The Atlantic
Judas and the Black Messiah
The new crime thriller about a magnetic leader of the Black Panther Party is a sharp criticism of the FBI’s surveillance of social movements past and present.
February 13, 2021
When Black groups agitate for better living conditions and an end to systemic racism and police brutality, they are quickly labeled a threat to national security.Warner Bros.
“The Black Panthers are the single greatest threat to our national security. Our counterintelligence program must prevent the rise of a Black messiah from among their midst.” And so begins
Judas and the Black Messiah, with an ominous speech from the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (played by Martin Sheen) in 1968. The film, which debuted yesterday in theaters and on HBO Max, is part crime thriller, part civil-rights historical drama. It tells the story of the rise of the Black Panther Party’s deputy chairman, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), and the informant who helped the FBI orchestrat