Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf Jeffrey Haas The Assassination Of Fred Hampton 20240713

Thank you and welcome everyone. I am very honored to be here. I also want to recognize Fred Hamptons mother who was here tonight. [applause] and also, bill hampton freds brother and freds sister. And [indiscernible] who was also in the apartment that night in the brook truce and [indiscernible] who was also in the apartment that night in the brook truce berkshires. She is here tonight also. [applause] i want to thank northwestern and bernadine for bringing together such a prestigious and accomplished panel. I feel like now, i can sit down and hear what they have to say. I am and all of the people who are here tonight and their accomplishments. I want to thank bernadine for putting it together and for being one of the inspirations for wired with this book. It was bernadine mentioned that fred hampton spoke at Northwestern University law School Almost exactly 40 years ago to the day. The person who introduced him was a young law student by the name of [indiscernible] who is sitting in the front row. Apparently, i wasnt there but he stammered through an introduction of fred. When fred got up he chided him and said you better get it together. He also knew that he had helped him get out on appeal bond. As you know, he is gotten it together. [applause] [laughter] i dont want to spend [laughter] the rest of the night talking about his accomplishments. If you had told me a few years ago that i would be standing here talking about a book that i have written not to mention a personal narrative i would not have believed you. I was a lawyer, i didnt even love writing. Somebody i saw from years ago in seattle said you dont even like to write. Its true. I must say i let most of the brief writing go to my partners. Somehow when i stopped doing daytoday work of civil rights law and fight in the government and court i had a little time to reflect. I have a story to tell here. A story that needs to be told. I wanted to tell the story of fred hampton because even though it was 35 years later, it was the story and a person who had most affected me in my life. We all have people will my back only come into a tough situation and we say what would soandso do tonight in the situation . One of those persons for me was the head of the homeless coalition. The other person was fred hampton who i knew 35 years ago. I often think and a tough situation what would fred hampton do . I decided this story needs to be told because he affected me so much maybe i can tell it in a way that will affect other people. I had advantage over some people as one of my writing teachers said you were lucky you had a front row seat on history. I did have a front row seat on history and the fact that i got to meet fred hampton, the panthers, i lived through the 60s and i was a lawyer for much of the movement. Another friend also said you dont get credit for living it. That means you have to write it in a way that hopefully people like and want to read about it. Again, nevertheless i had such a wonderful story to tell. Actually, two or three stories to tell. The first is the story of fred hampton which many of us know much more about his death of his life. I had the pleasure of being with iberia, and going down to haynesville and being with franciss father who passed away and getting a feel for the family and the cousins and the people who knew fred early on. I heard stories about when he was 10 years old, he organized the neighborhood kids and trust him over for breakfast on saturday morning because he knew some of them were hungry and he cooked the neighborhood kids. He had his own breakfast for Children Program when he was 10 years old. When fred was young, he had a big head. People used to call him peanut head. He decided he wasnt going to be called that so he learned to be very good at rep rta at rep te. Ty repar by the time he was 14 he was known as the king of the nines. He had a lisp and in order to overcome that he practiced oratory and he listened to preachers. He also memorized all of the speeches of dr. King and malcolm x. It was no accident, he took what could have been a deficit and overcame them and became a powerful speaker. He could speak to welfare mothers and getting kids and law gang kids and law students. When fred got older and was in high school, he was a good football player. He was very likable. He was known for being a very sociable guy. He wasnt content to be popular. When he saw injustice, he had to react to it. One of the first things he did he noticed the black girls werent considered to be homecoming queens. He leads a walkout of the school over that. The next year he is leading a walkout because there are no black administrators and few black teachers. His work is so compelling the principal calls him and when there is racial strife because he has so much respect of the black and the white students. Fred goes from there because he is such a good organizer, they recognize him and he becomes the chair of the suburban naacp representing the west suburbs of chicago. He spoke up for workers rights and he spoke up for the rights to have principles. One of the issues he worked for was higher pay for police then eventually for more control and the ability to Discipline Police who abuse people. He was always a community person. One of the things he did early on even though he was not a swimmer, there was no place for black kids in the neighborhood to swim. The white kids could go to a nearby suburb. He organized the kids and led a march to the city council. It impressed a number of people including a city councilmember. He also have the opposition of some people. When he led a large crowd there, half of them got in. He argued to the city council, lets go to a different place or let people sat on the floor. The police instead fired tear gas and when the people ran away, they broke windows and they were angry. A police came and arrested fred even though he was inside the village when all of this happened. He was early on a scapegoat. When he went from head of the naacp, he marched with dr. King on the west side. Dr. King on the west side. He also worked with the black power movement. He got together a very Impressive Library of black history books. Then when the panthers came together in 68, when bobby rush came back from the coast to form a panther chapter, the first person he asked to join was fred hampton. , fred became968 the chairman of the illinois chapter of the black and the party which immediately grew under his electric energy. He impressed people so much that they did the work that he said and also the work he did. He went to the breakfast for Children Program. He fed the kids. He didnt just talk about it. He had the ability to inspire people and i think his rhetoric certainly was very strong. It was panther rhetoric it was revolutionary rhetoric and sometimes it was off the peg pig rhetoric which meant get police who abuse us out of the community. The police did not see it that way. There was a conflict growing. One month before fred was killed, there were two young black men killed in the Housing Project near him who were organizing to get a street light so the kids could get to the clinic without getting run over , as two of them had already been hurt. There was no recourse then and even now against Brutal Police behavior. Those police even though one young man was shot in the back of the head, the police claimed he had pulled a gun on them. The other persons similarly was shot and when the police claimed he had a gun and bystanders said he did not. This was the type of thing that fred hampton was dealing with on december 4. I went to the office and i saw fred and heard him. He was like telling people, you got a be at the breakfast for Children Program on time. You got a get petitions signed for the Community Control of police, you got a come to political education. This man vibrated energy and people around him were driven by his energy. On december 4, 1969, two days later, after i had just and with been with fred, my partner who you saw in the movie lived up the street knocked on my door and said the chairman is dead. I said what do you mean he said what do you mean . He said chairman fred was shot this morning at a police rally. I thought this guy who i had just seen two days before so vibrant and alive, somebody who made us believe to do everything is dead. I couldnt believe it. I went to the station lockup which is where the survivors were. There, i saw debra johnson. Freds fiance had been lying in bed next to him. She was 8. 5 months pregnant. Tells me the story, by the howce coming and firing, somebody else we have a pregnant. Ister and here tells me about lying there in bed, trying to cover up because the bullets are coming into the room and getting on top of fred. Roompull her out of the and she hears these two Police Officers go into the room, one of them said is he dead yet . Hears twoone he shots and she hears they are good and dead now. She looks at me and says what can you do about it . I could not bring fred back to life. Plea, andorget her knowing this vibrant man who had affected me. In the days that follow, the police give their version, which is that they were open fired upon. They did not know was a panther apartment, there were barrages of shots at them, and harahan said that fred hampton had a 45 and shot at the Police Coming in the back door. A few days later he says heres my proof, heres the picture of the back door and the two bullet holes from Fred Hamptons gun. We now know those were nail heads, the entire plea story fell apart. There were 99 shots by the , in fact, what happened was that was one shot fired by clark who was dying with his shot, it went up in the air. The chiefas exposed, never backed off and never said these are anything but Honorable Police and we should be praising them for what they did area did. It ended his political career. The community didnt by the fact that this young man was killed in his bed at 4 30 in the morning in a police raid. There was evidence he was drugged which is why he never woke up. You think once we expose that, that would be the end of the story. A brutal case of police murder. They went in with their shotguns, a machine gun, a rival rifle and a handgun. That is the beginning of the story because as we pursue to as we pursued this lawsuit, it was flint and me and the whole Peoples Law Office and Jim Montgomery and others and help from the Lawyers Guild and the center for constitutional rights, it wasnt just a few of us. We got help from the whole progressive legal community. We pursued it. A few years ago a guy named William Oneil showed up as a witness in a federal case. It turns out he was Fred Hamptons personal bodyguard and he was also head of security at the party. In the party. We wondered if he had anything to do with the raid. We began asking questions and taking depositions. For those were not lawyers, documents, whats the big deal about documents . The government kicked and screamed and lied and had a judge that covered up for him and the book goes into the 18 months but it took and in the second month of the trial, 200 volumes of files are produced that had been hidden for the entire pretrial. Among these documents we discovered four that i want to mention. There was an fbi program that targeted the entire left the the entire left but focused on the black movement and in particular, on the black panthers. One of the objectives was to prevent the rise of the messiah who could electrify the masses. We thought doesnt fred hampton fit that description . Wasnt he pulling people together to support the community . We were told a hundred times in court and a hundred times the judge affirmed that they had nothing to do with it. But then we get a document that shows that under this program, they sent a letter to the head of the rangers saying im a panther i have been hanging around with fred hampton i just want you to know they have a hit on you. I know what i would do if i was you. This was approved by the head johnson, whoarlon then became the head of the Chicago Police force. They send a letter and they specifically say its expected it will get retaliatory action. In fact, maybe he realized the language didnt fit a black brother. He was not too good on his slang. He didnt take retaliatory action and in fact what happened was not getting unable to get the blackstone rangers to do their bidding, the head oneil they had oneil go in and get a floor plan that showed everything, the entire layout of the apartments including said where fred hampton slept. He marked on the diagram the bed of hampton and clark when they sleep here. When the police come in the apartment in the bedroom is in the back and when we look at the direction of the bullet holes, they converge where fred hampton s bed was. It turned out that that floorplan was given to the raiders that night. After that, the fbi said we dont take a position on this. Internally, they get a bonus to William Oneil. Because his information was invaluable. The fbi was taking credit for the raid and one of their agents termed it a success on the witness stand. The first story is fred the fred the second story of the , raid and the third story was the fbi involvement. We got a recent document that shows that when fred hampton was leading marches to the city council before there was a Panther Party, hoover was sending memos to the white house, the cia, the army talking about this young leader leading this demonstration to the city council. This was before there was any revolutionary rhetoric. This was before there was a black Panther Party. This is what hoover had in mind. Any black independent group was a threat to him. Interestingly, one of the advantages and we tried this case there was a mood in the country of exposing the government because of watergate. The Church Committee was doing that. The two people from the Ford Administration who fought hardest against it and had ford veto a bill that would have expanded it to include intelligence was a fellow named don rumsfeld and his chief aide dick cheney. The battle continues to expose government illegalities, atrocities, those people had had their day and they deserve a day in jail as well as their day running the country. [applause] finally, i want to say when i went over to the hamptons apartment years later, i asked them is there anything here fred of fred that was personal to him that might be useful in my book . Bill went down into freds old room and came up with this book. It was a book that fred had called deep in my heart. It was by william consular, fred wanted to be a lawyer. Fred believed in justice. He said in 1969, i dont have time to be a lawyer there is too much else going on. Fred has affected lawyers. He has been the inspiration for our office Peoples Law Office and some of the things we did. What kept me going and it was an irony that here we were pursuing who killed fred hampton but it was Fred Hamptons alive who us going and inspired us when we said maybe we should give up we have had enough. And one of us would say what would fred hampton do . And we kept going. That is the lesson of fred hampton, if we could pass that on to law students, lawyers and the public, we would have gotten the message of fred hampton across and he is not died in vain. Thank you. [applause] this is not going to be a typical panel. I am telling you all in advance and warning the panel that i am planning to interrupt as distinguished as you are. [laughter] i am going to do a really quick round the table, not formal introductions, because theres so much to talk about and so much to convey. I will briefly introduce you to professor adam green from the university of chicago. He has written an incredible book called selling the race story of black chicago i dont know the official subtitle, postwar chicago. A fantastic book. Sling taylor, still at the Peoples Law Office still fighting the fight and one of the leaders of uncovering the birch torture cases and fighting for people who have been on death row and unjustly imprisoned. These are totally inadequate introductions but im giving you a heads up. Martha biondi, a professor historian at Northwestern Law School and author of stand and fight not a law school. I wish you were at the law school. At the History Department in evanston at American Bar Foundation fellow and has written a wonderful book about york black life postwar called to stand and fight. David stovall, a professor are you an assistant professor . Are you an associate professor . Yes. [laughter] at the university of illinois chicago in education. He teaches at the Chicago Freedom school and the author of 12 brilliant books and we are very happy you are here. Professor Dorothy Roberts from Northwestern Law School also to two distinguished too distinguished to introduce and the author of two books. And many of you know our journalist from chicago, with a long and distinguished career, editor back in the day of mohammed speaks currently a journalist. Barbara ramsey is a historian at the university of illinois History Department, africanamerican studies, everything. Just about everything. Chairing about everything doing about everything. Author of a wonderful book called ella baker and the black freedom movement. Another legend in chicago longtime activist around labor rights. Around human rights and civil rights and a longtime representative of the freedom movements of southern africa. Somebody who represented the governments of mozambique and angola, as well as south africa in apartheid and remains one of the amazing people. People speaking for internationalism and for the relationship between the struggles there. Each of you as you can see is capable of an illuminating three on the life and death of fred hampton and his family. Assuming that our audience is with us for only a short time, im going to try to engage this Brilliant Panel in a conversation. This will require keeping a it moving so i apologize for my plan to interrupt all of you. [laughter] at the end of this, sam willis, a civil rights lawyer who many of you know and i will take questions then we will adjourn for more conversation. The book is, in part a memory project. We are today recovering and exercising the collective powers of memory. Im going to go this way and ask you each to tell us where you were 40 years ago on december 4, 1969. [laughter] i know dave is going to have the best answer. Just a moment of what you are doing then. And if that does not apply, than what you first heard of fred hampton. I didnt know you were going to ask this and im grateful that you did. I know exactly where i was on december 4. I was in new york city, i was six years old sitting in the living room with my mother and i saw the television probably the night of december 4 after the killing took place. It stayed with me throughout my life. Those of you who know me well, know that it means a great deal to me to say this. This was the first time that i understood about the existence of racism in the united states. Getting news of the killing of the assassination of the murder of fred hampton. It stayed with me throughout my life. That image of seeing that on the television and trying to cope at that age and in my situation with what i had to catch up with in order to process that. I know exactly where i was that night even though i was very young. I was at home. I got a call from skip andrews. Like jeff did. I came here to northwestern. I got one of the other law students that worked at the office out of class at lincoln hall and we headed down to the apartment. For the next 10 or 11 days, we stayed there pretty much around the clock. Taking evidence, standing in freds blood, watching while the panthers brought tours through there, every day. Showing the bloody mattress this is where the chairman died. There was one particular quote which i think you put in the book that stuck with me. Beyond just the remarkable being there and seeing firsthand and documenting this murder. This older black woman came through, looked at the bullet holes and swiss cheese walls by the machine gun is and she said aint nothing but a northern lynching. I recall being a teenager and encountering his slogan first. You can kill a revolutionary but you cant kill the revolution. It had his image on a poster and i had it for years before i knew who he was really. His message influenced me greatly before i knew who he was. I wasnt even a thought. [laughter] i was born in 1972. The first time i ever heard of fred hampton was watching eyes on the prize. I remember watching it on channel 11 with my parents. Fredm said, i remember hampton, bobby rush, and she started going down with all of these names. She said i dont think they ever understood in terms of what they were about because she always knew them as folks who were feeding young folks. And that was her recognition of the Panther Party. That was how she understood their work. The first time was eyes on the prize i believe that version is called a nation of laws. And i watch it with my High School Students to this day. Ms. Dorhn jeff, im going to skip you. [laughter] i was 13 years old when fred hampton was assassinated. The day of his assassination, my family was living in africa. So i wasnt aware of it then, but we had just moved there from chicago that fall. So during most of 1969, i was living in hyde park in chicago and i was aware of fred hampton and his work in the black Panther Party. In fact, i subscribed to the black panthers newspaper. And i remember my mother being very upset, not because i was interested in the black panthers, but because the newspaper came to our house. And she said, dont you know police are following people who are on the list . And she made me end this subscription. But it made an impression on me that the black panthers were doing work the government wanted to stop. And i was aware early on that that kind of work was seen as a threat to the fbi and the police, from when i was 13. I was actually a member of the party in jersey city. I had been in the military during the vietnam era, and had been rudely educated about what we were doing in southeast asia. And in the military there was a lot of opposition to the imperialistic policies of this country, and the panthers spoke to some of the passions that were being provoked in the military at that time. When i got out of the military and immediately joined the black Panther Party in 1969, i was a member of the party in jersey. Many of us knew fred hampton, because he had forged a reputation as a conscientious, aggressive and energetic leader. So many of us idolized him and it looked to him for future inspiration, and when he was murdered, we all realized what was up. We knew then that it was no joke. We knew in the beginning that it was no joke, but this simply put an exclamation point on that. That is where i was at that time. Fred was an inspiration and we viewed his death as something that would spur us to future accomplishment. I was one year younger than dorsey, 12 years old and living in detroit. I dont remember hearing about fred hampton. The time, but certainly did many years later. Interestingly, 1969 was the year i encountered the panthers. There was a panther chapter in detroit, and the panthers had a Breakfast Program in the basement of my school on the west side of detroit. It was also the year that might that my eighth grade boyfriends older brother was in the panthers, and died tragically, not at the hands of the police, but as a result of a drug overdose, actually. And i think that raised for me the other factor, the other killer in black communities at that time, because i dont think that was accidental either. But that was my First Encounter with the panthers, these amazingly, beautiful, smart, kind men and women who were serving us breakfast every morning and talking to us about revolutionary ideas. I didnt know at the time what that was about, but it was very appealing to me. Prexy i was asleep at my house at 1514 south albany and my father said, there has been a raid on the west side. And it must be very bad. Because blood davis was in on it. People on the west side how knew how brutal he was. That is how he got his name. I was working at the st. Marys center for learning, a high school on the west side, damon and roosevelt, and we had a lot of students in the school. I was the dean who remembered the Panther Party. So by the time i got to school at 8 00, mostly it was a womens catholic school, and some of them were very upset. So i remember spending the morning working with the students, talking to them, taking some of them home, taking some over to the munro street building. By that time, i was putting that together with what had happened to the soto brothers, who my sister worked with on the west side. So the picture was getting pretty clear, what was going on. Fred was 21 when he was assassinated, just 21. Why was he so dangerous in the eyes of the fbi and the Chicago Police department . Prexy i was there at the Peoples Church once when fred spoke, and i had heard by that, number of brilliant speakers, these brilliant revolutionaries. Fred spoke at that Peoples Church over on ashland that day. I remember it very well. He was introduced by a japanese sister, and the two of them spoke. It was the most riveting talk i have ever heard, total clarity about people coming together, black, white, brown, yellow, he was just so clear about that, and i think that is one of the main reasons that they offed him, because he was such a force for unification. He was a young, clear brother. Dorothy i had never heard him speak in person, but i think in addition to his charisma and his oratory skills, what impressed me about him were his principles, and his commitment, his willingness to sacrifice his life for what people believed what he believed in, which was justice. And i think the fbi recognized early on that somebody who had that kind of commitment to justice at such an early age was destined to do great things, to bring people together to be a leader of the movement. And they were willing to brutally destroy people like that, and continued to do it, in the way they torture and kill and lock up hundreds of thousands of people in this country, who potentially could be Fred Hamptons today. [applause] yes, i did introduce him to introduce him here at northwestern, and yes, i did stammer through it, but in my defense, that was the first time i had spoken publicly. More seriously, watching him walk into that room, i expected about 50 law students to be there. In fact, the entire law school was there, predominantly white, mostly conservative and male. And he sat there and spoke to them and reached them in the same way he would reach people on the west side, in the same way he reached people at the church, and i was there and jump jeff was there, as well as i am sure many others were there. So he could speak, he could organize, he could move people, regardless of their race, regardless of their class background, regardless of what kind of history they had personally. And that was something that the government, in their paranoia, recognized. That the spoken word and the ability to organize was much more dangerous than the guns they might have carried around. They were an armed propaganda unit. They were armed, but not dangerous in the sense that you think of armed and dangerous. They were armed for one reason, and they were dangerous for an entirely different reason, in the eyes of the government. In the winter of 1969, this is an impossible question, but because there is a number of young people in the audience and i think this is a storytelling event, who was the black Panther Party in 1969 . Salim for us, we were like children of malcolm, and we had tired of seeing so many africanamericans being forced to endure the kinds of brutality from southern sheriffs in the civil rights movement, the whole nonviolent movement. We werent entirely with that movement. We didnt believe in nonviolence. We didnt believe in this notion of someday. That we will overcome someday. We wanted to overcome yesterday. So the black panthers were like a tonic to us. It was this group of people who said, we will no longer accept the kind of brutality that the police were inflicting on our communities, without any redress, without any sense of accountability. No one would respond to our pleas. In the Panther Party come out of and the Panther Party come out of nowhere and said, police, you cant do this anymore. Simple as that. You can do it anymore. We will stop you from doing it. And that, to us, it is really unimaginable, the kind of effect that had on young people during that period, who work so under assault from this notion of racist oppression. So the panthers energized us like nothing else could. And in fact, one of the problems eventually that occurred was that it attracted so much attention, so much affection and so much attraction from young people who were beleaguered by this civil rights oppression that the Panther Party could not handle that kind of aggression. Salim has a more firsthand account, but to me the panthers were more about standing up. Something that gets left out, and as i read about fred hampton, the man, i am reminded of the panthers i knew in detroit. And there was this notion of serve the people. So there was defiance against the police and a pushback against the level of unapologetic and unabated Police Violence in the cities, but there also was this sense of humility, this sense of humanism, and the same young men who were with black jackets and berets, standing tall against the police, were also serving eggs and pancakes in the free Breakfast Program, traditionally womens work. So i was impressed by the combination of service and struggle. And for me, that combination was powerful and dangerous, because it could transform us as well as transform the enemies of the people. By 1969, the panthers were three years old. They had 30 chapters, one in every major city. There were thousands of members. They aimed recruitment at urban youth, but the membership was much more diverse than popular images convey. They included women, artists, intellectuals, exconvicts, inmates, students. The panthers, as has been said, the panthers are best known for both advocating armed selfdefense and Community Service programs. They had a dual image of being armed revolutionaries who were preparing the masses for a coming revolution, but at the same time were really committed to Community Service. Fred hampton exemplifies this aspect of the black Panther Party, being committed to serving the people through Breakfast Programs and a host of other programs. It was striking to me in reading geoffs book how loyal residents of maywood were to fred hampton to the end. And they were so invested in rehabilitating his reputation and finding justice. That really speaks to how much they loved and admired him and how much they wanted to reciprocate his devotion to them. You learned about the panthers before you learned about fred hampton. When did you learn about the panthers . David the first thing i learned was the 10 point plan. I learned about it in fifth grade, i got the 10point plan by way of one of my classmates. He brought it in any was like yeah, man, this is the whole thing. And we were looking at him, and next to the 10point plan was the rules of meetings for the black Panther Party. I thought that was interesting because i felt like it was written by somebody who was just a little bit older than me. And the reason why i thought about that was because one of the rules said, you cannot come high or drunk to a meeting. And i looked at that and said, they are probably not much older than us because they are trying to organize and make sure that somebody in the meeting isnt messing it up. Then we started to read some more. But the first eyes on the prize came out in eighth grade, but i first remember seeing the 10point plan in fifth grade. Ms. Dorhn adam, you have written unbelievably movingly about the lynching of emmett till and the response of the black community in chicago. Isnt that astonishing that the Hampton Family were neighbors to mamie till bradley. That iberia was a babysitter for emmett till before he went to money, mississippi, where he was beaten, tortured, and drowned. You have written deeply about this, could you offer us a framework about the impact of the murder of emmett till. I can try. I didnt know this until i read jeffs book. It was one of the first things that comes up in the book, and i think it was astounding, both as a testament, a document if you will, to the sense of consciousness Young Fred Hampton must have had about what society was capable of, what happens when one is matched against structures of power. It must have been something that reminded everyone, i would imagine, in the Hampton Family, about what sorts of risks, what kinds of dangers, what profound injustices existed out in the world, in the south, but in a certain sense also everywhere. The thing that must have come up, and i note the symmetry which is awful at one level to think about and at the same time profoundly moving, of having exactly the same, the word martha used a moment ago was rehabilitation. The states ferocious desire to defame this young man after they murdered him, the way in which people came together after that to claim him back, not only in the way the panthers did with their jackets and their guns and their berets, but every day, ordinary people did, in terms of saying, you will not take this young man away from us. We will take him back. That was something that happened in 1955, very much in the same way, in relation to how mamie till bradley took her son back and said, you will not speak of my son in the way that you have. You will not make the brutalization of him and his body the last word about the meaning of his existence. And thousands, 50,000 to 100,000 people, assented to that in terms of going and viewing the body, visiting the church, maintaining the memory of emmett till. There are so many things that can be said, but this is the that steps up most powerfully, the power of people to affirm life, even when those institutions that claim authority over them will deal death. In both cases, that is what comes up. And it is awesome to contemplate from where i am. [applause] it is still an issue because recently when people tried to name a street after fred, fred hampton way in chicago, the aldermen refused to do it, but the people themselves and named it fred hampton way. His son, fred hampton jr. , and his fiancee from when he was murdered said we dont care what the aldermen will do. Very similar. Ms. Dorhn you have written the southern freedom movement, could you draw as a between sncc and the black Panther Party . By 1969 we had a certain sector of sncc, the student nonviolent coordinating committee, which is seen as a southernbased civil rights movement, but a certain sector really joined forces with the panthers, h rep. Brown, had moved over to the panthers. Another sector of sncc went in another direction and sncc was someways unraveling by this point. What i am struck by when i think of the panthers and sncc is the false dichotomies we sometimes draw between the southern and northern movements. And also the generational divide. We think of panthers as being militant, northern, young, and sncc were young people based on in the south and we think of sncc as being a nonviolent wing. But many sncc people will tell you that nonviolence for them was a tactic, not a philosophy, and many of them, when they went south, were actually protected by older sharecroppers that were not passive at all, who in fact had shotguns to protect whilelves from the klan their nonviolent volunteers slept in their homes. So there was a tradition of selfdefense and a tradition of armed resistance in the south as well. The deacons for defense, Robert Williams and others, represent that. The Lowndes County black Panther Party, which is where the name connects in alabama. So there were a lot of connections, and when we begin to look at the connections, the binary, that sort of notion of militant youth in the north and nonviolent folk in the south begin to break down. I want to say about the youth question, one thing often said about the panthers is that they had the urgency of youth, and that is certainly true. But it is important for us to remember there were also radical elders, ella baker was one, to a number of other people in the 1960s who at that time were not young but certainly were radical. And there were reactionary young people. So youth is not the magic pill, but rather the impetus, once the ideas are there. Ms. Dorhn can you give us what the main issues were that sparked the movement in the same time, 19681969. Martha im glad you asked that question, because the black Student Movement of the late 1960s that swept campuses across the country from San Francisco to brooklyn to cornell to howard, very nationwide, high schools as well, this is associated with the rise of affirmativeaction, black studies, hiring black faculty, administrators, basically big changes in American Intellectual life. There are many causes and roots of it, but one cause that isnt often talked about is the panthers. I will remind you of a portion of one of their planks in the 10point platform. They said we want education that exposes the true nature of segregated American Society and teaches us our true history and our role in the presentday society. The black Panther Party was actually very influential. They had a lot of students in the party but their influence went beyond recruitment. And their vision, style and tactics influenced a whole generation of student activists who were very influential in the push for affirmativeaction, open admissions and africanamerican studies. A couple of famous examples at San Francisco state, which was ground zero for the whole black Student Movement and black studies movement was the firing of george murray, the minister of education of the black Panther Party, that set off the fourmonth strike that led to the creation of a college of ethnic studies in San Francisco. At Brooklyn College the black Panther Party was influential in organizing the black Student Union. The leader of the black Student Union was arrested in the raid that produced the panther 21. He said it should have been the panther 22. He was out of town that day. They got him in another raid in a case that became known as the bc 19, the Brooklyn College 19. He was a young man, the cops broke the door down early in the morning, the kids were sent to Rikers Island for five days, all trumped up charges. In fact, like the panthers, another target of cointelpro were black Student Unions across the country. A lot of them had police informants, some of this was the result of a panther connection but not all of it. This was seen by hoover as another source of charismatic leadership that could be a big problem and have a lot of potential. This was 19681969 and it was also the heyday of the panthers at the beginning of the black Student Movement around the country, not the beginning but another phase of it that was very influential, so they were deeply connected. Ms. Dorhn prexy and salim . Can you give me two of the most powerful international influences on the panthers at this time . I can tell you one that is a very important one, the vietnam war and the relationship and the clarity of the Panther Party about resisting the vietnam war. The other one, very briefly, i dont think a lot of people know how deep it really went. But since i was involved, it was a very close relationship between the Panther Party here and the mozambique liberation front. And the current president of mozambique talks, to this day, about meeting the leadership of the Panther Party over on the west side on madison avenue. He said to me not long ago, prexy, is there a monument to the panthers on the west side of chicago . And i said no, mr. President , there is no monument. And one of the things we have to do is a serious monument on the west side, to the panthers. [applause] salim the most prominent influence was an activist in the Panther Party and they embraced violence was a catalyst to revolution, to kind of assert your agency in the face of overwhelming oppression. They provided a way the panthers could theorize that. And to a certain extent mao zedong. Mao, his redbook was required reading for panthers. When we would go to readings, we had to read certain portions of the redbook, trying to acquaint us with international ideas, ideas of how socialism, we should not mince words about this, the panthers were strongly scientific socialists, that was their professed ideology. They required panther members to do intellectual work as well as work in the community. So intellectual abstractions would be grounded in community work, so we were often given these international theorists to study and apply their theories to the situation in this country. There was also a very heavy dialogue, discussion that went on about scientific socialism, about revolutionary theory, about the question of the relationship between politics and arms. I want to hasten to add the earlier point made by bernadine, that there are a number of very revolutionary, older generation people around here. A group of cta workers were led by a man you will hear from in a minute, named stan willis. There is a group of afroamerican patrolmen who later formed the afroamerican patrolmens league. There was often heavy dialogue that went on about these questions and about political education. And that was a very important part of the international exposure, and went on a lot in the paper. Im sorry im behind you guys, but this is the filming requirement. Im going to ask dorothy and barbara if you could talk for a minute about the role of any influence of family and place in jeffs book on the story of fred hampton. You have iberia and Frances Hampton and their family looming very large. Markame with mary and clark and his family. , and theion of maywood Product Company where iberia and frances worked, and haynesville, louisiana, their connection to the south. I think that is an oblique thread in the telling of their story and lives. I dont think i can do justice to the richness of the narrative. And certainly i have learned a lot about Fred Hamptons family and Family History in looking at the book. But i think it is also a bigger lesson about social change agents and radical forces. Its a point ive been wanting to make since we started this conversation. We are focusing on a single individual, and the term was used by the fbi talking about the fear of the leadership they thought fred hampton represented. But the real thing about an individual leader like fred hampton is the committee that community that surrounds him, and that includes family, and many people have been able to make a powerful impact in social change movements and revolutionary movements in this country and around the world come from a tradition of resistance on struggle and come from families that loved them and expected them to love the people in their community, and justice. Part of the lesson and legacy of fred hampton is to understand he was larger than a single individual, and that there is a limitation in any political vision that invests itself in messiahs, because there was always a family story, community story, organization story, that makes those individuals strong. I would add to that, jeffs book pointed out the way in which fred took qualities from both his mother and his father, and then going back generations before that. It reminds us that black peoples struggle is not based just on some messiahs that are currently alive, but in generations and generations of ordinary peoples struggle against oprah ration. The book makes it clear that fred got that. I think there is a line about his fathers militancy and his mothers resistance smarts, im probably mangling the exact reference, but that he got qualities from his parents that made him who he was, but those represented qualities that people who have struggled against oppression have had to have for centuries. It is more than one person, it is the family come of the community, the people. Fred said, power to the people. It is about the peoples struggle, and family is just one part of that. When you kill someone, as the fbi did, you stop progress. I realize individual leaders are developed by community input, but once those individual leaders are taken out, what they represented is often diminished. So the fbi knew what they were doing when they assassinated these folks, that they were stopping progress. Absolutely. That is a theme that runs throughout this book and the story of fred hampton and his life and his murder, his statement that you can kill the Freedom Fighter but you cant kill the freedom fight, and the question of whether it is possible to stop a movement i killing not just one, but lets remember, they killed many, many people. And they locked up many people. There are people in prison now. We dont even know about all the people who they killed and locked up. So i agree, but we also have to believe it is possible because of the example and inspiration of fred hampton that there are, there will be, more young people like him to take up the struggle. Superquick, one of the things i loved the most, and like david, i mostly got this from tv when i was older, was listening to fred hampton say, i am high on the people. I am high on the people. He didnt want drugs in the meeting, but he was fined being but he was fine being high on the people. That had to come from a place of love. And i think a lot of people did get killed in terms of life, clearly in terms of a sense of organization, but that love only gets killed if people dont continue to affirm it. You could say that in certain ways it got obstructed, but you could also say the story of how black people thought about each other in chicago and how they thought about allies in chicago after 1969, was different, and that there was an ability to think about love and being high on people. That is very important in terms of the rise of mayor washington. Ms. Dorhn im coming back to that in a minute. [laughter] but im keeping us on the book. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, im going back to what jeff barely talked about, the investigation, coverup, the theater of the states attorney in Chicago Police doing a reenactment on tv to show how under siege they were from the bullets coming from inside the apartment, the seizing of initiative and making tours of the apartment on monroe street, public tours so we lined up in the streets in december and went through what was called the crib, and the funeral itself. I want to ask about the instant, tenacious Community Struggle that immediately responded to the notion, you hinted to the naacp report that came out, the africanamerican patrolmans coalition, the rainbow coalition, the people who spoke up. I would like you to talk about that and then the struggle in the media, the context of what happened and how that went down in the media. And jeff and glenn, maybe you could talk about the states attorney leading the raid. The States Attorneys Office just last week filed a subpoena against northwest journalism students, so we are in a similar thing here today. I want you to talk about how immediately the story of the raid was the struggle between the state and various powers that be in various forces on the ground. Prexy one of the aspects of that struggle was that it led to the mobilization of the black community all over chicago, and all kinds of forces mobilized on that and responded. And it marked the deathknell of hanrahan as a political figure in the city of chicago, because he couldnt run to distribute newspapers after that. But it also marked the point that really starts the beginnings of the Coalition Building that ultimately would lead to the election of Harold Washington and the city of in the city of chicago. There is any number of relationships that were forged in that period and jeff is very good in bringing some of that out. The group, for example, rising up angry, the white Resistance Group on the north side. Young lords, the appalachian peoples movement, all kinds of forces that started working together that had not been working together before. This would be my final point, its a kind of sad point. I dont think i have seen since that time, ever, black youth be at the point of unity and pride and strength that there was. And i think we then come up against is the vicious role of drugs and Drug Distribution that starts to tear apart the bonds that the party created in bringing together people. It was a moment of tremendous unity in that sorrow, in that moment of sorrow there was a tremendous unity. And washington was a state senator at the time, and spoke up in the moment about the murder of fred hampton. Salim Ralph Metcalfe was a solid ally of the Daily Administration and he broke at that point. And that represented a major breach with black politicians. And it eventually culminated in the election of Harold Washington. I think the media took a very adversarial position toward jeff, and the black community understood that and realized the media was off on this, that the mainstream was passing by the black community, the media mainstream, and black people understood this in ways that they hadnt before. And you see it now. Talked about a trip brown h rep brown being a member of the black Panther Party at one point. He is Jamil El Amin right now and he is in prison, and one of his acolytes was just murdered in detroit. And the same kinds of rationalizations and justifications the government used to kill jeff and to kill fred is being used in this particular case. So the media is always on point to put the position of the state as a paramount position, and it is up to us to deconstruct that and understand what this is all about. That is a great lesson to learn. [applause] to me in jeffs book, the tribune and the television station follow the police line, and the state line, but the suntimes was a competing newspaper, so the leaks coming out of the Peoples Law Office and the trials and so on were published, and it became an interesting debate and dialogue, and of course the defender and the black media played a very Critical Role there. Quickly, a word about the role the states attorney in the legal apparatus im not quite getting to the trial. How could you have the States Attorneys Office doing a reenactment, having a table of weapons as they often do, showing that it was justified . Flint i think it shows it was a political struggle and what we have 40 years later is the continuing struggle, political and historical, to write peoples history. That we cant leave it to the media to interpret and write that history. And we have to fight to expose the truth and then we have to help shape and teach about what peoples history is. That is why here we are 40 years later, still writing and fighting for the peoples interpretation of the murder of fred hampton. That is an ongoing struggle, not only with regard to fred hampton and the panthers, but all the other kinds of struggles like Police Torture and other related Police Brutality and violence we are talking about. [applause] i heard that john burges trial was postponed. Ms. Dorhn we will get to that in a minute. [laughter] we have to go in order. I would ask the lawyers, david and adam, to comment about the culture of law and the struggle here. In a way i found reading jeffs book is like a legal thriller, like a Walter Mosley or john grisham story, about the baby lawyers up against the state and statefunded prosecutors, the fbi, judges stonewalling and judicial corruption and lying. I want to point to the people in the audience who are students and interested in this that one of the most remarkable decisions ever written by federal judges is iberia hampton versus hanrahan. It is the culmination of this long legal struggle. Maybe david, you and adam would comment on this kind of point that followed the community resistance. David i like how you frame to that, baby boys against the big system. This is often the way young folks feel when they are not being heard. Myself, teaching, in addition to being at uic, im also at a high school teaching, and when students talk about their struggles, they often talk about not being heard. And one of the ways in which, myself now being 37 and my High School Students being born between the years of 1993 and 1994, the so this whole notion around how we can be supportive of them and looking at the role of this state, what does the state actually do now . One example i think about is this notion of extreme rendition. Because extreme rendition is nothing but the jump out boys of the gang Tactical Unit in chicago. We need to be clear about that. [applause] they operate on this same process. You see a couple of young bloods on the corner, scoop them up, drop them off someplace different. Barbara and i had this conversation post 9 11. Everyone is like so much has changed and im like no, not too much changed on the block. If you are from chicago, you know about the clicks. So this whole notion about really understanding that and being clear about how these renditions are against behemoths, but at the same time the power of young folks, i think of two people in my high school life, marcus murray, who is now one of the codirectors of project brotherhood and a woman named courtney smith. They were high school classmates, but they gave me the book, die, nigger, die, and when i read it it was that whole piece about feeling empowered. And once you feel empowered, they couldnt do anything to me. How do we now because what it did for me is push me around, understanding the capacity of organizing, like the police, like our teachers, so i have to be clear, and im still in this role as a teacher, this whole notion about the educational system and being clear about how the educational system can suppress and oppress us, and understanding these things moving forward and how we can fight them. [applause] i will be brief, because that should adjust sink in. [laughter] adam there is a profoundly inspiring quality to Fred Hamptons life. Disenchanting is the word, the sense of what they state is capable of in brutalizing its citizens. The only thing i can say, im not a legal specialist, im not someone who knows this technically, is that when you step back and think about the case, and particularly the fbi and cointelpro is something we think about, and to me the most extreme thing is the unit that assassinated fred hampton, the special prosecuting unit, which , if you step back, and dont swallow all the mythmaking, all the syrup that is fed to you in this country in terms of identifying with power and identifying with authority, what that was was a death squad, just like el salvador, just like south africa, just like vietnam, just like anywhere. [applause] and to know that people at that level of authority and power in this country could empower could impanel a death squad and send it out to target an assassination tells us something about what we are up against, in terms of what lengths the state will go to to preserve power and authority. And we just have to name that as it is, and we can never forget it and we have to teach it to the young. That is what one needs to understand in terms of struggling in this country. [applause] ms. Dorhn im going to do three more questions. Im going to ask dorothy, barbara and martha. Brenda harris, one of the survivors of the raid, says in the book, we didnt have enough classes in like history or a clear idea of the role of women. And when asked about her gunshot injury, she said, i will never play the violin again. You have told the story about Deborah Johnson who was eight months pregnant at the time and woke up to a hail of bullets and tried to cover freds body with her own. I wonder if you could talk about the gender narrative here. The role of the mothers the role of the mothers, and also the legal teams, the panthers, the survivors. This is another program, i understand. [laughter] i think it is important to touch it and it is all there in jeffs book, and it is all there in our history. I would hope my brothers would be insightful on this question as well. I alluded to this earlier. There is a very masculine image of the panthers. And we forget Erica Huggins and Kathleen Cleaver and elaine brown and another woman who is in a different kind of prison, in exile in cuba. And there has been a campaign in chicago and elsewhere to bring attention to her plight. So women are sometimes not as visible. But the panthers were a complicated organization, with some very smart young people. And grappling with the issue of gender, i know some people on the west coast, Phyllis Jackson and others, talked about communal childcare and communal living, which was not always ideal, which is not overly ideals overly idealized or romanticized, but there were efforts to grapple with gender roles and what it means to be a whole human being, which means not only defeating racism but also defeating sexism, patriarchy, homophobia and these are the things that compromise who we are. But the importance of women in the panthers in chicago in and around the struggles fred hampton was involved in i think is critically important. Also i would encourage us to look at the issues of gender and the ways in which the panthers challenged restrictive notions of black masculinity, which when we think of the plight of young black men and boys today, that is a major challenge to think of what it means to be a black man in this country. And part of it was defending the community against the police , but part of it was about serving and humility in challenging the narrowing notions of what it means to be a man. All of those are part of the gender politics and we would probably need another panel and bring Tracy Matthews up here who has done work on gender in the panthers to talk about this question. [indiscernible] when i talk about the role of and organization with a male style of leadership a male pattern of thinking. There is a male way and there is a more female way. [indiscernible] [applause] thank you. You are right. Newton used qe to issue periodic encyclicals, so to speak. One of those was about chauvinism, the kind of chauvinism characteristic about what we used to call dead times, to call, at that times, the cultural nationalist, there was a difference between revolutionary nationalists and cultural nationalists and he talked about the chauvinism of cultural nationalists. And there was an attempt to speak to that, although it wasnt a serious attempt. [laughter] dorothy there are examples in the book where fred stood against chauvinism. The example jeff talked about, one of his very first acts of resistance was advocating against the exclusion of black women from homecoming. This was when he was a very young teenager. There is another example in the book where the westside panthers wanted the women in the Chicago Office to serve brothers that were coming there, and fred said no, women in chicago dont play that role. In any organization that have men and women, there are going to be struggles over gender, because gender, sexism and racism is deeply rooted in our society and societies around the world. Others have given examples of how panthers did struggle around that. There are examples where the panthers were ahead of most organization in this country in terms of gender, in the sense the issues they took up were issues that have been considered womens issues. When i teach a course on Child Welfare at the law school, i get 99 women in my class. But the panthers had a Breakfast Program. They also had a Health Program, which is generally considered something only women are interested in. What inspires me, and what i give a lot of respect to, is the philosophy of the Health Program that saw our Health Connected to social justice, which is very similar to the reproductive justice philosophy of women of color. There were struggles around gender. There was chauvinism and sexism, but there was an attempt to grapple with it. And i think there was also and i think there was also examples where the panthers had a philosophy more associated with a womens philosophy, that they transcended some of those issues to have programs that addressed social justice for everybody. I would echo what she just said. When you look at social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, they are characterized by a swagger, and ethan oser of conquest, and you can find examples of this in panther history and the history of our of other organizations. But at the same time you see a lot of women in the organization that push against that culture and as a result of cointelpro, you see women functioning as the backbone of the organization and the rankandfile, which is how often women get characterized, but really women assuming leadership and rebuilding the black Panther Party and putting a decisive new imprint on it. There was point that still a male style of leadership. I think we do see seems of early feminism emerging in the 1970s and a lot of these organizations as well. Secondly, certainly the whole process of lawyering in the courtroom, we see the patriarchy all over the place. We see that replicated even in leftwing lawyering. But also what can give us hope, we can push back is movement lawyering. This is what they called mass action court tactics does open up whether they can insert themselves in the legal system, there is a way it goes around the lawyers and the judges and i think that can push back against the patriarchal gender dynamic. I am going to be miserable about the fact that we will not talk about the threads in jeffs book about jackson and meeting george a jackson and the connections to the prison andstrial complex liberating ice cream from an Ice Cream Truck which he always denied or the attic of rebellion splitting up their slender resources. So, i am missing that. I am missing the Police Torture cases and the rise of africanamerican officials. I will ask all of you so you can do your own things about those questions, but he asked what the effect of the legal struggle was, what it achieved and she said they got away with murder. So i am asking each of you to reflect a little bit about what it reveals and what are the lasting legacies . Adam, can i start with you . Adam true love of people is revolutionary. That means that you have to occasionally be prepared to stand up and pay the ultimate cost for it. [applause] at the risk of disagreeing with mrs. Hampton, which i learned a long time ago not to do, i think we are still fighting mad about whether they got away with murder and i think a battle about whether they got away with murder and i think what we will do to fight for the correct peoples interpretation or history, we cannot let them get away with murder. I trust with all of you being here tonight, you can tell mrs. Hampton that they still are not going to get away with murder. [applause] the book really shows us the awesome power of the state and we just always have to remember that these legal questions are political questions and we have to see them in a much broader lights. And one thing from fred hampton i learned about his life and his vision and his struggle was making those connections. Whether it is black americans with third world struggles or gang members, engaging in Mass Communication and getting them to appreciate what their self interest is into operates politically and find solidarity with other oppressed groups. In terms of the book i always think of a comrade who was a teacher. When he teaches students he puts three things on the board. Of self, solidarity and political clarity. And that is how he runs his classroom. Everything is centered around those three things. I think about a quote from James Baldwin in response to the davis andn of angela j thi i think it speaks to the assassination. He said if they take you in the morning, they will come for us in the night. When i look in my High Schoolers face, i understand that at any moment either one of us may not be there. So all of that stuff will be used to push us forward. Jeff, thank you. [applause] do you want to have the last word . I will have the last word. I think that there are many legacies. One is to learn and know who fred hampton was. To know what our potential is as humans to touch and move and inspire other people. If we can carry that on and pick up some of that energy, that is certainly one of the legacies of fred hampton. The other is the struggle against government abuse, misconduct is the struggle of our lives and we must continue it and we must fight to persevere. That struggle is what defines many of our lives. I think that that is the struggle we should be part of. We need to educate and we need the Community Behind us and that really has made a difference here. We have a receptive all audience in the black community. We were able to prevail, not only because of our recollection of fred, but we have a Community Supporting us. They were lined up around the block. I think that is the legacy of the life and the death of fred hampton. One of the legacies, i think, is understanding the ways in which racism and White Supremacy is being maintained in the united states. Its the Education System and the prison system, but it also happens because of state violence. Extremely brutal state violence and torture and locking up people. On the other hand, understanding the length of which the state will go to kill people and lock people up and agreed people lets degrade people lets you know there must be Great Potential for social change. Thats what the government and other people in power are themselves afraid of. So the legacy for me is his murder shows the power that was snuffed out, and we still have, if we are willing to come whicher and be like fred, is his willingness to say i am going to stand up for justice no matter what it takes. If people have that willingness, they reach that point that was just mentioned the book where he said, i have to do the honorable thing. I cant just stand back. I cant accept this. We can still do remarkable things. It will take a struggle. But it can happen. [applause] i think it really shows we have to intervene into conventional wisdom. The narrative of fred hampton was really exhibited during the debate in the city council whether to name a street after him. It seems as though the public seems to think that the police were the good guys on this, although they were the assassins, and it demonstrates to me how important it is for us to have an intervention into the narrative. We have to make more aggressive attempts to shake this narrative, this National Narrative in ways that reflects the struggles of people who are out of power. We can do it. We just have to be more aggressive in trying to do it. I think there are probably a lot of lessons. But more about what i know and i think more about what i know and have learned about Fred Hamptons life and the circumstances of his death, one of the differences between 1969 and 2009, young people, young black people from port or communities have a reason to be angry. Have a reason to be angry in 1969. Have an in normas enormous reason to be angry today. We have a prison system with an insatiable hunger for black bodies and brown bodies. We have a School System that is increasingly looking like a military operation. Kids do not have jobs. If they do have jobs, they have lousy jobs. We have the same kinds of state violence that people have talked about. There is a reason to have a righteous rage. The difference, it seems to me, and we have seen this is that that rage is not direct it. Ed. That anger turns in on ourselves because theres not the analysis that fred hampton had. Fred hampton was angry too. It was a righteous rage. It was not the kind of rage to consume him, which is what made him dangerous. He identified the sources of what people were facing and channeled his anger towards opposing that power in that and that oppression. I think the legacy is to learn from his life. And to learn we dont need to suppress our anger and our rage we do need to channel it and understand that political formations will permit us to act collectively. I also want to think there are Many Organizations today, young people and older people who are making a difference. Many faces i recognize in the audience and most of the people on this panel are still fighting the good fight. As a historian, we study the past for a living, but its important not to just think it 1969, but the challenges of today, but also look hopefully at the things that are going on today, the struggles against the war. Its a process we have been involved in. Around the birch torture cases. All of this is both sobering, but also cause for optimism about the struggle ahead. [applause] i dont really see any reason to say anything. I think my colleagues said it all. I do want to say one thing. That is there is an expression. Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories. The little that i know about fred, i do not think he would tell lies about the work that is ahead. He would not claim easy victories. Theres another expression they used today in angola and mozambique. They used to say [speaking foreign language] that meant the struggle continues. Victory is certain. They dont. They dont say it that way no more. They say now [speaking foreign language] which means, victory is a continuous process. It is hard as hell and struggle is certain. I am delighted you all are here. We have leadership here. It has been wonderful. Thank you. [applause] i would like yes, mrs. Hanson . [applause] such a beautiful crowd. Everybody. Thank you. Thank you a lot. But it got something to tell you. I am freds mother and i want you to know this. Anybody that wants to name a street after the child that got killed on, i want to see them and i want to talk to them tonight. I want to let you know i dont approve of it. I never approve of it. Who would want to walk down a street and see a house where their son was murdered in an the street he was killed on . And i want to let you know, i dont approve of it. I will never approve of it. Whoever do it, they stink and i dont care who they are. And i thank you a lot. [applause] i think we shouldnt take questions there it is that all right . Thank you very much. This audience is so beautiful. We cant really ask you to stay for questions. So, sam willis, who many of you know, who is a longtime civil rights lawyer, community organizer, and has been instrumental in pursuing the birch torture cases for decades and will not let go of that struggle anymore than these struggle around the truth of the murder of fred hampton. Let sam have the last word. [applause] sam thank you very much. This is a wonderful panel. Lets give the panel a big hands. [applause] i think i would be remiss if i didnt at least tell you about my recollections very briefly, of chairman fred. I met fred before many of you all did. I met fred in 1967. I was at crane college. And many of you know about their struggle. It was a Student Movement that developed in chicago before the Panther Party came to chicago and we had organized students all over the city and crane was considered the most militant and active students in the city. We had organized an africanAmerican History club. I was the chairman of that club. And the students around me, we formed a leadership at the school and we decided i should run for Student Senate to take over the school, and so we did. We had a vigorous campaign. My Vice President , and this will be the connection was henry english. Rufus walls and bob, who died several years ago took over the africanAmerican History club, so we controlled both. The whole point was to carry the message, and for us, the message and celine hit it right on the head, was the message that we got from outcome, and that malcolm, and that was essentially we need to take control over our community. We need to take control of our history. We need to demand that these schools teach africanAmerican History, so one of our demands at that time was that students should be involved in everything at the school and another demand was we should name the school and they had a big debate about that. They wanted to name it at a certain point booker t. Washington. We said, it has to be named malcolm x. And we fought them around the issue and of course, it is named malcolm x now. [applause] the interesting thing, i eventually ended up as a lawyer. In 1967, we noticed there were new forces on the block. And we were trying to imagine what was going on. We were not that concerned because at that point we were pretty strong on campus and we were very cordial. We organized a8, demonstration that involved students. This proceeded kent state. This was National Guards who killed a bunch of young black students. Of course dr. King was killed in april. And we had this massive memorial. Probably in may, because i left in june. I was finishing by the way, at the same time, we were organizing. I was a brusqu bus driver at th. We had bus drivers and we organized the largest tract in the city. But at the big rally you may remember that name they were all there. Fred and i spoke on the same panel. I remember i spoke before fred. It was clear that fred was emerging. It was clear to me. And i spoke, and i dont remember precisely, because i do not usually talk about history. We learned then you should be about trying to shape it and not talk about it so much. But i spoke, and one of the themes i was articulating which i had heard at that time was about stokely and it was about undying love for black people. So chairman fred was one or two speakers behind me and it was not his thing, but he made comments on my speech. It was something like, it depends on who they are. If they are not for us, they are against us and we dont love them. He was very popular, obviously. He told me his were going to change. I left the university of chicago and i joined the Student Movement there, but i was hearing from my comrades crane. Henry english, rufus walls that came tucker walls. And what i was hearing was the party was growing and many of the people who followed me were joining the party. That was the connection. I was in chicago and we were building a movement there. In 1969, i was at university and i heard the news. I think i was in the dorm, my girlfriends dorm, and it was hard to describe the hurts, the anger, the concern. It was clear to me even before the revelation that the government was coming down, because we were on the phone and we always joked about you are always on the phone talking to the government because we knew they were following us. I think theres a level of paranoia that goes along with the movement. Now we know that they were following us. We always talk like that. We knew something was happening. We were concerned, of course, with other Panther Party members. Hidingent into for a period of time. So the community began to embrace them and checked them. We continue to work around party protect them. We continue to work around party issues, even after the government came down and cracked down. There was a Wonderful Party some of you all remember even after the party had been destroyed, it was going into the 1970s yvonne and i, she was coordinating sending buses to the prison. The party work continued. The party work continues with many of us. It was a very strong movement. It was a movement of revolutionaries, and the government came down on them and we had this thing that our commitment has to go beyond the fear of the government. We knew that they would demonize us. That does not stop our movement. Five by thebit people at this table exemplified by the people at this table. Some of them have been around for a long time. And so, young people, theres a lot of hope. The world is changing. We learned that our struggle is not just a local struggle. We learned in those days, they were killing others in africa. They knew we knew in the past they killed malcolm and we told them that they killed martin and others. I think those are some of the lessons. We are more aware of what the government will do, but we are also more able to fight the government because we know very well. I say it we are very grateful that you came out. We are hoping you will continue whatever struggles you are involved in. Continue them in the spirit of fred. Continue them knowing they can kill the revolutionary but they cannot kill the revolution. [applause] there are refreshments up. Thank you all very, very much. Please, jeff will be signing books. You can talk to him and the panel. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv feature 48 where we hours of programs exploring our nations past. American night on history tv, we look back to the december of 1998 house floor debate on articles of impeachment against president clinton. The Judiciary Committee has recommended four articles and the full house voted to approve two, making clinton only the second president in u. S. History to be impeached since Andrew Johnson in 1868. Here is a preview. Thet the center of this, relationship between president clinton and monica linsky, where was she at this time . Lewinsky had become a celebrity. By the time we see the trial happen, she had become so practiced at answering questions and giving testimony that she could run circles around her questioners. Why didnt you want to testify . Would you have wanted to avoid testifying . First of all, i said it was nobodys business. Second, i did not want to have anything to do with paula jones or her case. Atshe had gone to california one point. She was working on a book with a ghostwriter. She was doing it to try to earn enough money to pay her legal because they were stacking up. She had a good legal team. Justice is so important to the most humble among us. Equal justice under the law, that is what we are fighting for. When the chief Law Enforcement officer trivializes and ignores the sanctityizes of the oath and justice is wounded, you are wounded and your children are wounded. Follow your conscience and you will serve the country, thank you. [applause] we are now rapidly descending into a politics where life imitates farce. America is held hostage. The tactics of smear and fear. Today say nos here to resignation, no to impeachment, no to hatred, no to intolerance of each other and no to vicious selfrighteousness. [applause] you can watch more of the house floor debate on the impeachment of president clinton, sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and 5 00 pacific on American History tv. Q a, thet, on professor of medicine at Columbia University talks about her book, the first cell and the human cost of pursuing cancer to the last. I should besurface, proclaiming victory from the rooftops right now. That we have gone from having the universal death sentence to curing 68 of cancers today. Only 32 of people die. With both groups, the treatable and nontreatable, i asked a fundamental question. 60 ,eople we are curing, my frustration is why are we approaches these of , poison and burn . Where has 200 billion of research gone . Why are we not finding better ways of treating cancer . At 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. War, next on the civil author marc leepson discusses confederate general jubal earlys summer 1864 campaign into maryland and the outskirts of washington, d. C. The offensive was part of a larger strategy by general robert e. Lee to draw the union armys attention and resources away from targeting the confederate capital of richmond, virginia. The Mosby Heritage Area Association is the host of this event. I want to thank cspan. You know, we are celebrating our 22nd year. Cspan is celebrating 40 years, this year. Congratulations, cspan. [applause] they are the ones they Cover Congress from gaveltogavel and they do not make any spin. Its just what it is, and isnt that nice, not to have talking heads tell you how to interpret what is going on. You do a great thing for our country. Thank you for being here tonight