Note: Mike Gray one of the people who made the film, The Murder of Fred Hampton (below), was someone I worked closely with for many years on ending the war on drugs. He was a writer, documentary filmmaker and activist, sadly he died this year, but his work lives on. We discussed Fred Hampton and his murder multiple times. He explained what made Hampton so powerful, so frightening to power structure. It was the sense you got when you were near him, Mike said, you felt he was not compromised, he stood his ground and said ‘this is my space and the truth will be heard. I will stand up to the power structure without fear.’ Before the summary of Mike Gray’s film is a commentary on Fred Hampton by Bruce Dixon, the Managing Editor of Black Agenda Report. KZ
The Murder of Fred Hampton began as a film portrait of Hampton and the Illinois Black Panther Party, but half way through the shoot, Hampton was murdered by Chicago policeman.
In an infamous moment in Chicago history and politics, over a dozen policeman burst into Hampton’s apartment while its occupants were sleeping, killing Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark and brutalizing the other occupants.
Filmmakers Mike Gray and Howard Alk arrived a few hours later to shoot film footage of the crime scene that was later used to contradict news reports and police testimony.
“You can jail the revolutionary, but you can’t jail the revolution…You might murder a freedom fighter like Bobby Hunton, but you can’t murder freedom fighting.” – Fred Hampton.
Recently restored and reworked by Gray, The Murder of Fred Hampton is a chilling slice of American history. (Excerpt from mike-gray.org)
More on the murder of Fred Hampton in this interview on Democracy Now.