Chairman Fred Hampton

So, I’ve been sitting here, scratching my balls, staring at my gym bag for the last hour. I’m 22 years old. My biggest accomplishment this week was remembering to drink water and maybe booking a doctor’s appointment.

Meanwhile, Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was literally changing the political landscape of America and was considered such a massive, existential threat to the United States government that they had to assassinate him in his sleep.

Twenty-one.

He couldn’t even legally rent a car today, but J. Edgar Hoover looked at this kid and saw the "Black Messiah" who could unite the masses.



I wanted to talk about Fred today because, honestly, the more I read about him, the more I realize we have been fed a diet of absolute nonsense about what "revolutionary" actually looks like. Fred wasn't just some guy with a megaphone; he was a tactical genius who built something that terrified the establishment more than anything else: Class Solidarity.

You know how the media loves to paint the Black Panthers as these "anti-white" militants? That’s because the truth is way scarier for the people in charge. If it’s just a race war, the establishment is fine; they can manage that. But Fred Hampton changed the equation.

He didn't just organize Black folks. He looked at the poor Puerto Ricans (the Young Lords) and, get this, the poor white hillbillies (the Young Patriots). We are talking about guys who migrated from Appalachia to Chicago, guys who literally wore the Confederate flag on their jackets.

Fred walked into their meeting halls (places where a Black man was not supposed to be) and he didn't scold them. He didn't cancel them. He convinced them that their enemy wasn’t the Black man next door, but the capitalist landlords and police keeping them all poor. He famously said, "We don’t think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water. We’re going to fight racism with solidarity. We’re going to fight capitalism with socialism."

And it worked. He got Confederate-flag-wearing white guys to stand guard alongside Black Panthers. That right there? That is a popular front, one of the most dangerous kinds. If you get the poor whites and the poor Blacks to stop fighting each other and turn their attention to the people signing the paychecks? It’s game over.



So, the FBI (the great American tax dollars at work) launched COINTELPRO. This wasn't some passive "investigation"; it was a war on domestic dissidents. Hoover explicitly directed his agents to prevent the rise of a "Black Messiah."

They couldn't catch Fred doing anything illegal because he was too disciplined. So, they had to manufacture his death. They planted an informant, William O'Neal, right next to Fred. O'Neal was paid a bonus for his betrayal. He actually drew the floor plan of Fred’s apartment, marking exactly where Fred’s bed was so the cops wouldn't miss.

On the night of December 4, 1969, O'Neal slipped a heavy dose of secobarbital (a sleep agent, I think) into Fred’s drink. Then, the police raided the apartment at 4:30 AM.

For years, the media parroted the police narrative: a "gunfight." They claimed the militant Panthers opened fire on officers. That was a lie. A straight-up, cold-blooded lie. Journalists and Investigators hired by the black panther party, later showed that the police fired 99 shots. The Panthers fired one (which was a reflex shot from Mark Clark as he was dying after being shot first).

Fred Hampton never woke up. He was shot point-blank in the head, twice, while he slept next to his pregnant fiancée. He was murdered by his own government—a terrorist state, because he was too good at organizing people.





What made Fred different from the "activists" we see today was that he wasn't just yapping and posting infographics. He was doing. He understood that you can't just throw books at hungry people. You have to feed them to free their minds.

The Free Breakfast for Children Program wasn't charity; it was revolutionary theory in action. The Panthers were feeding thousands of kids before school when the US government wouldn't. He said, "Theory with no practice ain't shit."

When you feed the community, you show them that socialism actually works to solve their material problems. Then, once the belly is full, you educate the mind.

If you haven't read his speeches, you need to. They are electric.

• In Power Anywhere Where There’s People , he breaks down how to actually mobilize a community not just mobilize them to march, but to govern themselves.

• In It’s a Class Struggle, Godamnit!, he obliterates the idea that "Black capitalism" is the answer. He knew a Black oppressor is no better than a white one.

• And in You Can Murder a Liberator, but You Can’t Murder Liberation, he basically wrote his own eulogy. He knew he was a dead man walking, and he kept working anyway.

Now, look. I’m not Black, and I will never understand the visceral frustration and experience of Black people in the United States. I can't speak to that pain. But looking at the political movements from a structural perspective? The contrast is depressing.

When you compare Fred Hampton’s BPP to the Black Lives Matter movement, you see exactly why we are losing. BLM had the energy, the numbers, and the global attention. But it had zero revolutionary theory and no vanguard organization. It fetishized "leaderless resistance."

BLM didn’t become “leaderless” by accident, it became leaderless because the nonprofit-industrial complex wanted it that way. The foundations, NGOs, Democratic-aligned donors, and corporate grant structures that flooded the movement with money rewarded horizontal, “decentralized” activism. They funded the safest possible version of dissent—one with no hierarchy, no cadre, no political education, and no central strategy that could threaten state power.

Well, guess what? If you don't have leaders, you don't have accountability. If you don't have a vanguard, you don't have a strategy.

Where is the class analysis? Instead of a disciplined party leading the people toward specific material goals, we got a decentralized hashtag and a corrupt BLM Foundation that ended up embezzling money and buying mansions in white neighborhoods.

They have learned that you don’t have to assassinate a revolutionary if you can bury them under HR-approved grant proposals and grassroots “capacity-building workshops.” BLM wasn’t just leaderless but it was also defanged on purpose. The structure made sure no Hampton could emerge from it.

And what did it materially win for the Black population? Nothing. Actually, less than nothing. Because of the lack of political education, the movement burned itself out. Now we’re watching the reactionary Trump administration dismantle DEI initiatives and roll back the gains of the Civil Rights movement with barely a fight. Devastatingly, It proved to be inherently anti-Black to lead a movement with no plan to actually win.

This brings me to the not-so-recent recent Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl performance.



The Symbolism? Insanely Good.

The "Uncle Sam" character telling him he’s "too loud, too ghetto"? Brilliant theater.

And ending the show by telling everyone to turn off their TVs? High-level irony.

But let’s be real for a second. If Fred Hampton were alive to see that performance, he wouldn't have been clapping. He would have pointed out exactly what it was: Black Capitalism masquerading as liberation.

The NFL allowed that performance. They paid for that performance. Why? Because they know a secret that Fred Hampton died protecting: Aesthetics don't threaten power. Organization does.

Here’s the "Danger" Index that I like to use:

Kendrick Lamar: Critiques the system on the biggest stage in the world, watched by 100 million people. Result? He wins Grammys, sells out stadiums, and the NFL stock goes up. He offers catharsis.

Fred Hampton: Speaks to a room of maybe 50 people in a church basement about free breakfast and class unity. Result? The FBI drugs him and shoots him in the head. He offered structure.

And recently, where do frustrated Black dissidents go? The BPP is gone. The Rainbow Coalition is history. BLM was a bust.

You see them joining the ranks of the Black Hebrew Israelites, screaming on street corners in purple robes about how they are the "real" chosen people. It's sad. It's misdirected anger. And honestly? I wouldn't be surprised if that whole operation is just another FBI management front. What better way to neutralize potential revolutionaries than to have them arguing about ancient DNA and conspiracy theories instead of organizing the working class against the oppressive state?

Representation matters, but we have replaced the Vanguard Party with the Celebrity Idol. Fred Hampton taught that the Vanguard isn't a person; it's an organization. When we look to celebrities to lead the revolution, we are setting ourselves up to fail because their class interests are fundamentally different from ours.

Final Thoughts, because I have to study for exams:

Rest in Power, Chairman Fred. You did more in 21 years than most of us will do in a lifetime.