(Please note that the opinions expressed in this review are those of the author .)
Fred Hampton’s story be required reading for all Americans. There should be a holiday memorializing him like we have for Martin Luther King Jr. Fred Hampton’s message was one of togetherness. His story, his life can serve as inspiration for us all as people. His words and his insight, his belief in action are more necessary perhaps now than ever. His absence resonates loudly today.
The story of Fred Hampton sounds like a conspiracy. It is something I think most Americans do not want to believe is true. However, the truth of the matter is our country’s justice system is not as rose-coloured as our lenses would like it to appear.
Jeffrey Haas is one of the founders of the People’s Law Office or PLO, which represented the families of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark after they were murdered. PLO represented and continues to represent victims of police brutality and wrongful convictions. Haas wrote the book, the subject of this review, The Assassination of Fred Hampton (How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther), first published in 2010, recently updated with a new preface.
In the preface Haas writes:
[W]e should on this fiftieth anniversary demand a memorial and that the story of Fred and Mark’s life and death be incorporated in the high school curriculum. Fifty years later the survivors of the raid and the families of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are still waiting for an acknowledgement and apology from the city and the FBI (x).
The Story of Fred Hampton
Fred Hampton was the deputy chair of the Illinois Branch of the Black Panther Party. By all accounts, Hampton was an excellent orator, in the fashion of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Muhammed Ali, and others. He was a great organizer, capable of forging alliances across different groups, who often didn’t get along.
On December 4th, 1969, Fred Hampton was shot twice in the head at point blank range while asleep in his bedroom. At 4 A.M. the police raided his home, where he was living with his girlfriend and a few friends.. The police opened fire after breaking down the door, killing Mark Clark who fired the only Panther round shot as he fell to the floor.
The police, with the help of the FBI engaged in a massive coverup. Documents stolen from an FBI office in Pennsylvania revealed the truth about the operation known as COINTELPRO, which was an FBI initiative to “neutralize the activity of Black nationalist” organizations and groups.
The PLO
As part of Hampton’s legacy, Jeffrey Haas contributes the founding of the People’s Law Office. Haas writes:
“I had to see and hear Fred to overcome my reluctance and my own fear. It’s not an exaggeration to say that a part of Fred’s legacy is the People’s Law Office, which formed a few months after Skip and Don encountered Fred and his ‘up against the wall’ recruitment tactics and when Flint and I heard him speak” (54).
Haas follows these proceedings as someone who was personally involved in the case. He interviewed witnesses immediately after the scene of the crime while they were being held in prison. He recorded such an exchange with Deborah Johnson, Fred Hampton’s girlfriend, who at the time was pregnant with their child:
It was cold in the tiny, windowless interview room at the Wood Street police station. I looked across the wooden table at the large-boned woman with a short Afro who was shaking and sobbing. Deborah Johnson’s patterned nightgown outlined her protruding belly, revealing her pregnancy.
“Fred never really woke up,” she said. “He was lying there when they pulled me out of the bedroom.” She paused.
“And then?” I asked.
“Two pigs went back into the bedroom. One of them said, [He’s barely alive, he’ll barely make it.] I heard two shots. Then I heard, [He’s good and dead now!]” (5)
Haas grew close to the families of the two men killed and the families of the other victims, as well. He explains the legal processes they followed trying to win the case. He reveals the lengths of the justice system to try and cover up Hampton’s murder, as well as Haas’ involvement in other legal cases and social causes. The families ended up with a settlement, which was the result of thirteen years of trial and lawyers putting in over three hundred thousand hours of work.
Why It’s Important to Read This Today
Jeffrey Haas writes a moving account of Fred Hampton’s life and death. He explains in detail what was so special about him, his charisma, his energy, his youth. The book is more than just the story of Fred Hampton however, it is a story of protest, of revolution. It is a story, which Haas spins into hope, pulling what little hope remained in one of the darkest and most tragic of situations. Though not a Panther himself, Haas writes about the good the Panthers did like the Breakfast for Kids program and defends them against the propaganda and accusations thrown at them by the police and the media.
Haas tells a story of searching for truth among the web of lies cast out by an oppressive institution. It is a story about justice and what that looks like in reality compared to how we tend to perceive it.
In Haas’ own words:
I wrote this book because I wanted people to know about Fred Hampton, the most dynamic leader and spokesperson for black liberation and revolutionary change I have ever encountered. The legal fight to uncover exactly how far the US government went to murder him changed the arc of my life and has inspired what I have done for the past fifty years...Fred’s message is more prescient today than ten years ago when the book was first published. The urgent need for revolutionary and systematic change has never been clearer...Fred’s words ‘If you don’t want to do no revolutionary act, I don’t want myself on your mind.’ speak to us today. The United States is becoming a neo-fascist state where white supremacy and anti-immigrant hysteria provide the electoral support for a plutocratic agenda. Corporations, the 1 percent, and their far right wing ideologues and supporters seek nothing less than to permanently enshrine as law their absolute right to unregulated and unrestrained exploitation of the earth despite the grave threat their greed poses to the survival of the earth’s inhabitants. (vii)
The significance of this book is monumental especially in regards to our current political climate. Fred Hampton was assassinated fifty-one years ago. Yet, at times it still seems like COINTELPRO is an active initiative followed by the FBI and with them, other law enforcement agencies. The problems we faced as a society in the 60s still exist. We are still dealing with the issues of racism, of white supremacy, of violence and systematic oppression.
What I think we can learn from Fred Hampton’s story is that we can never stop fighting for a more just and equal society. Hampton’s story specifically is important because it opens our eyes to the fact that the government, the FBI, the police are not perfect, are not above impunity. They are human and they make mistakes. It is a fact that in our society there are people who do not believe this, who think the police deserve complete immunity, that they can be trusted in everything they do and everything they say. It is seen within the pages of this text, Judge Perry, the very judge presiding over Hampton’s case held this view. As Haas says:
Judge Perry was angered by our straightforward accusations against Hanrahan and the raiders, labeling our claims that they conspired to murder Fred Hampton ‘outrageous.’ He seemed more intent on denouncing our allegations of murder than in determining their truthfulness (163)
As a society, I think we need to change the way we think about crime and how we enforce it. We need to stop acting like law enforcement agencies have complete impunity of the law and that by filling our prisons we are fixing the problem. This is not a change that will happen overnight, but until people begin to see that our society, our culture, is one built on violence, we will never be able to implement it.
Our country’s history, our institutions were built on the foundations of violence and white supremacy. For too long, we have let these ideas shape and manipulate our thinking. The job of the police officer is not to execute or assassinate. The job of the police officer is to serve and protect the people. It should not be to enforce the law, but to enforce justice. The prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, Hollywood, sports, the many other ways we celebrate and praise violence, the problem is one that runs deep throughout our culture and it takes changing our minds about how we view and think about these things. When our minds are made up, we no longer have patience for complacency. We can no longer support or celebrate violence throughout our culture. We cannot allow any person or institution, no matter how high ranking in the governmental hierarchy to be immune to our nation’s laws. We require leaders who unite us and bring us together. Leaders who are passionate and care about people. Fred Hampton was such a leader. For so many, he brought hope and inspiration—feelings of empowerment they had no idea they could have felt before.
Today, protests have been occurring daily to bring justice and equality, since the disturbing video of George Floyd’s murder. People still, even after seeing that video, want to defend the police and make the claim he was resisting or on drugs. People respond to black lives matter, with all lives matter, or blue lives matter. But this is nothing new. It is inherent to the system. It is a product of our culture, our blind faith in American exceptionalism. Fred Hampton’s story has the power to bring us back to the real world, to escape the cloud of American idealism, to open our eyes and fix the many problems that face us as a nation.
I don’t think it would be proper to end this review without words from Hampton’s late mother, Iberia. When asked what, after all those years, she thought the lawsuit proved, she replied, “They got away with murder.” (357)
As a society, we can learn to hold those accountable for committing wrongdoings. We can bring justice to the many individuals and families who for so long, their voices have been silenced or ignored. As a nation, as a new global society we must all come together to eradicate racism in all of its forms from our communities. We can start by advocating for Fred Hampton’s story to be heard, for his name to be honored, his and the many like him who have been taken from us far too soon by the unjust systems of oppression.