who was killed by Chicago police at age 21 in 1969.
Starting with this 65-tweet thread (from 2020) about Hampton, and about ways in which we white Americans are often raised on lies about Black American history.
Below are links to some of the pieces that that thread links to, in case you want to explore further.
- A 1976 Nation article about a civil suit against FBI agents and police. Gives a whole lot more detail, including further outrageous behavior by lawyers and judges.
- A description of what friends and the People’s Law Office did to preserve evidence in the aftermath of the killing. Also includes further links to more information.
- “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther”: a 25-minute segment from Democracy Now in 2009, on the 40th anniversary of the killing. Includes video of Hampton speaking, as well as video taken in his apartment after the killing. There’s a text transcript, but it doesn’t have the power of the video recordings. I haven’t watched this whole thing yet.
- “Counter-Intelligence: A Documentary Look at America’s Secret Police,” a scanned PDF of a 100-page 1980 booklet full of FBI memos and news articles about COINTELPRO.
- Fred Hampton material in the African American Heritage section of the National Archives. I think this is mostly just a catalog—I think most of the material listed isn’t available online—but I haven’t explored it much.
See also previous posts from me, on Facebook:
- About “This is the house that blood built,” by Abe Peck.
- A quote from Hampton.
- Info about the new Hampton movie Judas and the Black Messiah.