Racism Today: Intervu w. Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr., the Black Panther Pantha Cubs & their revolution for self-determination

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), YouTube video, as well as being syndicated on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, RUvid and Ivoox (links below).

Reflections before starting:

Please note that Chairman Fred’s contact information is at the end of the interview. Also, I hope you will follow my suit and make a donation to save Fred Hampton Sr.’s childhood home, with the goal of turning it into a museum: https://www.gofundme.com/f/SaveTheHamptonHouse50/. I added many hyperlinks throughout the interview, for your further research and study. At the end, there is also a list of Key Words from my “Tupac” interview with John Potash, for more references to look up.

Few interviews over the years have touched me the way this one has, with Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr. … William Blake wrote about the doors of perception. Already humbly further along my arc of anti-imperial awareness (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/china-rising-the-book/) than most Westerners, researching about the Black Panthers, getting to know Chairman Fred and chatting with his mother, Akua Njeri, quite simply blew my understanding of the United States off its metaphorical hinges and into outer space.

First, I am awestruck by how inspired the Black Panthers were and are by giants of communism-socialism, including Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara and many others. They fervently believe in the socialist foundations of the Black Panthers as the vanguard party, the party of the people, a revolutionary party, all power to the people, serve the people, solidarity among all peoples, and the noble goals of self-determination, true freedom and social justice for all of humanity. It is not vacuous rhetoric. They were and are fighting and dying for their liberty. They realize that violent oppression and capitalist terrorism in Africa, Asia and Latin America are inseparably tied to the government genocide being perpetrated on Blacks, Reds, Browns, Yellows and the poor across the United States. This also goes for other anti-imperialist groups, such as the American Indian Movement (AIM – http://www.aimovement.org/) and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (MEChA – https://nationalmecha.blogspot.com/).

The next thing that strikes me is how intelligent and articulate all these freedom fighters are. Listening/watching footage of celebrated heroes and heroines of the Black Panthers, Chairman Fred, Jr., his father, Comrades Akua Njeri, Tupac Shakur, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Assata Shakur, Malcolm X and so many scores of others gives awestruck goosebumps to anybody with a conscience and a heart. The only answer the US government machinery has had and continues to have against these and future towers of inspiration and righteousness is to try to annihilate them. But, as Chairman Fred, Sr. said many times, “You can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution”.

Through it all, I keep coming back to a sad reality. White, middle class Americans by the millions protested in the 1960s-1970s against the Vietnam War, against the slaughter of Asian peoples, against genocide and extermination as an instrument of official global capitalist policy. In fact, the 1968 Democratic (Party) National Convention protests and riots took place right in Chairman Fred’s hometown of Chicago, when tens of thousands of antiwar protesters and police waged pitched battles on its streets.

Those sincere, mostly White, middle- and upper-class protesters were trying to stop the war in Southeast Asia. However, blinded by centuries of internalized racism and an inculcated sense of intellectual and cultural superiority, they completely ignored (and still do) the just-as-violent war being waged on the south side of Chicago, in what Black citizens nowadays call Chiraq, meaning that just like Iraq, South Chicago is an invaded, occupied, plundered country and people.

Heinous, relentless government genocide, land and resource theft, cultural cleansing, kangaroo courts and concentration camps were and are being used against, not just South Chicago’s oppressed masses, but all Black, Red, Brown, Yellow and poor peoples across the United States, who are mired in generational urban poverty and rural third world towns alike. The coup de grace is the CIA’s global heroin and cocaine empires that intentionally funnel their deadly chemicals into these targeted populations, to weaken, suborn and kill them, while guaranteeing a vortex of common crime, gun violence, mass political incarceration and plenty of money to be laundered by the oligarchs’ A-list of local banks and businesses.

America’s 1%, the oligarchs, going back to 19^th century’s prairie populist, socialist, communist and labor movements move into high gear, whenever oppressed Whites begin to combine revolutionary forces with their colored comrades. They know how to exploit White Americans’ innate sense of racial superiority, offering them a few extra table scraps and/or a slightly higher social status, to split them apart. And when people of color, like Blacks, Reds and Browns join revolutionary hands, like they did in the 1960s, the oligarchs don’t mess around. Let the annihilation and extermination begin, and as this interview so poignantly demonstrates, it started with the first imperial colonists landing in Jamestown in 1607, exploiting slavery and the genocide of Natives, as it continues across the country on a daily basis.

Now, White Americans ignoring the plight of their Black, Red, Brown, Yellow brothers and sisters all these centuries has caught up with them. Government genocide is now inching its way up the socioeconomic ladder into lower-middle- and middle-class neighborhoods. Their trillion-dollar rape and plunder during the oligarchic-planned 2008 crash was the first expropriation across their collective bow. Now, with the (likely planned) coronavirus boot of hysteria on their throats, and with no end in sight, much of America’s middle class will join the ranks of their colored brethren, in a downward spiral of government-organized, socioeconomic sodomization and police state fascism (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/03/07/its-all-here-the-china-rising-radio-sinoland-covid-19-chemical-and-bioweapon-file-film-and-tape-library/).

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S I D E B A R
Racism is alive and well in the US, and as usual deeply embedded in our social fabric. The recent senseless murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, in broad daylight, and the neurotic racist rant by Amy Cooper in New York reminds us of its malevolent existence in our midst. Below some video on reactions to Floyd's death across the nation (note the high White component among the protesters), and comment on Amy Cooper's malicious cry for help to police. 

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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's reaction (unusual for a establishment figure). 

Mayor demands the attorney general charge the arresting officers as defendants in a criminal offense.

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Frey explains his rationale—or he tries to. It's hard to push against a precedent of silence by authorities and "ultra legalism".

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BELOW: Discussion on the disgusting racist attempt by Amy Cooper to "sick" the police on a black man. The stench of Emmett Till's cowardly (and unpunished) murder comes to mind. We have seen this before, of course. And this woman is not even capable of handling her dog humanely, as the images attest.

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And here's another comment on this incident:

America’s minorities have been in trenches of anti-colonial, anti-capitalist resistance for four hundred years and are much better experienced to survive an induced economic depression. History shows that the White majority always ends up hoisting itself on its own racist petard. Maybe, just maybe this time, increasingly desperate conditions will harken to their better angels. Theirs, everybody’s survival may depend on it.

Finally, I feel terrible about the low quality of our audio interview recording. We had a gawd-awful connection, being halfway around the world from each other. I learned a hard lesson that Skype-to-mobile does not cut it, when recording a conversation. Thus, I spent many painstaking hours listening and relistening to our fascinating discussion, individual words and phrases at a time, to faithfully render it below. It was a labor of revolutionary love, for which the Prisoners of Conscious Committee, Black Panther Pantha Cubs, and the proud, defiant legacy of their many courageous, politically imprisoned, fallen heroes and heroines deserve nothing less. It is truly a visionary manifesto of resistance and hope for peoples of all races, creeds, socioeconomic classes and nationalities.

Prepare for the American history lesson of your lifetime…

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A visionary manifesto of resistance and hope

Jeff J. Brown: Good evening, everybody, this is Jeff J. Brown, China Rising Radio Sinoland in Chiang Mai Thailand. And, man, have we got a special guest on the air tonight.

I’m going to go north through China, through great mother Russia, across the Arctic, across the North Pole, down into Canada. And I’m going to go to Chicago, the Windy City.

And on the south side of Chicago, there are revolutionary souljahs who are fighting for solidarity and freedom, for their self-determination and to serve the people. And a driving force behind that movement is Chairman Fred Hampton Junior. How are you doing, Chairman Fred?

Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr.: Good, good, we are taking care of all our business, keeping our head up, still fighting. Keep an eye on our heroes.

Jeff: Hey, listen, I’m seriously honored to have Chairman Fred on the show on the show tonight.

I would like to thank John Potash, whom I’ve interviewed here about his two books, and he’s the one who put Chairman Fred and me in touch (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/12/16/john-potash-talks-about-his-explosive-book-the-fbi-war-on-tupac-shakur-and-black-leaders-u-s-intelligences-murderous-targeting-of-tupac-mlk-malcolm-panthers-hendrix-marley/ and https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/02/28/john-potash-talks-about-his-explosive-book-drugs-as-a-weapon-against-us-cia-murderous-war-on-musicians-and-activists/).

Let me just give you a bullet bio about Chairman Fred,

Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr., the son of assassinated Black Panther Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton, Sr., and comrade mother Akua Njeri, is the founder of the Prisoners of Conscious Committee (POCC). Chairman Fred Junior is an active community organizer and is currently President and Chairman of the POCC, which also includes the Black Panther Pantha Cubs (BPPC). So happy to have you on the show, Chairman Fred.

Fred: I’m honored to be on the show with you. It’s a chance to stand up and appreciate you and John Potash for making the connection, and also to the mission and people in general.

Jeff:  I know you have told your story and your mother’s and your father’s story many, many times, but it bears repeating. And for probably the vast majority of the fans of China Rising Radio Sinoland out there, they probably do not have very good information or accurate information about you, your father and your mother.

So, could you just please introduce yourself and tell us about your life and your parents’ lives?

Fred: Yes, indeed. Well, there are many, many aspects. From the state’s perspective and the system’s perspective, I am a three-strike offender: 1) which is just simply being an African, 2) being the son of Chairman Fred Hampton and Akua Njeri (earlier known as Deborah Johnson) and 3) continuing to being a fighter for the liberation of our people. Those who are familiar with who Fred Hampton, Sr. was, know that he was Chairman of the State of Illinois for the Black Panther Party.

In fact, the Black Panther Party is a revolutionary organization, which started on October 16, 1966, in Oakland, California, by Minister Huey P. Newton (https://hueypnewtonfoundation.org/) and Chairman Bobby Seale (http://www.bobbyseale.com/). They had chapters internationally. It was responsible for a number of different survival programs such as the school and food programs, which in fact in Chicago fed a minimum of 3,500 children a week. Also, there were free medical centers, free busing programs for prisons. But, these are not programs implemented in the interests of charity, but for progress in getting everybody looking at and involved to fight for that type of self-determination. Recognizing that the people are their own liberators. What this says, even the system, by the government’s own account, when the Black Panther Party was in existence, it was acknowledged that there was a record low, what was referred to in the media arena, as Black-on-Black crime.

So, while people would think the logical response would be that all this should be applauded and  acknowledged, however they were targeted, in particular by the infamous COINTEL program, known as the Counter Intelligence Program, which, as you know, is articulated by the former director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and its Director of Domestic Intelligence Programs, William Sullivan. A program created to discredit, deny, disrupt Black nationalist movements, especially amongst the youth, of which over 90 percent was directed to the Black Panther Party. It consisted of, but was not limited to forcing individuals out of the country to seek political asylum, which is still the case today for people like Assata Shakur (http://www.assatashakur.org/). It consisted of framing individuals on trumped up charges, to keep people in various US prisons, including today with no telling how many others captured in prisons. You have cases such as Jalil Muntaqim (https://freejalil.com/), H. Rap Brown (http://imamjamilactionnetwork.weebly.com/), Mumia Abu-Jamal (https://www.freemumia.com/), Sundiata Acoli (http://www.sundiataacoli.org/), the list goes on and on (https://operamundi.uol.com.br/politica-e-economia/40718/a-list-of-54-political-prisoners-in-the-united-states). It also consisted of straight out assassinations.

All of these activities have happened abroad, outside the country, and right here in the confines of the United States. So, it is similar to warfighting. Then on December 4^th, 1969, along with April 6^th, 1968, when Robert “Bobby” Hutton, American Black Panther leader and treasurer, was shot to death by Oakland police at 17, in California (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/hutton-bobby-1950-1968/) and so many others. So, on December 4^th, 1969, was the day 21-year-old Fred Hampton and 23-year-old Mark Clark were assassinated on the West side of Chicago (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/hampton-fred-1948-1969/).

My mother-to-be was also there when her husband and comrade was assassinated. In fact, she covered down over his body, when the Chicago police shot over 99 rounds inside the house, as she felt the shells coming through the mattress. She was 8.5 months pregnant with me at the time, the Chicago police department pulled her out of the room, they jammed a revolver to her stomach, saying she better not run. There were other (shot) survivors and they took them and placed them in jail (https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/12/04/50-years-ago-fred-hampton-was-murdered-by-police-each-year-his-loved-ones-gather-to-tell-his-story-this-legacy-is-under-attack/).

So, I was actually in jail before I got here!

Jeff: Unbelievable, unbelievable!

Fred: So, that’s the judicial system, yes indeed and I was born on December 29^th, 1969. It would have been nice if we could have ended it there, say have a successful trial. However, the same system that historically launched these attacks, still engages in that with the imprisonment of the people, of Blacks and other comrades across our communities.

I presently, fast forward, am tasked with, I chair an organization called the Black Panther Party Cubs, which says we intend to walk in the path of foot – paw steps of the Black Panther Party. And we have a number of their survival programs, like the Triple C’s, Choose-Community-Cubs. And we are not caught up in a time warp. But it’s not just some sort of idealism that we, you know, it’s like what Chairman Fred said, we have got to struggle to win. We’re faced with the same conditions, I mean, in the same vicious counterinsurgency, the core remains the same.  In fact in many cases it’s more intense, it has intensified. So, that’s presently what I’m working on and I’m humbled to engage in and continue to serve the people.

Jeff: Well, you know what, Chairman Fred? I read John Potash’s books and I’m outraged and full of absolute anger at what I read. I read his book about how Tupac was murdered by the state. And so, so, so many others, and the frame ups. I asked John Potash in that interview, I said, “I was reading your book and I’ve done a lot of research about genocide and this is genocide”. I mean, this is institutionalized genocide inside the United States against people of color. Don’t you agree that that’s exactly what it is?

Fred: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. In fact, Malcolm X (https://www.malcolmx.com/), the late Malcolm X, who was a minister of the Black Panther Party, said – we identify ourselves as the ideological sons and daughters of Malcolm X – said the American model, which says American democracy is an hypocrisy, it is a farce and a façade. One of the advantages for the United States in particular is this façade of freedom which allows it to exist, which allows it to challenge places, like it could be Thailand, or in Iran or Korea, to go abroad and it asks, you know, do they have political prisoners? In fact, (they talk about) human rights violations in Iraq and other places – yet right here in the confines of the United States, you know, we have assassinations that occur, we have political imprisonment. And the disadvantage to the victims of these attacks is that it is not an acknowledged war.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, you were framed up and sent up for 18 years and did hard time for 18 years. Right?

Fred: I was given a trumped-up charge at (age) 19, framed up for a couple of charges, in response to when Rodney King (https://rodneyking.org/) was beaten by the LAPD and the verdict in ?? Valley came down, there were uprisings throughout the country and the world. And this was one of the times that I was charged, given trumped up charges and in this case, it stuck. And I was given the 18 years since that time and it was Illinois state law and I served half that, nine years. I was in a concentration camp and survived, and it was due to support of the people that I was able to come out alive.

Jeff: Unbelievable. You know, and I love the fact I’d never heard that before. But I’ve listened to some of your other interviews, and it really is true. I mean, American prisons are absolutely, really concentration camps. And you know, if they want you off the streets, they either kill you, frame you and lock you up, or tie you up in lawsuits until you go broke and can’t feed yourself. And what’s so shocking for me, you know, like listening to your story and everybody else’s, is that it’s everybody: the D.A., the local cops, the FBI, the CIA, the judges, the prison wardens, the AFT -Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco, it’s the DEA. It is just institutionalized, you know, from top to bottom. It’s just shocking.

And it’s hard for people like me who led a life of, you know, white privilege growing up in the United States. I mean, this has been going on for a long, long time. And I really admire your courage and your mother’s courage to keep fighting it under such horrific conditions.

Fred: Well, you know, I thank you, for this opportunity for you to use whatever apparatuses you have to get the word out about what we’re doing – to reiterate your point – about the machinery, the machine itself. I mean it’s one thing to say that, OK, there’s one particular law enforcement official, one particular agency, you know, that had it out for you, but it’s the machine, which is referred to in Chicago as the infamous Machine and the machinery of it, I mean, the different dynamics of it. You named what many people refer to as the alphabet, the alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies.

Well, however, in addition to that, I mean, all the propaganda, Hollywood, the movies, the TV, the school system is not a coincidence that, I mean, you’re in Thailand, yet there are people right now in the confines of the United States who do not know. And it’s not due to a lack of organizations or individuals laying this information out. It’s because there is a fear factor that not only the repercussions on the people who engage in struggle, but also those who even acknowledge this, the imprisonments, how they attack, how they engage in the breaking process, like to the point of chattel slavery. You know, they like to talk about international atrocities. But here, for example, it’s hard to express it in words, you’d have a case where for example, a slave, a pregnant woman escaping a plantation. She would not just be captured, no, she would be brought back in front of the local population, her stomach split open and her fetus stomped to death. This is the breaking process.

And we see it in the way Chairman Fred was assassinated. You know, his body was taken outside of the house by the Chicago police and they were chanting, “CHAIRMAN FRED IS DEAD”!  And this was designed to be a message of terror, to terrorize the masses, horrify the masses. In the area where Chairman Fred lived, in the hours after he was assassinated, young men in particular, were taken outside of their homes and they were told that there would never be another Fred Hampton.

Jeff: No kidding. Unbelievable.

Well, you know, I read Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s book, A Native American History of the United States (https://www.reddirtsite.com/). And she said from the very first day when the settlers landed in Jamestown in 1607, they started slaughtering Indians and they had slaves and it hasn’t stopped. I mean, they have just been exterminating and trying literally to wipe out anybody who stands up against slavery, you know, against injustice.

You know to me, that’s what’s so shocking about, as you said, all is the Black Panthers did was create daycare centers, free clinics, food programs for children. You know, things that any civilized country would expect to be done. And yet because of that, there was an organized campaign of extermination against the Black Panthers, musicians, rap and hip-hop artists.

It is just fascism. I mean, I’m sorry to say, I think that’s what it is, Chairman Fred (who chuckles). I think America has always been a fascist police state for Blacks and Browns and Reds and Yellows and poor people. You know, it’s always been that way. But that fascism is starting to show its ugly face now in the middle class, you know, nicer neighborhoods and more and more people, you know, we’re all starting to get… More and more of us are starting to get a taste of it, you know? And they’re not only in the cities, but in the countryside.

Any comments?

Fred: Yes, indeed. Prior to this current climate, the climate of the coronavirus. You know, the present administration, the Trump administration, more blatantly acknowledging what has historically been US policy. In fact, I’ll probably paraphrase it, when detainment centers were brought up in the media, President Donald Trump said, “This is nothing new, they existed under the tenure of the Clinton and Obama administrations, and so on and so forth. Again, these things are nothing new, but are now being blatantly exposed. And now particularly in this climate of the coronavirus, it’s really capitalism on steroids…

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, absolutely… Oligarchic capitalism. I mean it’s just unbelievable. It’s just shocking.

Fred: Yeah, yeah, it is. And, you know, this is an asset as well as a liability in many cases, people you know adapt so well to different conditions, therefore they don’t even acknowledge the contradictions – for example Assata Shakur said something like that, we need to know we’re being oppressed and we need to be mindful of that, not to become demoralized or defeated. But, it is important to acknowledge that these are contradictions. You know what I’m saying, what I mean? People getting used to being pulled over by the police for blatant strip searches.

Cook County Jail in Chicago, which is the largest county jail in the country (https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2006/nov/15/illinois-cook-county-jail-embroiled-in-shootings-scandals-and-escapes/) . You know, where conditions of death, where 17-year-old ladies are forced to reuse sanitary napkins, and in Pontiac, Illinois,  the prison there, where visitors are going and the prisoners are having to wear black masks on their faces and a rubber grill over the mouthpiece. A case where 80-year-old Sundiata Acoli continues to be denied parole. The conditions of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier (https://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/), and so many others, you know, rampant cases of police terrorism. A few nights ago in Indianapolis, there was the case of Shawn Greene (https://www.wishtv.com/news/the-murder-of-shawn-greene-was-no-accident/), a young 20-21-years old, who was live streaming on Facebook, when he was shot by police 15 times and his phone filmed them talking about how, “This is going to be a closed casket case” and laughing about it.

It’s not only the police, but this trickles down to the community, where sentiments are expressed by two (White) men in a truck dragging down and shot 21-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia (https://www.thecut.com/2020/05/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-georgia-explainer.html). So, this is the climate we live in. You know, many people started to resist and continue to fight it. As Marvin Gaye said, “This is not living” (http://www.marvingaye.net/).

Jeff: Yeah, and they are not only gunning down people. I’ve seen footage on YouTube where the police actually run over people. They run them down in their squad cars, you know, just like they are dogs or something. It’s just unbelievable. Shooting them, shooting them in the back, you know, multiple times. I mean, it’s just…

And then there was the other day. I don’t know if you saw it. I just saw this just a couple, three days ago. A young black man named Amahad? I’m sorry, I’m muffing his name, Aikens or something like that in Jacksonville, Florida. And in broad daylight, two White racists ran him down in a pickup truck and shot him in broad daylight with a shotgun.

Fred: No, that was actually Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

Jeff: I thought it was in Jacksonville, Florida.

Fred: No, Glenn County, Georgia.

Jeff: Oh, Georgia. Okay. And he was jogging. He was jogging in a White neighborhood and they just gunned him down in broad daylight, – just like – what is this? It’s like lynching never stopped.

Fred: No, it hasn’t. No, it hasn’t. No, it hasn’t.

Jeff: And then I heard you in another interview the incredible story about Aaron Patterson (https://www.liberationnews.org/07-08-28-antipolice-brutality-activist-a-html/). I mean, there are so many of them. It’s just never going to end, it is a campaign of genocide against people of conscious, you know, who just want their freedom, self-determination, to serve to serve their people, help each other and global capitalism doesn’t like that!

Fred: You know, it uses, it operates under the auspices of the war on drugs, war on gangs, war on guns, what have you, you know. But again, all these contradictions, you know are home grown. And in fact the infamous, on December 4^th, 1969,  the assassination of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, we have the infamous Joe “Machine Gun” Gorman (https://sfbayview.com/2010/07/trial-of-police-torturer-jon-burge/) who later was part of the elite team, which is the case of Aaron Patterson and some of the others, who were tortured by the infamous former Jon Burge (https://theintercept.com/2018/09/25/jon-burge-chicago-police-torture/). He could be described as a home-grown terrorist. He was trained at Fort Benning, Georgia (https://www.globalrights.info/2017/03/75903/). This, with all the attacks he implemented and engaged in abroad. He would electroshock his victims on their private parts and sex organs, on Jackie Wilson (https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2019/appeals-court-affirms-new-trial-for-burge-torture-survivor/) as so many others. Burge was working right on the southeast side of Chicago.

And then, in concert with these attacks, being constantly attacked… I mean, the propaganda campaign to put up the front, you know, saying you know everything is fine. To quote unquote, put out reports of supposed (Black) success stories. This image, which in particular sets back our struggle abroad, because the images are that everything is OK. You know what I’m saying?

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fred: You’ll see in America, where you’ll see different, you know, hip hop artists, who have been raised up, you know what I’m saying? To give the image that these abuses are not occurring. And in many instances, it also confuses the local populus, the people themselves.

Jeff: Absolutely, absolutely.

Fred: This was a battle of the Black Panther Party. We are fighting for the minds and the hearts, as well as the lives of the people.

Jeff: You brought up a very good point, Comrade Fred, and that is that none of this, none of this could happen without a completely debased and corrupt media. They are the linchpin. You know, the mainstream media is the linchpin that makes all this possible by massive censorship and fake news (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/02/14/presstitutes-in-the-pay-of-the-cia-confession-from-the-profession-book-interview-with-john-paul-leonard-and-andrew-schlademan-china-rising-radio-sinoland-200214/).

You know, I remember reading John Potash, his book about Tupac. Tupac got the gangs, the Latin Kings and the Black gangs, the Crips and the Bloods and all of them to work together. And so, then the FBI goes out and, well, first off, they get the media to start talking about a gang war and they seed it in everybody’s mind that there’s tension between, you know, these groups. And they do that for a couple of months. And then the FBI goes out and guns down a couple of Latin guys and then they go out and they gun down a couple of Black guys. And then the media piles in and says, look, you know, it’s a gang war! You know? And the whole damn thing has been basically plotted and planned by the U.S. government. It’s what I call the government managed media, and it is just unbelievable.

Fred: Orchestrated, you know, the deal is the way it’s done is to tap into the emotions of the people, in which case you have illogical responses. In the city of Chicago, which is infamous for being known as Chiraq, and I’ll go into that during this interview. But as a history, like you know, the people just have reactionary responses, because all they see is the end results, not the different dynamics we see. Lots of cases, an example is Rwanda. Many people thought it was just a simple case of Hutus and Tutsis fighting each other. But, they gave them, the setup was there were various entities, members of the ruling class, the Belgians and the French (https://forpressfound.livejournal.com/56154.html and https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/12/americas-secret-role-in-the-rwandan-genocide).

The fact is that the media, the propaganda of the days before the genocide occurred in Rwanda, doing radio broadcasts to point out in this particular community -you know, this was actually just one community, but in other communities there were class contradictions that were exploited to the point that they were exploited and were armed, they actually gave them the resources. Then add to that the same entities, the ruling class, the same imperialist powers. You see what I’m saying, they create all this, set it up and then they can come in and be seen as the savior and we’re going to sue them in (ICC) court (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/03/29/icc-is-an-imperial-sledgehammer-to-destroy-euranglolands-enemies-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180330/). And you’re going have justice now.

This is a constant play of comrade communities against comrade communities. Chicago is the place where there were the infamous Woodlawn experiments, where entities such as the University Chicago, Sears & Roebuck, First National Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318586486_Black_powerwhite_control_The_struggle_of_the_Woodlawn_Organization_in_Chicago). You know they sent in physical agents financed with cash to shoot the bell??? under the auspices of programs to start the crime, in essence to  quote unquote, to start gang war, so that the police department could say they were there to fight it by doing drive-byes in front of the Blackstone Ranger headquarters (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/545689.The_Blackstone_Rangers).

This is not just about a crime epidemic, you know people say they see racism or hatred, but it is done to decrease the property value in a public place. And so, the property value goes down a lot and this is how the University of Chicago and other entities get their property. We see it today in Chicago, under the auspices of programs like, called New Communities (http://www.newcommunities.org/), where they send in physical agents to create crime waves in our communities. You know, people watch the local news and all they see is people killing each other, but they don’t see the different dynamics that are at play.

Even the different cartels that are present in the city of Chicago – this was El Chapo’s main haven. The Two-Ninety Expressway was known as “Heroin Highway”. You know what I mean? I don’t know if you heard about it, but right here in Chicago – Chiraq – there were actually murders on a daily basis, grappling right in the middle of the expressway.

And it is no coincidence that under Mayor Rahm Emanuel (https://truthout.org/articles/rahm-emanuel-wants-you-to-forget-hes-a-corrupt-failure/), the previous mayor of Chicago, they didn’t even allow the movie El Chapo to be shown to be viewed in Chicago, the cases complete in New York (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6878066/). They did not want to make the connection of similar to the way that the Mafioso in days of old, they all were on the payroll. Luciano was not – they called him “Lucky”. He was on the government payroll. He was their liaison to be able to sell the drugs to the Black community. And these are different dynamics that, you know, they occur on day to day basis to a point where many people start to see it as the norm.

Jeff: Well, something that I learned a long time ago is that we’re not in Afghanistan, you know, to liberate the people who are there. We’re in Afghanistan so that the CIA and the army, NATO can haul off six or seven thousand tons of, you know, opium every year to a ship all over Europe and the United States.

And when I interviewed Douglas Valentine about his book, The CIA as Organized Crime (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/02/douglas-valentine-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-the-cia-is-global-capitalisms-secret-gangster-army-190702/). The CIA make sure that the heroin and the cocaine that they import with the Mafia and with t with the cartel gangs in Colombia, they make sure that those drugs don’t go to the nice neighborhoods, you know, the nice White neighborhoods, they make sure that those drugs get funneled into minority neighborhoods, in poor neighborhoods to keep them weak and have a reason to, you know, lock them up for the rest of their lives. So basically, the CIA and the FBI are the flip side or the other side of the coin of organized crime, to be honest.

What do you think?

Fred: Well, you talk, you make mention of entities that are the real power base, because lots of people talk about, you know, organized crime, even the gangsters. They’re not – they can’t even be put them into the same breath as the actual gangsters, gangsters and banksters, (Jeff chuckles) people who are in powerful positions, entities to make major decisions, again, the various law enforcement agencies, CIA, ATF and so on and so forth. It’s these guys that make major, major decisions.

The propaganda machine, the media, the decisions and the policies that are put in place. It trickles down and they get to the local level, so that many people think, you know, these (local) entities are gangsters. But they follow the lead of their designated role that has been laid out.

But the truth is that one of America’s definitions of democracy – America’s definition of democracy is to let others have their way (Jeff chuckles) That’s it. Not here in America. That’s American democracy. And you go to Iraq and people can be put into certain situations, where people say, well, “We demand more Coca-Cola”. And the people think that they made that choice. Here in Chicago, the people have a fear of crime and say, “We demand more ???, that our rights be violated more (Jeff chuckles). And the people believe that they’ve done it.

These include real estate, the mortgage companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the best mortgage companies, particularly in Chicago, there’s a mass displacement of people. This impacts the people for generations to come. You know what I’m saying? You’ll see even the crack cocaine, even the coronavirus, these forms, these strands are forms of chemical-biological warfare. Yes. Chemical-biological warfare. The way it’s done, you know who is, in fact, in Cook County it was reported yesterday that Chicago has surpassed New York and other places, with the largest number of people being attacked by the coronavirus.

Cook County Jail, the largest jail in the country, you know what I’m saying? The death toll, people like Nicholas Lee and the others, you know what I’m saying, the death toll is constantly increasing. And so, it traces back to these various entities again, who are the real power players.

But it’s also a way that the people, the victims take undue credit. You hear terms like Black-on-Black crime. You know, so we should just stop killing each other, you know, saying that it’s just a simple dynamic that people have no morals and what have you. It’s negating the policies that are put in place. You can even see the discussions now, where people are saying, “Well, with the coronavirus, even in well-to-do communities, people are saying, well, we don’t want to starve to death, so we have to open our ???, and so on and so forth.

So, people are letting… You know, it’s not that they just engage in certain things, activities, because of their astrological signs saying there are bad people. It’s policies – policies is food, clothing and shelter. How is it dispersed? Who gets it and who doesn’t get it? So, politics impacts everything. Everything like life and death.

Jeff: Well, as everybody’s pointed out, with this coronavirus, you know, I saw a line that America’s billionaires since the start of the coronavirus pandemic have increased their net worth, their net worth by 280 billion dollars (note, just in one week, it is now $434 billion – https://www.rt.com/business/489466-billionaires-wealth-growth-pandemic/). So, the coronavirus is very, very, very good for the one percent. And they’re going to come in later and scoop up small and medium enterprises and mom and pop shops and foreclosed houses, you know, for 10 cents on the dollar. It’s like, it’s just like a gigantic, you know, heist. You know, the heist of the century is what coronavirus seems to be. And plus, all the government subsidies, the trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars that they’re printing like mad to give to the banks and the corporations in the bond market and the stock market. And it’s definitely going to, definitely benefit them, not us.

Fred: Yes, indeed. You know, we say, they say crime pays. It’s done, definitely not for the people, it’s at the expense of the people. And as you just made out, you know, like the stimulus checks we’re supposed to get, and the people in the community on the ground, the discussion is, “Well, can we get this twelve hundred dollar check”? You know, you go back and look at under the George Bush administration, and Bush was even talking about… it was, I think was after the attack…

Jeff: 9/11.

Fred: Yeah, and you saw the discussions about the sixteen-hundred-dollar stimulus checks. So, these are different tactics that the people get caught up in, you know, the old carrot and the stick, you know, trivial concessions, you know at the same time, like a magician (Jeff chuckles), you know, like they put the pretty lady right there, yet at the same time, the big rip-off is going down (Jeff chuckles).

I mean, you look at the entities, like Ruth Chris, the restaurant, known for selling their $120 hamburgers. I mean, the millions of dollars that they received, with regards to the stimulus check, this is the dynamic. This is the dynamic (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/24/business/ruth-chris-jpmorgan-small-business-ppp/index.html).

Jeff: I read an article where someone did an analysis and each American gets twelve hundred dollars, while Wall Street and the banks and the billionaires get the equivalent of twenty-three thousand dollars. So, they’re getting 20 times more money than we are.

Fred: Yes. And you have to put in contrast, you know, just even look at the details the ??? work to. You go back and look at the contrast between those numbers, go even further – we look at one side of the community, and why are gas prices higher in oppressed areas? Why are food prices higher? So, everything down to the rent. Down to the mortgages. You know what I’m saying?

Really, I mean, it really should be looked at like a system, like money laundering scheme (Jeff chuckles). The money is going right through their hands. They get that money and it goes right back into the system, if they get to hold it for a minute, you know? So, it leads to oppression, like you put it, like you said, a big heist. What greater heist can you pull off? And people don’t even know who stuck them up. Which means, you also tell your children to be willing victims again. And so, the stick-up continues again, to be continuously stuck-up and ripped off and then add to that, to then take credit for being a victim of being stuck up (Jeff chuckles), “Well, I don’t have any money, because of something that I did wrong. I mean, it was Harriett Tubman who said she could free thousands of slaves, she could free thousands of slaves, only if they knew they were slaves.

 Jeff: Who said that (laughing)?

Fred: Harriet Tubman.

Jeff: Oh, yeah, Harriett Tubman, the Underground Railroad and all that (http://www.harriettubman.com/). Wow, that’s interesting. Yeah, unbelievable. Hey, listen, Chairman Fred, I want to talk about a couple more things. I mean, tell us about, and thank you for all that wonderful conversation. And to hear that coming from a comrade in Chiraq is very meaningful for me, and I know it will be for the audience out there.

There is an upcoming movie. I heard that as I was watching one of your interviews recently and you were talking about a movie about Fred Hampton, Sr. What’s the status of that?

Fred: Well, the present status of that, is that it is delayed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_Fred_Hampton_project). There’s no date set. There’s still a number of different struggles occurring, you know, everything, regarding from the title, which we feel, which are just some of the different particulars. Uh, let me just give you the background.

This is not the first time or discussions about a movie to be put out about Chairman Fred. In fact, we’ve had to address a number of different contradictions, because a movie is like anything else, because the legacy of not only Chairman Fred, but the Black Panther Party is something that, you know, we don’t take lightly. You know, in fact our position of the Black Panther Party Cubs is that a legacy is more important than your life because, you know, the people are saying that, “Woah, that’s kind of hard to say”. But, the reality that we see on a day-to-day basis, we have a certain amount of time to be, to watch it, to be blessed with life. This, our physical being.

A legacy serves as a template, a prototype for future situations, future generations. And we are talking about an organization that was targeted, an organization that the United States government said was the number one threat to the internal security of the United States, since the Civil War. So, in fact, before the movie, The Butler came out (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lee_daniels_the_butler), Forrest Whitaker was talking about doing a movie about Chairman Fred, and the Black Panther Party told him that, “His son don’t play no games”. The Cubs will be seeing and Antoine Fuqua was saying (https://variety.com/2017/film/news/antoine-fuqua-equalizer-2-black-panther-movie-sony-1202409106/), “Not that we don’t want to do without the checks and balances, just to do it in…” We know that in any particular mainstream movie, ask ??? or actors in Hollywood, you look at the case as a case, you know, that the goal, the momentum is, you know, entertainment, the reason in trying to find finance, so we don’t expect these entities to just lay out our interest in the truth.

Our legacy, our survival depends on that. So, this movie was set and there are contradictions that remain even in regards of other stuff, from another point of view, saying, “Well, what’s the big deal”? Well, contradictions such as, you know, how one of the major agent provocateurs, in fact a major agent provocateur, was the one who provided the floor plan for the assassination of Chairman Fred, William O’Neal (https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-last-hours-of-william-oneal/Content?oid=875101) – how will he be depicted and so on and so forth? And this is like something, like an imperative… Obviously they say that doesn’t make a difference. Okay. But everything’s political. Politics is like real estate, time and location and so forth (Jeff chuckles).

So, these are some of the causes that we have dealt with and are dealing with. So, it’s still up, it was initially in August, late August, release date for the movie to get out. We’ll still be the Black Panther Party, and I say that, our founders, myself and my mother, who I always feel fortunate to have as a person, the widow of Chairman Fred Hampton, who is still here. And we have to go against different, you know revisionist offers, people with unauthorized books, people who have sought out individuals in our family, you know what I’m saying? People who were not, who did not know nothing about the Black Panther Party, nothing about Chairman Fred, to raise them up.

There are organizations, not just the movie industry – organizations that have been created to counter us and to confuse people about what the Black Panther Party was. So, it’s a constant struggle. You’ll say, you know – woah – sometimes like what we do in the same breath, there are certain dynamics that we have to engage in for the sake of the people, like there will be multi-struggles, as we speak right now. That would be along like right now, the different campaigns and resistance is happening, as even with the coronavirus, the police killing our community has not ceased.

So, the people, their response, the bad thing, the good thing automatically is, oh, they have a blanket label, “It’s the Black Panthers, everybody is Black Panthers” (Jeff chuckles).  But, the deal is, we say is the right to resist, but the definition of the Black Panther Party is with the Black Panther Party. And may times as we’ve seen in the Black Power movement in the 60s, there were many actions that happened, that the Black Panther Party was incorrectly credited to. And you know what I’m saying? We have to fight to maintain the legacy, we have to cross our t’s and dot our i’s, we have to be on the ground, we have to be on the movie set, which we were and which we will be. Yessir, to make sure that we do it and that that legacy is kept intact.

Jeff: Is it going to be, Chairman Fred, is it going to be a documentary or a biopic?

Fred: As it stands now, it’s a biopic inspired by true stories. So, that’s good to acknowledge that, but the bad thing (in Hollywood) is that our people want to hear our part. You know, because the politics of media is very powerful, you know, just the fact that it is shown on TV, you know, people then say it’s a fact. And so, on the other end, is getting a discussion growing in certain arenas, so that people will acknowledge (this). I don’t know with this climate, it is going to be, you know, in this deal, if it is going to be a mainstream movie in movie theaters. So, I mean there’s talk about bringing the drive-ins (parked car theaters) back into the community, and so on and so forth. So, I don’t know about that. But, yes, well, this is the “pros” to it. When people see that it is in such an arena as that, “Oh, wow. this is something we gotta pay attention to”, because one kind of risk of being oppressed and colonized is, we take the word of those who are acknowledged by members of the ruling class.

So, that’s where it is now, inspired by a true story, because we have a number of different struggles, you know, about all the intensity… the reality of Hollywood and many other entities are incapable of the actual telling of the story of Chairman Fred. There are people right now, thanks to the clout of the coronavirus, whose political pores and ears can be more open to even acknowledge and are speaking about the suffering and the struggle because many times prior to this, it’s not a question about good people and bad people, it’s that they cannot even relate to our revolution???.

Like I said, for example, if you just talk about, for example, the Black Panther Party breakfast program, prior to this climate of coronavirus, there are many people that would say that they could not even understand it, let alone people in Hollywood. What? Why would there even be a need for a breakfast program? Well, why don’t those people just call Grub Hub (Jeff chuckles) and just order food? So, there’s this inability or unwillingness, or in the case for Hollywood, the inability to actually tell the story of Chairman Fred. So, we have be upfront about that…

Jeff: Yeah, well, go ahead…

Fred: We hope, we hope that it creates a thirst that people say, “Well, what is the real deal”? And you know what I’m saying, it is not enough to make actors entertain us… our leadership, I’m saying this is a tactic that Rome implemented. In fact, there was an interview with Malcolm X before and in this interview, someone said something to the effect that, “Well, Jackie Robinson disagrees with you about violence”. And Malcolm X’s response was, “Wait a minute. Don’t hold on us the deal that Jackie Robinson is our spokesperson. We don’t quote Bob Hope or Marilyn Monroe (Jeff laughs) for your community, you know what I’m saying”?

Okay. So, we have an entity. We have individuals from the Black Panther Party Cubs to say that this is what the Black Panther Party is about. Here are the programs, Triple C’s, Choose-Community-Cubs. We have the Free ‘Em All radio (https://www.blogtalkradio.com/str8uptalk). This is the organization. We are in the house. We have the house where Chairman Fred grew up in that we’re fighting to save and maintain it to turn into a museum to talk about who Chairman Fred was (https://www.gofundme.com/f/SaveTheHamptonHouse50/ and https://southsideweekly.com/bigger-than-a-building-hampton-home/). So, we’re discussing that.

Jeff: Well, I wish you the best. I wish you the best of luck, because Hollywood is a snake pit…

Fred: Whew, unbelievable. You’re telling me.

Jeff: And I just hope you can, I hope that the movie finds the real voice of your father and your mother. But, I know it’s gonna be a massive, massive struggle to make that happen because it’s just a cesspool. Hollywood is a cesspool, so I wish you the best of luck.

Hey, listen, you are the Chairman of the Prisoners of Conscious Committee (POCC), which also has, you know, the Black Panther Pantha Cubs. I love your logo, which I will put up. And by the way, for all the fans out there, I will put it up on the article. I’ve got Comrade Fred’s websites where you can buy his music, his music station, YouTube channel, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I’ve got all that, as well as his e-mail. So hopefully, if you’d like to get involved with the POCC and the mission of Chairman Fred, please do.

So, tell us about the POCC and what you all are doing in Chiraq.

Fred: POCC is an acronym for Prisoners of Conscience Committee, which you’ll hear us interchangeably use that as well as the Black Panther Party Cubs. It was literally, literally born behind enemy lines. Born inside the prisons, during the time I was myself held captive as a political prisoner. Though the brook??? of prisons is a major aspect of the history??? of the Black Panther Party, it was actually initially formed as the Black Panther Party of Self-Defense. And that was the initial dynamic of the party, with regards to the police brutality, which we refer to as police terrorism. That was a major aspect of the work of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. It later dropped the “self-defense”, but the party was and remains a revolutionary organization. The Prisoners of Conscious Committee, the prison question was initially a major aspect of our work – it still remains to be.

However, we are able to draw the correlation with Malcolm X, who said America itself represents prison. Or, Minister Huey P. Newton, who said that prison is a microcosm about that community. In other words, the police terrorism that we see in Mahoney??? where (Mumia) Abu-Jamal was held captive, you know, I’m saying the Attica, the Fulsom (infamous US prisons), we see run rampant in the colonized communities, from California to Chicago to Ohio, and so on and so forth.

So, this is a revolutionary organization that is a tough act to follow, a tough act to follow. We attempt to walk in the paw steps, in the panther paw steps of the Black Panther Party. And again, we don’t do it in the abstract romanticism way. You know, we want to be like the Panthers, with their political ideology, and we have paid a price for that. We have been targeted, we have been infiltrated, we have been targeted by the Nowatel??? Probe, the continuous counter-insurgency slander campaign. We’ve been hit financially, physically, politically. We have been hit by assassinations, you name it, we battle. You know we fight.

When I think about there’s a famous story about Minister Huey P. Newton. You know there was a fund raiser for the legal funds, for Minister Huey P. Newton’s legal defense fund. And at the fundraiser, they knocked up members of the Black Panther Party on trumped up charges, and the money raised at the fundraiser was $5,000. But the bail call for getting these people out was $5,000.

And so now, we campaign to raise funds, and at the same time, we have trumped up cases we got to deal with, you know. So, it’s been one thing after another. But we are honored, we are honored to walk again in the Panther paw steps. It’s a battle to the death, in teams against these entities that have been built up. And when the people themselves, a lot of times their emotional pores are open. And in Chicago, in particular, there is a dynamic about structure, you know, we are impacted by being the top segregated city in the country. So, there’s the race dynamic, but also the class dynamic that impacts us a lot.

And so we are fighting that structure and its legacy of pain, and at the same time find points of unity, with other individuals, from some different respective communities. As we said, Chairman Fred was able to pull up the Rainbow Coalition, which was a phenomenal feat. Mind you, mind you, in a city that was and remains the top segregated city in the country. Chairman Fred was able to grapple with the race, as well as the class contradictions, you know.

When we talk about this work, there’s a lot of ??? we have to do, like, you know, for example, just look back in regards to the movie, you know, in our decision to deal with it, we had to do damage control. I mean, you will be surprised the unauthorized books that are related to, that there are unauthorized individuals who they will use or reference. And that’s a contradiction many times in our community. I mean, the ruling class will grab certain individuals and raise them to tell an incorrect assessment. I mean there are certain moves we have to go into. I can’t tell you how many times, how many occasions -woah – I don’t really want to deal with this here.

But we say it’s service to the people. It’s not about me-I… We have to go in with “What’s the greater good”? We have to go in and address these contradictions. The cause to lay this out in many cases, not seeing, not being able to see the instant reward. Not seeing people’s conscious level, to be able to relate right then. It may be generations to come. There are moves that Chairman Fred did that many people were against. There were a lot people in the Rainbow Coalition who would not fit in many arenas. But, Chairman Fred was armed with the politic, as well as the principle. You know what I’m saying, to recognize that racism is a tool used by capitalism. It also recalls the quote by Huey P. Newton, who talked about lines of demarcation, “In whose interest do you work? It should be in other people”.

Jeff: You know, I just bought and have not had a chance to listen to it. I just downloaded as I was watching some of your other interviews and learned that there’s the Black Panther (Speeches) tapes available on Amazon. I downloaded them. And I think most of those are speeches by your father, aren’t they?

Fred: Yeah, so that’s what we have to address. You know that a lot of these entities, you know, are reaping resources of Chairman Fred and the Black Panther Party, you know, I mean, some of the same corporations, you know – we put some stuff together, called it “The Tag”???, I mean the information should be gotten out there. However, the deal is, the battles, the war chests, you know what I’m saying, is there.

You know it’s always ironic, you know, kind of like an interview on the news, on Suspicion???, I saw not too long ago, and they were interviewing people in Nazi Germany and they were saying, “How was it that the soldiers in the gas chambers, had, how did they get the book deals to benefit off all this”? And the deal is our community, some of these same ruling class entities, the Amazons and so forth, how are they reaping the resources off the blood, sweat and tears of Chairman Fred Hampton? Not only them, but all these lawyers, who back in the day, I mean, they make well-to-do. I mean it’s all the children who should be the spokespersons of Chairman Fred.

I mean, it’s ironic and it seems like blatant contradictions on the other hand, I mean we are in a vicious, a helluva, a heated battle to save the house he grew up in. Though we got the banks, we got the banks off our backs, we’re still in a battle to bring the building back to code, as we speak right now. I mean, the house, the flooding, the electrical problems, and all that and to play the card right now. We’re hiding these contradictions. How is it that there’s people who profit off that? At the same time, the Black Panther policy is that information is raw material for new ideas. But, what’s also important is where do you get these ideas from?

You know, I could see a difference, you know, the result, the unique dynamic of the Black Panther Party was that of self-determination. There are people who remember things, being fed their free breakfasts by the Black Panther Party free breakfast program. In so many cases, in so many organizations, it’s another entity calling the shots that’s feeding them, giving them their first sustenance and they become trained slaves for life, trained slaves for life, you know what I’m saying?

Jeff: Yeah…

Fred: So, we’re fighting to be sustainable, to be on our feet, so that our programs serve the people. So that the people say, “Wait a minute, that’s inspiring”! There’s an elementary school across the street from the house of Chairman Fred. Children go to that school admittedly do not even know who he was.

Jeff: Isn’t that incredible?

Fred: Yes, incredible. In the time that we’ve been here. We… The children now they walk with pride. They say, “That’s the house of Chairman Fred grew up in”! They talk about the case he was given, it’s not just relegated to February, Black History Month, it is tied into every conversation.

Jeff: Well, that’s the way it needs to be.

Fred: Yes, indeed.

Jeff: Hey, listen, I want to, after I read your poem, JUS’ CURIOUS?!, and found out that you’re a musician. I also bought everything I could find online for your music. And thanks to John Potash in his book about Tupac, and even the other one about all the musicians killed. You know, why/about Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. And it just goes on and on and on. Anyway, I had been brainwashed. I’ll admit it. I had been brainwashed by the Big Lie Propaganda Machine (BLPM) in the United States that, you know, rap was evil. And thanks to him (Potash), I got Tupac’s music, and I was just like blown away and I couldn’t believe how good his is, especially his first three albums. And then I bought yours. I bought your catalog. And you’re a great musician, too. And you also write poetry, you wrote a wonderful poem to your mother, I guess, I think back when you were in prison. and I showed that to my wife and daughter when I got that.

Tell us a little about your music and your poetry and what inspires you.

Fred: Right on. Everything, I am a revolutionary who does poetry. So generally speaking, it’s a release for me. Objectively speaking, we try to use various tools to get the word out. You know, to heighten the conscious of the people. Huey P. Newton also said that the people do not read as much as we would like for them to read, so, we use different tactics. So, even poetry is political. And you mentioned Tupac. He really did our job, because he was the pride of our organization. He was the organization and the organization needed him.

And, you know, we have been fortunate that so many artists in our time can be utilized. But we try to wear or marry that with the current climate, because in so many cases we see that, for example, Marvin Gaye was a troubled man because, you know, after the military defeat of the Black Power movement, not being able to put out what he wanted, and his relationship to the people. Rock Kim (Rakim – https://www.facebook.com/rakimallah), acknowledged as one of the groundbreakers of hip hop. He talked about how he was not able, you know, to collaborate with Dr. Dre? You know, Dr. Dre was a certain narrative that Dr. Dre wanted to push from him. You know, say this, give us this whole narrative about gangster gangs.

And ironically, a lot of these musicians they give us the same… their children are going to these, you know, these elite schools and so forth. The Dr. Dre’s and so forth. They want to feed this slop to our community and Rock Kim wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t go for it.

And to be able to articulate, it’s releasing to be able to… in any entity, or even including art, to not be leashed, to not be bridled, so they can’t say, “OK, don’t say that”. And that comes with certain mainstream, you know, companies and so on and so forth. So, I try to you know, it’s just ironic that we are having this discussion now. And now, as for youngsters, it’s a production for the beat, it’s a political education process to take them through. We may say, well, what’s the big difference? Even music is political. And I’ve had certain forces as well, certain types. And, you know, as soon as we get them, they will be bought off. They would be taken off.

But I did a piece I want you look forward to that I just released recently. And I’m trying to get it out now, I hope. But, the producer, I hope the music guy is listening, because he’s waiting too long to release it (Jeff laughs). We’re trying to get this released right now, because we don’t serve no cold meals. We want this right. This is a piece I’m releasing A.S.A.P. called, Ball of Corona.

Jeff:  Ball of Corona?.

I don’t know how it will sound, I don’t know how much time we got, but I can put it up, you know, give you a preview. I don’t know about how your sound is set up, if you want to try it.

Jeff: I would love to hear it! Let’s do it!

Fred: Let’s try it. One second. Let’s see. Let’s set this up It still has to be mastered down. We’re going to try this now… This (the title) is from the Temptations, their Ball of Confusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_of_Confusion_(That%27s_What_the_World_Is_Today))… It’s called Ball of Corona.

Jeff: Ball of Corona (laughing)!

Fred: Ball of Corona…

 Jeff: WOW! That is awesome, man (clapping)! Comrade Fred, you were on fire (laughing with joy)!

Fred: Right on, right on, right on. So, once we get the master down, we are going to have… Right on, right on.

Jeff: You were on fire, that was great. I tell you what, if you have the lyrics and send an e-mail to me, I’ll include them. I think that that’s one of the best poems I’ve heard in a long time. That’s wonderful.

Fred: Right on, right on, we’ll get that to you ASAP. Yes, indeed, we’ll get it out, yes indeed.

Jeff: Hey, listen, the reason I actually contacted you is I’m on your mailing list. I get your e-mail now that you send out and before we close out tonight – or in the morning for you – 12 hours earlier than me, you just had on May 5th, a demonstration in front of, I guess, the Cook County jail, which you said is the largest municipal concentration in the United States. And some poor guy named Nick, Nicholas Lee died in the jail on April 12^th (https://southsideweekly.com/not-getting-no-treatment-cook-county-jail-covid/).

What happened?

Fred: Cook County Jail has a notorious history prior to the coronavirus, the climate of coronavirus. In fact famed poet Gil Scott-Heron (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/gil-scott-heron-revolutionary-poet-and-musician-dead-at-62-235427/) talked about the Cook County Jail. OK, so I was prefacing that Cook County Jail has a notorious history. In fact, the largest jail, the largest jail in the country. In fact, the sheriff of Cook County Jail, Tom Dart (http://www.chicagoappleseed.org/our-blog/dart-covid-protections-federal-order/)has referenced to it as the largest mental health facility in country, before. And this is due in part to how mental health issues are dealt with in the Black community and other comrade communities. In fact, one of the first edicts of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel was to close down the mental health facilities in the Black community. And that’s also, that also goes with people calling it the “war on crime”. I mean it’s notorious, we talked about the 17-year-old sisters in Cook County Jail who, their sanitary napkins are reused. This has been going on… this is a notorious place – again, all these concentration camps in this country are notorious.

In fact, when the United Nations called it arbitrary detentions. In fact, no one has issues except the United States. You can’t come in and look. You know, we say right now with this climate of coronavirus, Cook County Jail plus the coronavirus can very easily equal a corpse. We are hearing report after report, and Cassandra Greer-Lee, the wife of, the widow of Nicholas Lee documented over 132 phone calls to the County Sheriff’s office that her husband was brought back from federal prison with a court writ, you know, it took some time to review his case, and unfortunately at this time, with the coronavirus and she’s talking about individuals coming in in top shape, healthy and their fast deterioration, I’m mean calling in, they are just dying, they are being murdered. You know, calling in and getting the runaround, being put on hold, being sent to other agencies – cut to the chase – they’re dying, being murdered. The blood of Nicholas Lee is on the hands of the administration. I mean Kelly Jackson (Deputy Chief of Cook County Jail – https://www.wbez.org/stories/in-cook-county-you-can-be-found-not-guilty-and-still-go-back-to-jail/d89cfe8b-1e5b-4882-95d4-831cad2e9ca6), Sheriff Tom Dart, Cook County, the whole gambit.

So, we’ve been out there. And not just in regards to Nicholas Lee, like on his birthday, to bring attention to, in calling for the early release, and we’ve got the numbers down and women have been released, exposing what is happening in the juvenile detention centers, to expose these are concentration camps throughout the country, to get out the word. So, it’s still going down, we’re still fighting, in fact we’ve currently got a mobilization going on, on Sunday we’re going to be in front of Cook County Jail at 11:30. Today, we are at the Townsend Building in downtown Chicago, to march for Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed in Georgia. But, this happening in Cook County Jail. I don’t know if you saw the quote by Frank Chapman (https://www.caarpr.org/)  who said, “Cook County Jail is a deathtrap”.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, I saw that, you said… that quote from Frank Chapman. Unbelievable.

Well, Comrade Fred, you and your mother and so many thousands of other freedom fighters are just, I mean,  you all have my deepest, most profound and humble respect and honor for what you all are doing. I interviewed a guy in New York City, Max Parry (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/03/21/max-parry-interviews-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-take-that-evil-empire-past-present-and-future-190322/). And, you know, at the end of the interview, I said, “Well, some days, you know, I really kind of get down, because things aren’t looking so good”. And he said, “We can’t let the bastards get us down”! And then I interviewed another guy who’s 90 years old,  Jay Janson, in New York City (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/04/30/the-jay-janson-archives-are-here-celebrate-the-life-of-a-nonagenarian-antiwar-anti-imperial-anti-global-capitalist-hero/). And he always says, “Until the last breath”! You know, he’s still fighting at 90 years of age for us, for social justice, for the 99 percent.

You all are just an inspiration for, I know so many people. And I think after all these new people have heard about you and your mother, Akua Njeri and the POCC, that you’re going to, you all are going to inspire many more, many more people around the world. Anyway, my hat’s off to you. And in fact, when I called you (earlier), I got your mom who answered the phone and she said, “Yeah, I’m going to be leaving at seven o’clock this morning, I’m going to go out working for three hours on the streets and I’m helping feed people. And I mean, that’s just amazing, you know?

Fred: I mean, if I can interject. You know, I feel fortunate to have fallen from the tree of two freedom fighters. And again, Akua Njeri, formerly known as Deborah Johnson, the widow of Chairman Fred, who covered down on him when shells were coming at them through the mattress, covered down on a comrade (http://www.hrcr.org/ccr/njeri.html). You know she chairs some of the support committees. She has been my comrade, from the streets to the movie set, she’s my gold counsel. She is the eyes of our advisory committee, she has been there to help a number of Black Panthers on our advisory committee. She is a phenomenal force. So, we were fortunate to still have her on deck. I mean every August 30^th, December 4^th in particular, but she is there every day to lay out the sequence of what happened that day, and what is happening right now. She doesn’t sit back and say, “Oh, I’m retired”. I mean, she still is, you know, fighting. And to be able to have her presence. We were fortunate.

Jeff: Yeah, well, it was an honor to say hello to her this morning. And I saw on TV on December 4^th, she was out there with you and Mark… I’m having a brain burp… Mark…

Fred: Mark Clark’s family.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. Mark Clark’s family, they were out there… And your mom was out there. Your mom was out there. And so it’s just phenomenal, inspirational and uplifting.

Hey, listen before we leave and say goodbye, and I hope this is not the last goodbye. But let’s do a little bit of call and response. I’m going to call out, I’m going to say a word and whatever comes to your mind, and given your amazing gift of poetry and music, let me know what you think.

Here’s the first word…

Revolution.

Fred: Complete, complete change.

Jeff: Solidarity.

Fred: United with common interests.

Jeff: Excellent…Freedom.

Fred: Freedom. Oh, we’ve been deprived. As mother comrade Akua Njeri said, we’ve been deprived for so long, sometimes it is hard to articulate. But, I know it like this, I know it’s the right to determine our destinies.

Jeff: Well, that was my next one,

Self-determination.

Fred: Self-determination. A precious, precious entity. A precedent, something we’ve been deprived of, that we are fighting for, what the Black Panther Party Cubs are fighting for. Self-determination is the right to determine our destinies.

Jeff: And then the next one,

Serve the people.

Fred: Serve the people. To be honored. It is an honor, I’m humbled to be able to serve, to serve the people. I believe like somebody else’s churches???, we shall call it, you know how we fight for a climate that we can continue to do what we do, to be servants that serve the people. This is a fulfilling experience. It is an ongoing educational process, to be able to serve the people.

Jeff: Awesome…

Socialism.

Fred: Not to sound cliché-ish, but it’s when the people consume what they produce and they produce what they consume.

Jeff: There you go (chuckles)… Since I’m an old China hand,

Comrade Mao Zedong.

Fred: Hmm… Right on revolutionary respect to the Red Book, must… and this is not limited to Chairman Mao Zedong and his writings,  but right on to the Red Book, you know what I’m saying, it is still relevant, still revolutionary.

Jeff: Yeah, for sure.

Fred: The clinched fist salute to the Cultural Revolution, the clinched fist salute to Mao Zedong!

(Cultural Revolution – (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/11/09/son-of-the-revolution-dongping-han-on-growing-up-during-chinas-great-leap-forward-and-cultural-revolution-china-rising-radio-sinoland-161110/ and http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/03/30/from-poor-peasant-to-phd-professor-mobo-gaos-revolutionary-upbringing-during-chinas-mao-era/)

(Mao Zedong – http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/03/08/mao-zedong-was-the-greatest-liberator-of-women-in-human-history-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180308/).

Jeff: Next,

Latin brothers Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

Fred: Climate. Oh, you threw a lot of individuals in there. Yeah, the spirit, the spirit of internationalism, spirit of solidarity, examples of coalitions, examples of the importance of international struggle, examples of struggles that we cannot see subjectively. Our business cannot be limited to the confines of where we are colonized at. Just saying again, great examples to be able to recognize the importance of international struggle

Jeff: Right on. Next,

Native American anti-imperialist fighters, too many to name.

Fred: Friends. The struggle again in solidarity, the Black Panther Party Cubs have been fortunate. There are comrades like Carlos Emmanuel, whose father knew my father, Chairman Fred, you know they met in Canada.

Jeff: Wow!

Fred: Yes. Yes. And to be able to be in solidarity in the campaigns, to fight for Leonard Peltier, Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, to Orlando Wally??? challenging the pipelines,

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the pipelines in Canada, the Natives up there.

Fred: And to have the reciprocal relation where they come down and participate in campaigns with us right here in Chiraq, these are phenomenal examples of solidarity.

Jeff: That’s inspiring. Now three evils, now three evil topics (laughing),

Capitalism and colonialists.

Fred: Capitalism, well, l I would relate that with our late, great field marshal George Jackson (https://socialistworker.org/2018/08/21/the-murder-of-a-soledad-brother), who said that, you know, capitalism not only affects the economy of the people, but it affects the psyche of the people. I refer to Malcolm X who said that it is a parasitical politic and a parasitical economy. Colonialism… It guts you, it deprives us our childhood, of our womanhood, of our manhood, it deprives us of our humanity. And humanity cannot coexist with colonialism. It guts you, it takes the humanity out of individuals It produces clones and drones.

Jeff: That’s a good one (laughing). I like that. And then,

Propaganda.

Fred: Propaganda. Propaganda like everything else it’s political. One of the disadvantages is that it is not acknowledged as war being waged on our community. And in other places where it is acknowledged as war, you acknowledge that we have propaganda bombs. Our community is called, “love hip hop shows”, you know what I’m saying? And it’s done without… and these are propaganda bombs. These are propaganda bombs, the images that we see – we see – I think in fact, I think that it might be in Thailand, not China, maybe Thailand. There was an example of a young child that was smoking cigarettes. And everyone was saying that he just did it on his own, and to come to find out about the tobacco ads, just how it impacted the children and the families and how common it is and affected the children to smoke cigarettes, because of the propaganda. How we view movies, how we view ourselves. Propaganda is political.

Jeff: And then in your Ball of Corona masterpiece, you mentioned biological and chemical weapons, so the last one I have on my list is,

Biological and chemical weapons.

Fred: Crack, crack cocaine. Coronavirus, (Jeff laughs). Many people think that it is far-fetched. If you go to any elementary school doing a science fair, and you look at what children are able to do. You know, with the weather, creating storms. You know, with chemicals, you put baking soda with vinegar, different home remedies, home cures, you see that could happen. The mind cannot even fathom what this system, what this government is capable of doing with various forms of strands of chemical-biological warfare. Again, crack cocaine and coronavirus are all forms of chemical-biological warfare.

Jeff: Listen, Chairman Fred, this has been a wonderful, wonderful time to spend with you. And if I have a bad day and I’m feeling kind of down, I’ll just think about you and your dad and your mother and all the other thousands of other people out there who are, who are fighting for freedom, self-determination and serving the people in a revolutionary spirit. You are, you and your mother and your father are heroes. Heroes of mine. And I think that after a lot of new people who didn’t know much about you all, or knew nothing about you, more likely, I think you all are going to have some new admirers of your heroic work that you all are doing, because it’s just, it’s just mind boggling. So thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

Fred: Thank you. Thank you also. Also, there is a website that we’re putting together, which is www.freeemall.org. Yeah, www.freeemall.org.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I’ll add that to the list.

Well that’s the last, that’s the last line in your poem, JUS’ CURIOUS !?

Fred: JUS’ CURIOUS!? Yeah.

Jeff: You end it with, FREE ‘EM ALL!

Fred: Yes. That’s right, FREE ‘EM ALL! Yes, indeed, FREE ‘EM ALL! (Jeff laughing).

Jeff: Alright Comrade Fred, thank you so much. You’ve been very generous with your time, because I know you and your mother are workaholics. And good luck with the movie. Good luck with the POCC. If there’s anything I can do to help out, as far as getting the word out, let me know and I’ll be there for you.

Fred: Thank you. Thank you, and I look forward to coming back anytime. And I’ll get those lyrics and that song Ball of Corona to you ASAP.

Jeff: Yeah, please do that. That was a great song. And I’ll be the first one to buy it (laughing).

Fred: Right on, right on. I’ll get it up to you ASAP. Right on, right on, revolutionary pre???

Jeff: Alright, this is Jeff J. Brown, China Rising Radio Sinoland signing out with Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr. And please give my deepest respects to your mother, who I got to say hello to today. And let’s stay in touch and see how we can help each other.

Fred: Yes, definitely.

Jeff: Alright. Thank you. Well…

Fred: Power to the people.

Jeff: Power to the people in solidarity and revolutionary spirit. You guys have really given me a boost. Alright. I’ll let you know when this is done and you can post it on your websites and I’m going to try to get it transcribed, too, so it’s in writing.

Fred: Oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Jeff: Alright?

Fred: Revolutionary respect.

Jeff: Alright. Bye-bye. Thank you, comrade. Bye-bye.

Chairman Fred’s contact info:

Donate to save Fred Hampton Sr.’s childhood home: https://www.gofundme.com/f/SaveTheHamptonHouse50/

Websites: http://www.freeemall.org/ and http://chairmanfredjr.blogspot.com/ and http://www.timeforanawakening.com

Buy his music here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fred+hampton+jr

Music station: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/str8uptalk

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2mY3VMe0XneHKxdetuB5_Q

Interviews and media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fred+hampton+jr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100037668591569

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chairman-fred-hampton-jr-62525a10/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChairmanFredJr1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/fredhamptonjr/

Email:  chairmanfredjr@gmail.com

Phone: +1-708-462-2098

Key words for further research:

Fred Hampton, Jr., John Potash, Tupac Shakur, Mumia Abu-Jamal, CIA, FBI, AFT, IRS, Courts, Local Police, Mafia, White Supremists, KKK, Prison Wardens, Media, Black Activists, Totalitarianism, Fascism, Police State, 1%, 99%, Elites, 2015, Bribery, Extortion, Blackmail, Murder, Assassinations, Cocaine, Heroin, Poor/Minority, Illegal Imprisonment, Fake Evidence, Planted Evidence, Rigged Trials, Kangaroo Court, Psyops, Fake News, Black Ops, Forged Letters, Crimes, Conspiracies, Entrapment, CIA/FBI Fronted Companies, Democracy, Press Freedom, Genocide, Extermination, Racism, Big Business, Israel, Palestine, Ethnic Cleansing, Native Americans, Oligarchs, Fred Hampton Sr., Harry Belafonte, Assata Shakur, Patrice Lumumba, Bobby Seale, Black Panthers, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, William Pepper, Infragard, Cuba, Prisoners of Conscience Committee, Danny Glover, Mutulu Shakur, Sanyika Shakur, Afeni Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver, Sekou Odinga, Yasmyn Fula, Euphenasia, Eddie Conway, Huey Newton, Geronimo Pratt, Randy Stretch Walker, Biggie Smalls, Lauren Kabila, Congo, Revolutionary Action Movement, Republic of New Afrika, New Afrikan People’s Organization, New Afrikan Panthers, The Move, Black Lives Matter, Wes Swearingen, Cointelpro, Nipsey Russell, Cynthia McKinney, Sheldon Wolin, Inverted Totalitarianism, Eugenics, Atlanta Child Murders, Chicago, Los Angeles, Jon Huggings, Bunchy Carter

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