Black Panthers Chicago 1969 l Hiroji Kubota l Magnum Photos

Happy birthday, Fred Hampton! (August 30, 1948)

A prominent revolutionary Black American leader of the 1960s, Fred Hampton was born in the suburbs of Chicago to parents who had moved from Louisiana in the Great Migration. His activism began in his teen years, as he led walkouts in protest of Black students' exclusion from activities and for more Black faculty at school. By 18, he had come to identify as a socialist, with the revolutionary struggles of the third world resonating with him. He became a local leader in the NAACP, but soon felt more attracted to the approach of the Black Panther Party, which he also quickly rose through the ranks of. Hampton led efforts to stamp out sexism in the party, and forged a non-aggression pact among Chicago's street gangs, while also working to build a multi-racial revolutionary coalition with groups such as the Young Patriots Organization and Young Lords; Hampton would call this alliance the Rainbow Coalition. Hampton was also largely responsible for the party's free breakfast program, an evolution of his efforts in his youth to keep his community well-fed. The FBI came to identify Hampton as a major threat, and through its COINTELPRO program launched efforts to strip him and the Panthers of their influence. Finally, after being betrayed by a comrade, Hampton was assassinated by the Cook County State Attorney's Office, with aid from the Chicago PD and FBI, which organized the raid.

"We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."

image description: image is a black and white photograph of fred hampton and a fellow black panther woman standing towards what looks like they are facing an individual or crowd. fred hampton is smokin a cig lookin cool as hell, in a knit vest or sweater... can't really tell. the image has text and it says, "theory's cool, but theory with no practice ain't shit. - fred hampton April 27 1969"

fyi smoking is not cool but rather very cancerous. even when it looks cool.

[Quote in image]: “Any theory you got, practice it. And when you practice it, you make some mistakes. When you make a mistake, you correct that theory … A lot of us read and read and read, but we don’t get any practice.” -Fred Hampton

People keep using the Fred Hampton Quote "fight fire with water. fight racism with solidarity" (sorry to paraphrase the quote). But keep excluding the final line where he says "fight capitalism with socialism." Maybe its to focus more on the anti-racism aspect of the quote. Maybe he said this quote twice, just once without the anti-capitalism line. But tbh, it always feels like a way to sanitize and remove the Marxist-Leninist elements of the Black Panthers. And as a way to distance Fred Hampton from his own actual socialist/communist beliefs.

Fred Hampton was assassinated on this day (December 4th) in 1969 by the Chicago Police Department. 👮‍♀️

On August 30th we venerate Young King Brother Fred Hampton on his 75th birthday 🎉

Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton was the one of THE greatest orators, leaders, and visionaries to join the Black Panther Party Of Self-Defense 🖤✊🏾

Fred Hampton was born & raised in the Chicago suburbs of Illinois. Civil liberties, rights, and laws were always of great interest to him. After graduating high school, he enrolled in a pre-law program at Triton Junior College in River Grove, Illinois. He joined his local NAACP branch to get involved in the civil rights movement. He rose to the position of Youth Council President for his strong leadership and organization skills. In this position, Brother Hampton mobilized a racially diverse group of 500 young men/women who successfully lobbied city officials to create better academic services and recreational facilities for Black American youth.

In 1968, he joined the Black Panther Party of Self-Defense, headquartered in Oakland, CA. Shortly thereafter, he was selected to head the Chicago Chapter. Here, he created strong personal and political ties with his mentor & chaplain, Father George Clements at the [then] Holy Angels Catholic Church; which served as a safe haven for the Panthers targeted for police surveillance or harassment.

Brother Hampton accomplished a great many things as a young, prolific leader of the BPP Chicago Chapter. He successfully negotiated a gang truce on live television.One of his greatest successes was an unprecedentedly integrated approach to sociopolitical unity; he formed a “Rainbow Coalition”, which included: the Students for a Democratic Society, the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang and the National Young Lords, a local Puerto Rican organization. He was the first leading Panther to achieve this. This alliance is what truly struck the cord of fear in the Chicago P.D. & the FBI. In an effort to neutralize the Chicago Chapter of the BPP, the Black Panthers were placed under heavy surveillance & were subjected to several harassment campaigns.

By 1969, several Black Panthers and Chicago cops either suffered injury or were killed in shootouts across the city, which resulted in the arrest of over 100 members. On Dec 4th of that same year, under the FBI's initiative, the County PD & Chicago PD conducted heinous, unlawful, and unnecessary raid on the Black Panther Party's HQ in the early morning hours while Brother Hampton, leader Mark Clark, and other Panthers slept. They fired over 100 rounds into the apartment without warning. Twelve officers executed Brother Hampton as he slept, drugged by a sedative slipped into his drink by "Panther"/FBI informant O'Neal. Naturally, in Jan 1970, the County Coroner's office ruled the Black Panther leaders' deaths as "justifiable homicide".

Over 5,000 souls attended Brother Hampton’s funeral. Many civil rights activates eulogized him, including his good friend and mentor Father George, who also held a Requem Mass for him at his church.

After many years of coverups, internal investigations, lawsuits, raids, and conspiracies confirmed, the FBI, County PD, & Chicago PD finally admitted to the wrongful deaths of Brother Hampton and Mark Clark. In 1990, and again in 2004, the Chicago City Council passed resolutions commemorating December 4th as Fred Hampton Day. Today, Brother Hampton rests at the Bethel Cemetery in Haynesville, LA where his parents are from - which continues to endure violent desecration from White Supremacist vigilantes/supporters.

" You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution. People have to be armed to have power" - Young King Fred Hampton

We pour libations & give him💐 today as we celebrate him for his love of our people, his relentless dedication to the BPP cause, and his young yet wise spirit that lives on. May be the find restful peace in spirit that he was/is denied in the physical.

Offering suggestions: flower offerings at his grave, libations of water, prayers and frankincense toward his elevation

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

Emory Douglas, «The Black Panther» Newspaper, vol. 4, no. 2 (Fred Hampton murdered), 1969 [MoMA, New York, NY. © Emory Douglas / ARS, New York]

Fred Hampton. Murdered by Chicago PD 53 years ago today. Never forget. Never forgive.

by joshmayfieldartist

Also shoutout to Daniel Kaluuya to all of his anti-fascist characters. We love a man who consistently represents the struggle against authoritarians.

just throwing shit at the wall do you know any good marxisr critique of terf ideology or will i have to make that myself?

My first thoughts are Leslie Feinberg and Judith Butler, though they're not especially recent. But arguably that's a relevant point, because it asserts that we've been dealing with fascists and transphobes for awhile, and the current reactionary wave is just fash scrambling for an enemy to mobilise a popular movement. Butler also gave an interview a couple years ago in which they explicitly identified TERFs as fascist (“Anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times”) which was subsequently censored by the Guardian. Worth a read (both the original and the PinkNews call out of the censorship). There's also a book called Transgender Marxism, which I have not read and will therefore not endorse, but if anyone wants to give it a look and let me know what's up, I'd be grateful.

Idk, as a Marxist I do really think the problems we face are sort of always the same and just slightly changing their stupid face. I still recommend Frederic Jameson and Mark Fisher as the best sources to confront the digital age. Liberalism/fascism is 'agile', that's why you see rainbows in the midst of genocide and memes in the midst of mass layoffs. But, as one of our best once said, we're dialectical materialists. And we deal with what reality is, whether we like it or not.

Hobie