http://whyaminotsurprised.blogspot.com/2008/12/revolutionary-love-of-fred-hampton-sr.htmlThursday, December 04, 2008
The Revolutionary Love of Fred Hampton, Sr.
In the wee hours of the morning on this day in 1969, Fred Hampton, Sr.,
was assassinated by a coalition of law enforcement officers
representing city, county and federal agencies in Chicago, Illinois.
These lines, taken from some of his speeches, as presented in the movie,
"The Murder of Fred Hampton," are why:
"I
was born in a bourgeois community and had some of the better things in
life, but I found that there were more people starving than there were
people eating, more people that didn’t have clothes than did have
clothes, and I just happened to be one of the few. So I decided that I
wouldn’t stop doing what I’m doing until all those people are free.
"We’re gonna have to do more than talk. We're gonna have to do more than listen. We're gonna have to do more than learn. We’re gonna have to start practicing and that’s very hard. We’re gonna have to start getting out there with the people and that’s difficult. Sometimes we think we’re better than the people so it’s gonna take a lot of hard work.
"You don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We're not gonna fight capitalism with Black capitalism. We’re gonna fight capitalism with socialism. Socialism is the people. If you’re afraid of socialism, you’re afraid of yourself.
"Without education, people will accept anything. Without education, what you’ll have is neo-colonialism instead of the colonialism like you have now. Without education, people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, you know what I mean? You might get people caught up in an emotionalist movement, might get them because they’re poor and they want something and then if they’re not educated, they’ll want more and before you know it, we’ll have Negro imperialism.
"You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then you don’t deserve to win. Let me say ‘Peace’ to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.
"Nothing is more important than stopping fascism because fascism will stop us all. We don’t hate White people. We hate the oppressor, whether they be White, Black, Brown or Yellow. We will work with anybody, coalesce with anybody that has revolution on their mind. But anybody that comes into our community and sets up anything that does not meet the needs of the masses, I will grab him by the neck and beat that man to death with a Black Panther paper.
"I’m going to do my job and I believe that I was born not to die in a car wreck. I don’t believe I’m going to die slipping on a piece of ice. I don’t believe I was born to die because of a bad heart. I don’t believe I was born to die of lung cancer. I believe I’m going to be able to do what I came to do. I believe that I’m going to be able to die high off the people. I believe that I will be able to die as a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletariat struggle. And I hope that each one of you will be able to live in it. I think that struggles are going to come. Why don’t you live for the people? Why don’t you live for the struggle? Why don’t you die for the struggle?
"If you ain’t gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don’t want myself on your mind if you’re not gonna work for the people.
"I might not be back. I might be in jail. I might be anywhere. But you can believe that the last words on my lips were ‘I am a revolutionary.’
"We’re gonna have to do more than talk. We're gonna have to do more than listen. We're gonna have to do more than learn. We’re gonna have to start practicing and that’s very hard. We’re gonna have to start getting out there with the people and that’s difficult. Sometimes we think we’re better than the people so it’s gonna take a lot of hard work.
"You don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We're not gonna fight capitalism with Black capitalism. We’re gonna fight capitalism with socialism. Socialism is the people. If you’re afraid of socialism, you’re afraid of yourself.
"Without education, people will accept anything. Without education, what you’ll have is neo-colonialism instead of the colonialism like you have now. Without education, people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, you know what I mean? You might get people caught up in an emotionalist movement, might get them because they’re poor and they want something and then if they’re not educated, they’ll want more and before you know it, we’ll have Negro imperialism.
"You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then you don’t deserve to win. Let me say ‘Peace’ to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.
"Nothing is more important than stopping fascism because fascism will stop us all. We don’t hate White people. We hate the oppressor, whether they be White, Black, Brown or Yellow. We will work with anybody, coalesce with anybody that has revolution on their mind. But anybody that comes into our community and sets up anything that does not meet the needs of the masses, I will grab him by the neck and beat that man to death with a Black Panther paper.
"I’m going to do my job and I believe that I was born not to die in a car wreck. I don’t believe I’m going to die slipping on a piece of ice. I don’t believe I was born to die because of a bad heart. I don’t believe I was born to die of lung cancer. I believe I’m going to be able to do what I came to do. I believe that I’m going to be able to die high off the people. I believe that I will be able to die as a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletariat struggle. And I hope that each one of you will be able to live in it. I think that struggles are going to come. Why don’t you live for the people? Why don’t you live for the struggle? Why don’t you die for the struggle?
"If you ain’t gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don’t want myself on your mind if you’re not gonna work for the people.
"I might not be back. I might be in jail. I might be anywhere. But you can believe that the last words on my lips were ‘I am a revolutionary.’
"You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution."
A sad story sheds light on a conflicted Thomas Jefferson
Michael Kenney
April 8, 2008, Friends of Liberty: A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions,
and a Tragic Betrayal of Freedom in the New Nation, Gary B. Nash & Graham Russell Gao Hodges
Basic Books, 328 pp., illustrated, $26
Six months after Thomas Jefferson died - on
that iconic date of July 4, 1826 - there was an auction at his beloved
Monticello. Along with horses and cattle, household furniture, even a
marble bust of him, there were 130 slaves to be sold off, advertised as
"the most valuable for their number ever offered at one time in the
state of Virginia."
It stands as a sad ending to the life of the great champion of liberty, freedom, and equality whose conflicted position on slavery has been well documented.
But there is an even sadder story behind that tragic event that is detailed by historians Gary B. Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges in "Friends of Liberty," their absorbing account of the intertwined lives of Jefferson, the Polish patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull, a free black who served as Kosciuszko's orderly during the American Revolution and lived in Stockbridge, Mass.
There is in Kosciuszko a lost-cause heroism and in Hull an antic humor, but the underlying story of the three "friends of liberty" is the "betrayal of freedom" that culminated in the Monticello slave auction.
It was during the Revolution that Kosciuszko not only developed a close personal relationship with Hull but, as the authors note, "his admiration for black Americans grew as the war wore on, and so did his revulsion at chattel slavery." Of particular importance was their strength and skill in building fortifications, bridges, and roadways at West Point.
Jefferson and Kosciuszko may have met during the Revolution - although not for certain until the fall of 1797, after Kosciuszko returned to the United States a man without a country, following the defeat of the Polish insurrection he had led against Russia.
By then, the authors write, Jefferson's "fertile mind had been churning on slavery and the character of African Americans" and "in the company of Kosciuszko" was "primed for a spirited discussion about liberty and slavery."
The culmination of that relationship was Kosciuszko's will, written in April 1798 before he returned to Europe, in which he stated that Jefferson "should bye out of my money" - back pay still due him from his service during the Revolution - "So many Negroes and free them, that the restante [remaining] sums should be Sufficient to give them education and provide for ther maintenance."
Kosciuszko died in October 1817, but Jefferson was torn about fulfilling the terms of the will. His position, the authors write, was that slaves, whether his own or those of other planters, should "be prepared for freedom before emancipation." Not only did that reverse Kosciuszko's directive, but such schools did not exist.
The matter was finally resolved when the US Supreme Court ruled in 1852, in a case brought by claimants for Kosciuszko's estate, that the will was void because of "the uncertainty of its dispositions and the objects of its bounty," and his estate was awarded to two nieces living in Poland.
Hull, the third "friend of liberty," apparently never met Jefferson, and had returned to Stockbridge at the war's end after serving as Kosciuszko's orderly for nearly five years. But, the authors argue, he had influenced Kosciuszko in his thinking about slavery, which in turn led to his involvement with Jefferson.
The "defining moment" of Hull's relationship with Kosciuszko brings a note of levity to an otherwise bleak account that ends on a note of betrayal. One evening while Kosciuszko was expected to be away from West Point, Hull indulged in a "king-for-a-day" revel, a tradition among black New Englanders, inviting other black soldiers to a feast over which he presided, dressed in one of Kosciuszko's Polish uniforms.
Kosciuszko returned unexpectedly, but rather than punishing Hull, "continued the role reversal game." The incident, the authors write, showed that Kosciuszko "was at ease with the free black men with whom he mingled." As for Hull, for the rest of his life he "delighted in telling the story, and his listeners delighted in hearing it."
Michael Kenney is a freelance writer who lives in Cambridge.
Basic Books, 328 pp., illustrated, $26
It stands as a sad ending to the life of the great champion of liberty, freedom, and equality whose conflicted position on slavery has been well documented.
But there is an even sadder story behind that tragic event that is detailed by historians Gary B. Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges in "Friends of Liberty," their absorbing account of the intertwined lives of Jefferson, the Polish patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull, a free black who served as Kosciuszko's orderly during the American Revolution and lived in Stockbridge, Mass.
There is in Kosciuszko a lost-cause heroism and in Hull an antic humor, but the underlying story of the three "friends of liberty" is the "betrayal of freedom" that culminated in the Monticello slave auction.
It was during the Revolution that Kosciuszko not only developed a close personal relationship with Hull but, as the authors note, "his admiration for black Americans grew as the war wore on, and so did his revulsion at chattel slavery." Of particular importance was their strength and skill in building fortifications, bridges, and roadways at West Point.
Jefferson and Kosciuszko may have met during the Revolution - although not for certain until the fall of 1797, after Kosciuszko returned to the United States a man without a country, following the defeat of the Polish insurrection he had led against Russia.
By then, the authors write, Jefferson's "fertile mind had been churning on slavery and the character of African Americans" and "in the company of Kosciuszko" was "primed for a spirited discussion about liberty and slavery."
The culmination of that relationship was Kosciuszko's will, written in April 1798 before he returned to Europe, in which he stated that Jefferson "should bye out of my money" - back pay still due him from his service during the Revolution - "So many Negroes and free them, that the restante [remaining] sums should be Sufficient to give them education and provide for ther maintenance."
Kosciuszko died in October 1817, but Jefferson was torn about fulfilling the terms of the will. His position, the authors write, was that slaves, whether his own or those of other planters, should "be prepared for freedom before emancipation." Not only did that reverse Kosciuszko's directive, but such schools did not exist.
The matter was finally resolved when the US Supreme Court ruled in 1852, in a case brought by claimants for Kosciuszko's estate, that the will was void because of "the uncertainty of its dispositions and the objects of its bounty," and his estate was awarded to two nieces living in Poland.
Hull, the third "friend of liberty," apparently never met Jefferson, and had returned to Stockbridge at the war's end after serving as Kosciuszko's orderly for nearly five years. But, the authors argue, he had influenced Kosciuszko in his thinking about slavery, which in turn led to his involvement with Jefferson.
The "defining moment" of Hull's relationship with Kosciuszko brings a note of levity to an otherwise bleak account that ends on a note of betrayal. One evening while Kosciuszko was expected to be away from West Point, Hull indulged in a "king-for-a-day" revel, a tradition among black New Englanders, inviting other black soldiers to a feast over which he presided, dressed in one of Kosciuszko's Polish uniforms.
Kosciuszko returned unexpectedly, but rather than punishing Hull, "continued the role reversal game." The incident, the authors write, showed that Kosciuszko "was at ease with the free black men with whom he mingled." As for Hull, for the rest of his life he "delighted in telling the story, and his listeners delighted in hearing it."
Michael Kenney is a freelance writer who lives in Cambridge.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
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