The Assassination of Fred Hampton: A Short People’s History

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

By Flint Taylor
Expanded version annotated by Patrice Greanville
(See also Racism Today, Intervu with Fred Hampton, Jr. conducted by our colleague Jeff J Brown)

A dispatch from Black Agenda Report

 

Hampton speaking to supporters. He had quite a few white radical admirers, including celebrities like Dr Benjamin Spock, a famous pediatrician and political activist seen here in the background.

 

“He's good and dead now."

Introduction

Fifty-one years ago this past week, Illinois Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were slain by the Chicago police in a murderous pre-dawn raid. Over the next five decades the Hampton and Clark families, their lawyers, the Black Panther Party, movement activists, honest reporters and documentary filmmakers, and peoples’ historians have waged a continuous battle to uncover and speak the truth about Fred Hampton, the BPP, and the December 4th raid. These intergenerational and interracial efforts have led to a changing of the historical narrative from a shoot-out between the Panthers and the police, to a “shoot in” where the police fired more than 90 shots to one by the Panthers, then to a murder of Fred Hampton while he slept, drugged, in his bed, and now, to a political assassination orchestrated  by the FBI under its notorious COINTEPRO program.

Chicago cops laugh as they carry Fred Hampton's bullet-ridded body fromm the murder scene. Hampton's body was dragged from the bloodstained bed to the hallway floor, to be displayed as the raiders' trophy.

All of this work has led Hollywood to depict Fred Hampton in at least two major films made by megastar producers. In Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Conspiracy 7,” Hampton the character is fictionalized, a device to a worthy end - - - showing his murder as a significant event that occurred while the trial was happening.

Due out next year is Ryan Coogler’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” which features a star-studded cast and focuses on, and contrasts, Fred with FBI informant William O’Neal, who set up Fred’s murder. The trailer warns that the movie is “inspired by true events.”

While an historical analysis of these movies must await another day, we must remember that to learn about the real Chairman Fred Hampton, his assassination, and the struggles that were waged to establish the narrative that these movies seek to depict, we must return to the sources that have lived, recounted, documented, recorded, and written about those events.

With that in mind, BAR Reprints an edited version of an article by the author that first appeared in Truthout on December 4, 2017.

“Intergenerational and interracial efforts have led to a changing of the historical narrative from a shoot-out between the Panthers and the police, to a ‘shoot in’ where the police fired more than 90 shots to one.”

 In August 1967, notorious FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent out an urgent directive to all of his field offices under the file name "COINTELPRO-Black Nationalist Hate Groups." It instructed "Racial Matters"(RM) agents to take aggressive -- and highly illegal -- actions to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of Black-nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership and supporters." On March 4, 1968, exactly one month before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, another urgent Bureau-wide COINTELPRO directive from Hoover's desk instructed RM Agents to devise COINTELPRO actions designed to "prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement."

On December 4, 1969 RM agents in the Bureau's Chicago office secretly congratulated themselves and hailed their "success" to Hoover for masterminding the bloody pre-dawn police raid that left Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) -- and most certainly a rising "messiah" -- and Peoria Panther leader Mark Clark dead, and several other young Panthers seriously wounded.

“Agents secretly congratulated themselves and hailed their ‘success’ to Hoover for masterminding the bloody pre-dawn police raid.”

Hampton's bloodstained mattress. Notice bulet holes in wall on right.

From an early age, Hampton was a charismatic speaker and natural leader. At the age of 14, he had organized a student chapter of the NAACP in Maywood, Illinois, and the chapter soon grew to 700 members. He led a march on the Maywood Town Hall and organized to build an integrated swimming pool there. After he graduated from Proviso East High School, the administration asked him to come back to mediate a confrontation between Black and white students, then had him arrested when he did so. Influenced by Malcolm X, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the realities that he observed and experienced in the movement, Hampton consistently spoke out strongly against police brutality. His politics became increasingly more militant.

In the fall of 1967, Hampton enrolled in Crane Junior College, later renamed Malcolm X College, which was a center of radical Black activity in Chicago. He continued his dynamic organizing there, and injected a new militancy into the student body. During 1968, Hampton, Bobby Rush and several others organized the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and opened their offices at 2350 West Madison Street on the West Side of Chicago.

By this time, Hampton had been expressly targeted by the Chicago FBI office, which was already quite experienced in disruption tactics and techniques, having taken several sophisticated actions in the mid-60s that were designed to exploit and exacerbate the political division between Nation of Islam leaders Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammed. Within days of the opening of the Panther office, Chicago's Racial Matters Squad directed one of its operatives, William O'Neal, to join the Party. O'Neal soon maneuvered himself into a leadership position as chief of security, and served as Hampton's bodyguard during the early days of the Illinois chapter.

“The Chicago FBI office was already quite experienced in disruption tactics and techniques.”

Under the leadership of Chairman Fred Hampton and Minister of Defense Bobby Rush, the Chicago BPP grew into a strong organization. Hampton began to negotiate with Chicago street organizations, attempting to convince them to give up their violent activities and embrace the Panther philosophy. Under his leadership, the Party built the original Rainbow Coalition that united the Panthers, the Puerto Rican Young Lords Organization, the Young Patriots (a group of radical Appalachian whites) and the Students for a Democratic Society.

The BPP opened a Breakfast for Children program at several locations in the city, and fed hundreds of hungry young children before they went to school. Hampton frequently spoke at colleges and high schools and met with a wide range of leaders and organizations. He led by example, starting his day at six in the morning at the Breakfast program, and would never ask someone to do something he would not do, from selling the Panther newspaper to defending the Panther office from police attack.

At the same time, the FBI, both nationally and locally, was increasing its efforts to "neutralize the Panther Party and destroy what it stands for." Not only had the Bureau targeted the leadership, including Hampton, whom it registered on its Rabble Rouser, Agitator and Security Indexes, but it also specifically set out to destroy the BPP newspaper and the Breakfast program, as well as the Panthers' liberation schools and health clinics. Under the COINTELPRO banner, utilizing "ghetto informants" who often acted as provocateurs, Racial Matters operatives sought to exploit ideological differences and resultant tensions between the Panthers, street organizations and Black nationalist organizations. In Chicago, RM agents attempted to provoke the Blackstone Rangers to attack Hampton and the Panthers by sending a forged letter to Ranger leader Jeff Fort, that purported to warn him of a "hit" the Panthers had ordered against him -- with the stated goal of provoking Fort to physically attack Hampton. Continuing his work as a COINTELPRO operative, FBI informant O'Neal, who later played a key role in setting up the murderous December 4 raid by supplying the floor plan of Hampton's apartment, blossomed as a provocateur who repeatedly -- and unsuccessfully -- encouraged the commission of illegal acts.

“Agents attempted to provoke the Blackstone Rangers to attack Hampton and the Panthers.”

The local police and prosecutors also sought to destroy the BPP with a vengeance. Panthers were constantly harassed and arrested, often for selling the Panther paper. Hampton had been arrested in Maywood for allegedly taking $71 of ice cream and distributing it to neighborhood children. The politically aggressive Cook County state's attorney, Edward V. Hanrahan, put Hampton on trial for robbery. In May 1969 he was convicted and sentenced to two to five years in prison. In August, the Illinois Supreme Court granted Hampton appeal bond, and he returned to Chicago to a joyous welcome at People's Church on South Ashland Avenue. In an inspiring and memorable speech, he told of how he heard the "beat of the people," and was "high off the people" while he was locked up in a downstate maximum-security prison. Upon his release, Hampton immediately resumed his speaking and organizing at a breakneck pace. His unique leadership skills had been duly noted, not only by the FBI, but also by the national leadership of the BPP, and he was being groomed to be an important national spokesperson.

FBI infiltrator William O'Neal in his own words.  The Black Judas.

Three months later, Hampton lay dead on his bed in a pool of blood, assassinated by a Chicago police raider who shot him twice in the head at close range. Hampton was a victim of the FBI's COINTELPRO program.

As evidence emerged over time, it was established that the 14-man, pre-dawn police raiding party, operating under the direct supervision of State's Attorney Hanrahan, was armed with O'Neal's floorplan that marked the bed on which Hampton would be sleeping. They carried a submachine gun, semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and handguns. The raiders were led by Chicago police Sgt. Daniel Groth, a shadowy figure with suspected connections to the CIA, and included James "Gloves" Davis, so nicknamed because he donned gloves before he beat people up.

“Hampton was being groomed to be an important national BPP spokesperson.”

The raiders burst in the front and back doors of the tiny apartment, and Davis killed Mark Clark, who was just inside the front door, with a shot through the heart. They then charged into the front room, shooting Brenda Harris, a 17-year-old Panther who was lying on a bed next to the wall, and "stitched" that wall with machine gun and semiautomatic fire. These bullets tore through the wall and into the middle bedroom, where three Panthers were huddling on the floor, and many of those high-powered bullets continued through another wall into the bedroom where Hampton and his fiancé, Deborah Johnson, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, were asleep. The trajectories of many of these bullets were toward the head of Hampton's bed.

In the back bedroom, the mattress was vibrating from the gunfire as Panther occupants Louis Trueluck and Harold Bell were unsuccessfully trying to wake Hampton. The raiders burst through the back door, firing at the bedrooms. They then took Bell, Trueluck and Johnson out of the back bedroom into the kitchen, leaving Hampton alive but unconscious on the bed. In the front, the officer with the machine gun had moved to the doorway of the middle bedroom and fired several machine gun blasts at the defenseless occupants. Ronald "Doc" Satchel was hit five times, while Blair Anderson and another terrified teenager, Verlina Brewer, were also shot.

In the kitchen, Johnson and Bell heard two shots ring out from Hampton's bedroom, and heard a raider say, "He's good and dead now." The toxicological evidence strongly suggested that O'Neal had put secobarbital in Hampton's Kool-Aid hours earlier so that he would not wake up.

Hampton's body was dragged from the bloodstained bed to the hallway floor, to be displayed as the raiders' trophy, while the seven survivors were physically abused, subjected to threats and racial epithets, and then jailed on charges of attempted murder. The raiders then rushed from the apartment to the state's attorney's office where they appeared with Hanrahan at a press conference. There, Hanrahan described a fierce gun battle initiated by the "vicious" and "criminal" Black Panthers, during which his raiders acted "reasonably" and with "restraint."

As we now know, the official version was a false narrative, a lie. Over the next decade the full truth was brought to light, thanks to Chicago's Black and progressive communities, the families of Hampton and Clark, and the survivors of the raid, their lawyers, and their Panther comrades. With the awful truth on the public record, it is important to consider the present moment with that history in mind.

Flint Taylor is a founding member of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, and one of the lawyers for the Hampton and Clark families. He is the author of “The Torture Machine,” which documents the Hampton assassination in its first chapter. He also recommends “The Assassination of Fred Hampton,” by his longtime law partner and fellow Hampton lawyer Jeffrey Haas, the documentary film entitled “The Murder of Fred Hampton,” and the PBS Documentary “Eyes on the Prize Two, A Nation of Laws?”

Fred Hampton funeral (1969). Murdered by the state, on orders from on high. The chief murderer now has a big building in Washington DC memorializing his name.

Addendum


On December 4th, 1969, the police, the FBI, and prosecutor Edward Hanrahan joined forces. At night, under the guise of an arms raid, they entered the home of Fred Hampton under the leadership of the prosecutor. No one was given an opportunity to surrender before the police shooting began. Law enforcement fired about a hundred shots, hitting almost everyone in the dwelling.

Fred Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark were dead, killed in their sleep. Fred had been dosed with barbiturates by his bodyguard, who turned out to be an FBI informant.

Fred had just turned 21-years-old. He would be 72 today.

The raiders made one mistake. They left without securing the crime scene.

The Panthers led people on tours of the crime scene. The bullet holes went into Fred’s bedroom door. Many people couldn’t believe that the police could do such a thing. Others knew all too well.

At a mass, a local priest burst into tears as he tried to explain the meaning of Fred’s life to the African American schoolchildren.

“... the next thing I knew here was one of our eighth grade boys – he jumped up and said, ‘I am Fred Hampton.’ And then a girl in the sixth grade, she jumps up. ‘I am Fred Hampton.’ Another kid in first grade, ‘I am Fred Hampton.’ And before you knew it the whole church, kids were all shouting, ‘I am Fred Hampton.’”


Signature of a police raid on black activists.


The LAPD tried a similar raid on the LA Panthers five days later. Geronimo Pratt was in charge of the chapter’s defense. lined with sandbags. The LA Panthers held off the LAPD in a four hour gun battle. No one died.

This humiliation of the LAPD led tothe birth of the SWAT team, which quickly spread to every corner of the land. (To this day, the capitalist media, especially CBS, carries programs glorifying the FBI, SWAT, SEAL teams (SWATs for foreign ops) and other police agencies.)

Predictably, there was a grand jury in the wake of Fred’s death. The grand jury refused to indict Fred’s attackers.

Because of the outrage in the African-American community, a special prosecutor was appointed. A second grand jury was empaneled. They indicted Fred’s attackers on the minor charge of “obstruction of justice.” Everyone was acquitted.

Fred’s friends then filed a lawsuit. The suit was dismissed.

Fred’s friends filed an appeal. The suit was restored.

An agonizing 18-month trial then began. In the midst of the trial, the FBI was forced to reveal thousands and thousands of documents. These documents said “COINTELPRO.” Fred was the target of a federal government counterintelligence program designed to neutralize its opponents.

The family and the lawyers had to read these documents while the trial was ongoing.

At the end of the trial, the judge dismissed the case rather than let the jury decide.

Another appeal was filed. Because the community was unified in its outrage, a precedent-setting decision resulted. The police and the FBI could not claim immunity for planning to kill its dissidents.

Another trial beckoned. Fred’s opponents were cornered. They offered his family money and bought peace.

After all this, Fred’s mother was asked what was proved from this twelve-year legal battle.

“They got away with murder.”

Black Panthers White Lies | Curtis Austin | TEDxOhioStateUniversity

TEDx Talks
 
What made the Black Panther Party successful, as well as politically dangerous? In his very personal talk, activist and historian, Dr. Curtis Austin tells his story of being labeled a 'felon' as a result of his research on the Black Panther Party. Dr. Austin details the major successes of the Black Panther Party and the key action behind those successes. Using his personal experience, years of research, and some gruesome realities, Dr. Austin contextualizes the recent outcry by people across the United States against the legacy of the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement. Dr. Curtis Austin is an Associate Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) at the Ohio State University. He received his B.A. and M.A. in U.S. History from the University of Southern Mississippi and his Ph.D. in American History from Mississippi State University. While serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies in AAAS, Austin teaches courses on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, the Black freedom struggle, and the history of American race relations. He is currently writing a book on the Black Power Movement and conducting research for a book that examines the history of radicalism in Black liberation movements.

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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The Black Misleaders give the impression of exercising black empowerment when they are in fact only promoting themselves.

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Black Agenda Report

“The needs of the people are diametrically opposed to those of the donor class and their black misleader minions.”

What do black people need most right now? The list is a very long one and includes living wage work, affordable housing, protection from killer police, relief from student loan debt, and the establishment of a publicly run health care system.

If the black political class have their way none of these issues will be addressed in any serious way. Apparently, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC ) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP ) are most concerned with human resources issues. They want to make sure that black people are appointed to cabinet level positions in the Biden administration.

It is fine for black people to be part of the revolving door of government that brings insiders to cushy positions in the White House. That is, after all, how the system functions. But it is another thing entirely for the attention of all black people to be focused on whether or not some already prominent and highly paid individuals become the new black faces in high places.

“The Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP are most concerned that black people are appointed to cabinet level positions.”

There are some 48 million black people in the United States and nearly all of them have been impacted by the many dislocations created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ironically named essential workers are in fact the most vulnerable as they must choose between earning a wage to survive or risking exposure to the virus. Then there are people who can’t work at all. They are unemployed and Congress did nothing to extend the additional $600 per week which ran out in July. The public sector suffers too as mass transit systems in New York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Chicago and every large city have announced disastrous cuts in service unless they receive emergency funding. The employed and unemployed alike will have a hard time getting to or looking for jobs. Of course, it must always be pointed out that COVID-19 has been far more lethal to black people, with death rates 2.8 times higher than for whites.

The worst and most deadly racial disparities involve law enforcement and the carceral state. It is still true that black people make up half of all those incarcerated in the country and despite being only 13% of the population, are one-third of all thoses killed by the police.

“Black death rates are 2.8 times higher than for whites.”

In the face of these crises why is appointment to high office such a priority for the people who claim to represent those who are suffering so badly? The black political class, the misleaders, are just doing what they were created to do. They give the impression of exercising black empowerment when they are in fact only promoting themselves. They will never speak to the myriad of issues that are crushing black life because doing so puts them in the position of biting the hands that feed them.

If Joe Biden were to be as Bernie Sanders called him, the most progressive president since Franklin Roosevelt, there would be no question that the pandemic suffering would end.

If the Democrats lived up to even a little of their reputation as the party representing the needs of working people they would develop an unprecedented program of governmental intervention. They would bail out the states and cities, replace the income of the unemployed, end evictions and foreclosures, and develop a health care system that met the needs of the public. 

They don’t even go through the motions of advocating for these and other issues. Instead the black political class go right along with phony outrage about black cabinet appointments. 

That is why black people must ask themselves what they would like to see. Kamala Harris cutting ribbons and being sent to represent Biden in countries he doesn’t want to bother visiting won’t put food on anyone’s table. 

“The misleaders will never speak to the myriad of issues that are crushing black life.”

Black Americans must reach a consensus about their own needs and do so without input from the people who won’t even pretend to put up a fight. Donald Trump’s antics and claims of a fraudulent election are still garnering too much attention. All eyes should be fixed on Biden and not the man who will leave Washington on January 20. The austerity that started with Clinton and moved on with Obama will be passed to Biden and the misleaders will again play their shameful role in a sordid tale if no one speaks out.

The presidency is a powerful office. If he wants to, Biden can make every fatal encounter with police subject to federal instead of local prosecution. He can issue an executive order forgiving student loan debt. Biden can direct the Department of Labor to stop wage theft, including the misclassification of workers as managers which deprives them of overtime pay. The new president can do all of these things without congressional approval and that is what the CBC and NAACP ought to demand but won’t.

A Democratic White House always brings opportunities to those with the right connections. But what of the 48 million other people? Is being rid of Trump all they can expect? In his victory speech Biden said, “The African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours.”

But talk is cheap. Biden can’t promise rich funders that “nothing will fundamentally change” while also taking action that black people desperately need. The needs of the people are diametrically opposed to those of the donor class and their black misleader minions. The people are going to struggle. The question is whether it will be a basic struggle to survive or one which can bring much needed change.

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

About the author
 Black Agenda report's Senior Editor and Columnist Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly at the Black Agenda Report. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley (at) BlackAgendaReport.com. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. 

  NOTE  : ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS
 


MUMIA ABU-JAMAL’S AUDIO INTERVIEW. HE IS A TOWER OF REVOLUTIONARY RESISTANCE AND AN INEXHAUSTIBLE INSPIRATION FOR US ALL

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

Jeff J. Brown
SPECIAL INTERVIEW

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL’S AUDIO INTERVIEW. HE IS A TOWER OF REVOLUTIONARY RESISTANCE AND AN INEXHAUSTIBLE INSPIRATION FOR US ALL, IN THE FACE OF SEEMINGLY INSURMOUNTABLE ODDS. PARTS I OF II. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 201003

Originally posted on October 3, 2020
Pictured above: political prisoner of conscience, Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is a freedom fighter, intellectual and global hope for social and economic justice demanded by humanity’s 99%.

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

Note before starting: This post’s audio and video podcasts are in two parts. Part I is our 25-minute interview. Part II is a reading of my Prologue, Mumia’s Biography and Epilogue.

Part I: 25-minute audio/video interview

Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZbAqRojUwr6T/

Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/dashboard/videos/906cbaa6-288a-4cc7-a35d-516e9d682680

China Rising Radio Sinoland · Mumia Abu-Jamal China Rising Radio Sinoland Interview: Fighting for Revolution, Resistance and Hope

Part II: Prologue, Mumia’s biography and Epilogue

Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/3fkAHv3FA5vn/

Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/dashboard/videos/13b0392f-6c11-422f-8a3b-5656fad864c7

China Rising Radio Sinoland · Mumia Abu-Jamal China Rising Radio Sinoland Interview-Part II: Prologue, His Biography and Epilogue
 
Please download, share and distribute Mumia’s full interview PDF file:
 
Mumia Abu-Jamal China Rising Radio Sinoland Interview-Fighting for Revolution, Resistance and Hope2

Prologue

It is hard to describe what has transpired with Mumia Abu-Jamal, since 6 June 2020, when I sent him my first message via his prison’s for profit “email” system.

Like an uninformed goober, I sent him hyperlinks to my website and books, only to learn that Mumia is completely cut off from the internet. This “Prison Connect Network” is the only way I could communicate with him, and to stifle the exchange of information, you can only send 2,000 characters – not words – characters per message. That’s like three paragraphs at a time, and it costs money for each message.

Not only that, but it’s crap quality, like using Microsoft DOS 30 years ago. I learned quickly to copy and save all my messages, since half the time I have to start over, as the system crashes frequently. The vendor, GTL must pay some handsome sunshine bribes to get this contract for concentration camps all over the USA, charging monopoly rates for prisoners to telephone and be called by loved ones. For friends and family members struggling to put food on the table and pay the rent, it’s a vexing situation.

Thus, our now four-month long journey to work together through this dog-end messaging system began and continues. Including our interview below, I have 25 pages of communication between us.

Through it all, I am humbled and inspired by Mumia’s infectious good humor and unswerving optimism. He reminds me of one of those tall, inflatable figures that have rounded, sand-filled bottoms. No matter how hard you push, hit or kick them, they always pop right back up. For me, that’s a perfect metaphor for Mumia. He frequently puts a music note symbol at the end of his messages, likes he’s singing a happy song.

Yet, here is a man who has sacrificed his freedom for a cause – the revolutionary ideals of the Black Panther Party (BPP), his support for Philadelphia’s MOVE and their collective fight for socialism’s vanguard party, all power to the people, self-determination and to serve the people. He is a political prisoner trapped in the USA system of private concentration camps. Framed for a shooting that appears to have been a set-up, Mumia has been on death row, held in solitary confinement for many years, has to hire lawyers to get lifesaving medical care, and other than this aforementioned messaging system, phones calls and prison visits across thick plate glass, he has been cut off and incarcerated since 1982, when he was only 28 years of age. Today, he is 66, six days older than me.

I feel lucky to have lived and worked with the Chinese people for 16 years. It taught me a lot and changed my life. However, at Mumia’s same age, I feel just as fortunate to have recently learned about the Black Panther Party, its amazing history of courage, conviction, and the countless members who have been government assassinated and illegally held in USA concentration camps, since its founding in 1966. As a result, all this knowledge and understanding has changed my life’s perspectives, just as much as my time living in China.

At the same time, over the last four months of struggling to communicate via the rinky-dink prison messaging system, through it all, across the oceans and continents, I feel like I’ve made a friend and revolutionary comrade. Since we are the same age, we can stay in touch into our senior years, wherever we may be – hopefully Mumia finally being liberated from the USA concentration camp system. My next return back, I would be honored to go meet him in Frackville, Pennsylvania, USA, to talk across that thick sheet of glass, and eventually share a good Chinese meal upon his liberation!

It is a great honor and privilege to introduce Comrade Mumia Abu-Jamal to all the friends, fans and followers of China Rising Radio Sinoland across Planet Earth. I hope you will share this post and its audio/video podcasts widely, (I will also include a downloadable PDF file for easy distribution) to bring more pressure on the USA injustice system to liberate him from his illegal incarceration, as a political prisoner of conscious. Sadly, there are many like him (https://operamundi.uol.com.br/politica-e-economia/40718/a-list-of-54-political-prisoners-in-the-united-states).

After our interview, there is Mumia’s biography. It has instructions to support his legal defense, as well as how to send him mail and books – and be forewarned – there are two different addresses and systems. I hope you will contribute to his cause. I sent him my China Trilogy, my father’s book about Civil War slavery and one hundred pages of off-the-internet articles. For the future, I have decided to help him overcome being cut off from the internet, by staying registered and sending him via the messaging system, texts of articles he might not otherwise see.

Finally, there is also an epilogue with some extracts from Huey P. Newton’s autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, which really resonate from all my experiences with Mumia.

(Credit: J. Griffin)

Interview (text of its 25-minute audio podcast)

Question and Answer #1

Jeff J. Brown:  First, I would like to thank John Potash, who inspired me to contact you (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/), and in the interim, having interviewed Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/05/27/chairman-fred-hampton-jr-the-black-panther-pantha-cubs-their-revolution-for-self-determination-to-serve-the-people-and-fight-the-us-governments-ongoing-program-of-domestic-genocide-on-china/).

Comrade Mumia, friends, fans and followers around the world are always seeking courage to stand up to global capitalism, oligarchic control of the world’s non-communist, non-socialist peoples and the tyranny and genocide of Western empire. They are hesitant to step outside the oppressive conformity of the Matrix.

They really get inspired hearing stories of others who have taken these steps along their arc of awareness, towards freedom of conscious and liberation of the soul. Some learn sooner than others. I didn’t get it until 2010, when I was 56 and having moved back to China for the second time. You are six days older than me. Better late than never!

Now, thanks to reading John Potash’s two outstanding books and doing hundreds of hours of reading and research, my arc has recently been raised to another critical level, in learning about the Black Panther Party. (BPP), its unexpected nexus with Comrade Mao Zedong and other great international heroes of socialism and solidarity (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/06/08/protests-in-usa-land-of-marlboro-man-will-come-to-nothing-because-there-is-no-solidarity-no-vision-nor-guiding-ideology-to-unite-the-people-in-common-struggle-against-the-1-just-ask-the-black-pan/).

Comrade Mumia, please share with us your arc of awareness growing up in the United States as a Black man, and what inspired you to fight for social and economic justice for the 99%. Your encouragement is invaluable to those who are hesitating to join the cause.

Mumia and his wife


Mumia Abu Jamal: Dear Jeff: I greet you–and yours. When I think of the 60s, I remember times of vast movement across many communities for national independence, for freedom, for self-determination, against state repression and against imperialist wars like Vietnam. This period, in retrospect, was one of convergence of many social movements coming together with a broad, deep vision of another country, one tied not to slavery and oppression, but to a liberating vision that ignited a generation or seemed to the system, used all of its tentacles to pull people apart, chiefly racism, and muddy that vision to one of cool acquiescence.

Remember that movie The Big Chill? Such times as these are visionary eras when and where people look over the walls of their prisons for a brief glance at freedom, the freedom offered by possibility. Because Fred Hampton not only had this vision and acted to craft it into being. He was killed in his bid by the state to dock in the eyes of a generation. Movements are made by collectives of people who have hope for social transformation or as anthropologist Margaret Mead said, you paraphrase, never doubt that a small group can change the world if the only thing that ever has to grow up in such a time was truly remarkable and a wonderful thing.

Question and Answer #2

Jeff: These days, Black Lives Matter (BLM), a non-governmental organization (NGO) is splashed all over the global mainstream media and has broad, popular support. However, it’s not all such a rosy, revolutionary picture. Soon after forming, it took $100 million in donations via the Ford Foundation and affiliate NGOs. Just recently, George Soros’ foundations have pumped $220 million into Black justice groups, as well as Antifa and many others. These are astronomical sums of money.

It is widely known that Ford Foundation and left-wing philanthropists are largely fronts for the CIA and deep state, hiding behind their liberal image. This strongly suggests that BLM, Antifa and their ancillary groups are being used as managed opposition to satisfy the ambitions of our oligarchic 1% and are likely fully infiltrated by agents and fifth columnists. Occupy Wall Street was another prime example of this happening.

What to do? If you were handed the BLM movement, what would you do to try to right the ship? Was MOVE infiltrated? I’ve read the Black Panthers also had, and I assume still fight the same problem.

What recommendations do you have for anti-imperial, anti-capitalist people who want to organize and take their movement to the next level, without becoming managed opposition?

Mumia: Dear Jeff: Ona Mover! Greetings! As I contemplated your last question, I remembered a book I read several years ago entitled The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. It illustrated how the right used its excess capital to build and sustain think tanks, which intellectually supported the system of capitalism, the wealth of the left had no quarrel, for its excess capital went to social services, but not the erection of ideological structures. The authors essentially instructed activists to not get caught in these weapons of the wealthy. But when you think about it, doesn’t it make sense? Why should it surprise us that the system perpetuates the system? Who expects capitalism to build revolutionary structures that are inherently anticapitalist? BLM is not the BPP except in the mind of Rudy Giuliani, perhaps. The BPP was nominally politically independent because its newspaper funded its operations. When poor, black people organize, the wealthy seek to control and moderate them. When that doesn’t work, it unleashes its “hidden” to extinguish such movements. Hence the ferocity of the attacks on groups like the BPP and MOVE. It unleashes its corporate media to demonize those who resist the forces of exploitation.

Remember this? American revolutionaries were invariably rich guys who fought to preserve a system of slavery, captive labor. George Washington was one of the richest men in the colonies, owning hundreds of people and vast tracts of land. Thomas Jefferson also owned hundreds of black captives, but had the decency to write that one hour of slavery’s misery was worse than wages of British rule over America that sparked a revolution. Oppressive systems continue to buy off people so that those systems can continue to function. There’s an old saying. He who takes the Kings coin dances to his tune.

If BLM were mine. I’d institute an intense study of history to show how systems try to show how systems try to defang popular movements. I develop an independent economic stream to support organizational frameworks, they teach COINTELPRO efforts to destabilize social change movements. That said, BLM or Smart inform young folks who may not want nor need anything from an old head like me. That’s because the youth movements must be youth movements, that is their essence, that is who they were born to be. alla best, maj♪

Question and Answer #3:

Jeff: Dear Mumia, History seems to repeat itself across our Pale Blue Dot.

In 1962-1964, the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Republic of South Africa were rounded up. They were convicted for their political activities and beliefs, including Nelson Mandela. The Apartheid government wanted to put them to death, but international pressure forced them into sentencing them to prison for life. Apartheid eventually fell, due to years of internal and global pressure, as well as economic sanctions. Starting in 1985, these freedom fighters began to be released from incarceration, with Mandela being the last in 1990.

In 1966, the Black Panther Party was founded. In 1972, MOVE was founded in your hometown of Philadelphia, also becoming a primary target of the CIA-FBI genocidal war on all Black liberation movements. In 1978, nine MOVE members were rounded up and sent to prison for life for their political activities and beliefs. You actively supported MOVE and in 1981-82, also became a political prisoner and given the death penalty, which was later commuted to life. Starting in 2018, the MOVE 9 who were still alive behind bars began to be released from prison, with the last one set free in February 2020. You are still in prison for life and trying to get out.

Question: how do you compare the ANCs liberation movement and Nelson Mandela’s cause to eventually be released from political prison, to that of the Black Panther Party, MOVE and your efforts to gain your freedom?

Question and Answer #4:

Jeff: This was in the alternative media today, which you might find interesting,

Get the f**k out!: WATCH Chicago residents confront BLM protesters in tense standoff

Residents of Chicago’s Englewood community angrily accosted a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who showed up to demonstrate at a police station, where hostilities between locals and activists nearly boiled over into a brawl.

A BLM protest march from Englewood to Chicago’s 7th District police station on Tuesday ended in a showdown with community members, at times devolving into shouting matches as locals insisted the demonstrators were giving their neighborhood a bad name.

If you ain’t from Englewood, get the f**k out of here! longtime south side resident Darryl Smith was heard shouting at the protesters, who he said were not from the community.

They were… gonna come to Englewood, antagonizing our police, and then when they go back home to the north side in Indiana, our police are bitter and they’re beating up our little black boys, Smith told reporters on the scene, adding that we don’t need any outsiders coming and antagonizing.

A photojournalist with the Chicago Sun-Times (Tyler LaRiviere) tweeted some of the march’s more tense moments, including when a heated argument nearly escalated into a physical confrontation.

Tweet: From earlier Daryl Smith an Englewood resident of 51 years, and community activists tells reporters why he doesn’t want protesters in his neighborhood.

Tweet: Tensions between community members are growing, community activists aren’t tolerating these folks here.

Tweet: Community members continue to ask protesters to leave and ask where are you when a baby’s shot.

Tweet: Some community members and protesters are getting into arguments here at the 7th district police station, many community members are demanding that these protesters leave their community and protest somewhere else.

An organizer of the protest, which was put together by members of Black Lives Matter and advocacy group Good Kids Mad City, told a local news outlet that some demonstrators decided to leave following conflict with residents, saying they felt unsafe. Other organizers maintained they were from the local area, but they said they decided not to participate in the rally due to agitators.

The protest came days after the police shooting of a 20-year-old suspect who reportedly opened fire on officers, which kicked off a spree of looting in downtown Chicago over the weekend. Smith said the unrest had been unfairly blamed on Englewood, and that the protesters were only feeding that perception.

A lot of people are saying the looting downtown sparked from Englewood. We’re not having that. It didn’t spark from Englewood, he said. Those looters were opportunists, and we’re tired of Englewood getting a black eye for any and everything that happens.

Some 400 officers were deployed to the downtown shopping district to quell the looting on Sunday, making over 100 arrests amid what Mayor Lori Lightfoot dubbed an assault on our city.

What do you think, Mumia?

Question and answer #5

Jeff: If someone asks me what are the three favorite books that I’ve written, it not a hard question, since I’ve only published four! You, however, have been a fairly prolific author, with 10 books published, by my count.

I’m going to have to ask you to brag on yourself a little here, so friends, fans and followers of China Rising Radio Sinolandcan learn more about you and your mission:

  1. What are your three favorites amongst your body of work?
  2. Please briefly describe each one.
  3. Then tell us what you like about each one and why it’s a good choice for us to read.

Written works

  1. Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? City Lights Publishers, (2017) ISBN 9780872867383
  2. Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal. City Lights Publishers (2015) ISBN 978-0872866751
  3. The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America. Third World Press (2011) ISBN 978-0883783375
  4. Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners in the U.S.A. City Lights Publishers (2009) ISBN 978-0872864696
  5. We Want Freedom: A Life In The Black Panther Party. South End Press (200 ISBN 978-0896087187
  6. Faith Of Our Fathers: An Examination Of The Spiritual Life Of African And African-American People. Africa World Press (2003) ISBN 978-1592210190
  7. All Things Censored. Seven Stories Press (2000) ISBN 978-1583220221
  8. Death Blossoms: Reflections From A Prisoner Of Conscience. Plough Publishing House (1997) ISBN 978-0874860863
  9. Live from Death Row. Harper Perennial (1996) ISBN 978-0380727667
  10. Mumia Speaks (pamphlet)

In revolutionary solidarity, Jeff

Mumia: Dear Bro. Jeff: How are ya?

When I getta question like this (about my faves), I recall a conversation I had years ago w/ the sci-fi award-winning writer, Terry Bisson. He said, ‘It’s like asking a father to say who is his favorite child–it’s impossible!’. That’s my answer, Jeff. I dig all the works I’ve ever written; because they spoke for the time they were written. Plus, it really doesn’t matter what my fave is: it matters to the Reader(s), for they really decide this question. That’s my answer, man. — maj♪

Question and answer #6

Jeff: Dear Comrade Mumia, I loved your answer to Question 5. As they say in the sport of fencing, touché.

We’ve got a good set of Q&A. Here is a final one:

Over the last four months, we’ve spent time getting to know each other as revolutionary friends and comrades.

You know I lived and worked in China for 16 years.

What would you like to ask me about this amazing nation, its people, 5,000-year civilization and communist-socialist revolution, to close out this interview?

Sino-best, Jeff

Mumia: Ah, flip the script, huh? Actually, I would, for 16 years is a considerable amount of time to dwell in a place, specifically a foreign nation. I wonder, based on that long, 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization that You mentioned, what are the continuities that You see that have survived the 1929 revolution? allá best, maj♪

Jeff’s answer: This is really an excellent question, Mumia, because Mao Zedong worked really hard to create a “New China”, to be people-powered by “New Chinese”, not the ones and their leaders who let Western and Japanese imperialists rape, plunder and ply them with illegal drugs, from 1839 to 1949, which is known as China’s “Century of Humiliation”.

For sure, Mao succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination at these two goals. If he hadn’t, China would have already been suborned to Western, oligarchic capitalism, only to be turned into a continent-sized, balkanized resource whore like Indonesia, or an occupied narco-state like Columbia. I always say that half the Chinese like Deng Xiaoping’s market oriented reforms and opening up – the urbanites – the rural folk less so, but 95% of them agree with Mao’s geopolitical worldview: that is, imperialism, colonialism and global capitalism are the enemy of China and its communism and socialism. For this reason, the Chinese are some of the most aware and savvy people, about history and current events.

That being said, Mao could not undo five millennia of continuous civilization. Confucism, Daoism and Buddhism are a very powerful and influential guiding force in the mentality, spirituality and daily conduct of the people, and always were after 1949, even when the official and public focus was on the revolution. While Mao’s “Little Red Book” is among the most sold titles in history, the Chinese people continued to and still love their ancient literature, poetry, paintings, calligraphy, sculpture, dance, acrobatics, opera, music and their version of Vaudeville.

From the very start in 2012, President Xi Jinping’s administration began to synthesize this vast cultural and historical repository with the Communist Party of China as the vanguard party. This was to protect the people from Western sabotage of their highly successful Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and communist way of life, thus making it possible for the nation to prosper, develop and progress in its own interests, not those in Eurangloland.

It all comes full circle. This is similar to the Black Panthers establishing their vanguard party to protect and empower the people to provide for themselves and prosper, while drawing on global and national Black cultural and historical reserves to help maintain the spirit of solidarity.

End of audio interview. 

Mumia Abu-Jamal biography

The state would rather give me an Uzi than a microphone.  — Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu Jamal is an award-winning broadcast journalist, essayist, and author of 12 books. Most recently, he’s completed the historic trilogy Murder Incorporated, its third volume Perfecting Tyranny coming out this fall to follow Dreaming of Empire and America’s Favorite Pastime.

Prophet, critic, historian, witness . . . Mumia Abu-Jamal is one of the most insightful and consequential intellectuals of our era. These razor sharp reflections on racialized state violence in America are the fire and the memory our movements need right now.  — Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.

In the late 1970s, Abu-Jamal worked as a reporter for radio stations throughout the Delaware Valley. He was a staff reporter for WUHY (now WHYY), the NPR flagship station, and he filed nationally for All Things Considered and the Morning Report. Along with his team at Philadelphia’s WUHY, he won the prestigious Major Armstrong Award (1980) from Columbia University for excellence in broadcasting. In 1981, Abu-Jamal was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists’ Philadelphia chapter. For the past 38 years, Abu-Jamal has lived in state prison. 28 of those years were spent in solitary confinement on death row. Currently, he’s serving life without parole at SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA. Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial and its resultant first-degree murder conviction have been criticized as unconstitutionally corrupt by legal and activist groups for decades, including Amnesty International and Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, and Desmond Tutu. Abu-Jamal has earned overwhelming international support. His demand for a new trial and for freedom is supported by the European Parliament. He has been made an honorary citizen of Paris, France. Abu-Jamal earned his BA at Goddard College in 1996; his MA from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1999; and an honorary Doctorate of Law from the New College of California in 1996. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

Legal Team:

Sam Spital, Legal Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Judith Ritter, Professor of Law Widner University.
Common Pleas Court ruling 3/27/2020

Medical Legal Team:

Bret Grote, Legal Director Abolitionist Law Center
Robert Boyle, Esq.
Abu-Jamal v. Wetzel 2017 “Mumia Long Distance Revolutionary”

www.mumia-themovie.com
www.prisonradio.org
www.freemumia.com
www.bringmumiahome.com

International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Books: – Live from Death Row (Harper Perennial, 1995) – Death Blossoms (Common Notions, 1996) – All Things Censored (Seven Stories, 2000) – Faith of Our Fathers (Africa World Press, 2003) – We Want Freedom (Common Notions, 2004) – Jailhouse Lawyers (City Lights, 2009) – The Classroom and the Cell (Third World Press, 2011) – Writing on the Wall (City Lights, 2015) – Have Black Lives Ever Mattered (City Lights 2016) – Murder Incorporated, – Volume One: Dreaming of Empire (Prison Radio, 2018) – Volume Two: America’s Favorite Pastime (Prison Radio, 2019) – *Soon-to-be-released:* Perfecting Tyranny (Prison Radio 2020). His work has been published in French, Japanese, German, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, and Italian.

Info from Black Philly Radical Collective

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner from North Philadelphia. He attended Benjamin Franklin High School in North Philadelphia and joined the Black Panther Party in 1968. As the spokesperson for the BPP, Mumia was targeted by the Philadelphia Police Department and the FBI for his activism. After the Black Panther Party dissolved, Mumia settled down and started a family. He became an award-winning journalist whose reporting on police brutality led then mayor Frank Rizzo to threaten him. In 1981, Mumia was driving a cab in order to make extra money to care for his family. As he approached 13th and Locust, he noticed his younger brother involved in an altercation with the police officer. The police officer was killed during the altercation and Mumia was shot in the stomach. In 1982, Mumia Abu Jamal was convicted of the murder of the Philadelphia police officer and sentence to death after a trial that international observers say was unfair, unconstitutional, and racist. The judge presided over his case was famously quoted as saying, “I’m going to help them fry the n-word.” Mumia spent close to 30 years on death row and came close to being executed in 1995 before an international outcry prevented it. The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police actively campaigned for his death. Mumia’s death sentence was overturned in 2011 and he is currently serving life without parole. Mumia has always maintained his innocence. He is currently suffering from multiple medical ailments including cirrhosis of the liver caused by the prison’s delay in treating his Hepatitis C. He is 66 years old. He is presently imprisoned in State Correctional Institute Mahoney (SCI-Mahoney).

USPS MAIL

Here is the “how to send a letter” to Mumia. They scan and copy and give him the copies of all mail, pictures, cards etc. No original paper goes into him. Books are different see below re books.

Mail: takes 10-20 days to reach him:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, FL 33733

BOOKS

Books must be sent directly from vendor with no letters included.

Security Processing Center
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
268 Bricker Road
Bellefonte, PA 16823-1667

Epilogue
HUEY NEWTON—THE LEGACY

Huey's mugshot—rite of passage for most black males in the US.

Huey P. Newton echoed much of what Mumia Abu-Jamal has said, written about and how he conducts his life. This is taken from Newton’s autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide,

My prison experience is a good example of revolutionary suicide in action, for prison is a microcosm of the outside world. From the beginning of my sentence, I defied the authorities by refusing to cooperate. As a result, I was confined to lock up in a solitary cell. As the months passed and I remained steadfast, they came to regard my behavior as suicidal. I was told that I would crack and break under the strain. I did not break, nor did I retreat from my position. I grew strong. If I had submitted to their exploitation and done their will, it would have killed my spirit and condemned me to a living death. To cooperate in imprison meant reactionary suicide to me. While solitary confinement can be physically and mentally destructive, my actions were taken with an understanding of the risk I had to suffer through a certain situation.

By doing so, my resistance told them that I rejected all they stood for, even though my struggle might have harmed my health, even killed me. I looked upon it as a way of raising the consciousness of the other inmates as a contribution to the ongoing revolution. Only resistance can destroy the pressures that cause reactionary suicide.

The concept of revolutionary suicide is not defeatist or fatalistic, on the contrary, it conveys an awareness of reality in combination with the possibility of hope-reality, because the revolution must always be prepared to face death, and hope because it symbolizes a resolute determination to bring about change. Above all, it demands that the revolutionary see his death and his life as one piece. Chairman Mao says that death comes to all of us, but it varies in its significance. To die for the reactionary is lighter than a feather. To die for the revolution is heavier than Mount Tai.

(Our mother) helped us see the light side in even the most difficult situations. This lightness and balance have carried me through some difficult days. Often when others expect to find me depressed by difficult circumstances and especially by the extreme condition of prison, they see that I look at things in another way. Not that I am happy with the suffering. I simply refuse to be defeated by it.

Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (autobiography)

###

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).
Jeff can be reached at China Rising, jeff@brownlanglois.com, Facebook, Twitter and Wechat/Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.

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Only Community Control Can Stop Police Atrocities

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

EDITED AND HOSTED BY THE GREANVILLE POST

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

Dateline 15 Sep 2020

Margaret Kimberley · Only Community Control Can Stop Police Atrocities

One of many BLM protest rallies across America, this one in Boston. Th multiracial composition has shook up the ruling elites. (Boston Herald)

A Minneapolis judge is moving forward with jury selection in the 2nd degree murder trial of the cop that killed George Floyd. Ai the height of protests, Minneapolis city council members vowed to disband the local police force. However, “there’s nothing being disbanded, dismantled or defunded, unfortunately, at this time,” said Sam Martinez, of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar Clark, a young Black man killed by cops five years ago. “We let the community know that what happened to George Floyd wasn’t going to stop unless the community has control of the police,” said Martinez.

 
Black Community Control of Police 
 


The authors are senior editors at Black Agenda Report, a leading journal of commentary and analysis about US politics and the Afro-American community.

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Beyoncé’s “Black is King” and the Pitfalls of African Consciousness

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

Russell Rickford

Genetically endowed with beauty and musical gifts, Beyonce has parlayed that accident into a huge fortune. And she has also become a seller of capitalist nostrums designed to derail the aspirations of black people. We saw the same cultural phenomenon with the ridiculously profitable film Black Panther, also built on absurd premises catering to low black self esteem. The allegiance of most megastars of any color is first to their own privileged billionaire class and, perhaps, a distant second, to the subculture they sprang from. It is that fact that shapes their often erratic and idiotic ideology.

With Black is King, Beyoncé and Disney have combined to sell audiences a lavishly fabricated Africa—one that is entirely devoid of class conflict.

“An African American megastar and entrepreneur has appropriated African nationalist and Pan Africanist imagery to promote the spirit of global capitalism.”

African American imaginings of Africa often intermingle with and help illuminate intimate hopes and desires for black life within the United States. So when an African American pop star offers an extended meditation on Africa, the resulting work reflects not just her particular visions of the continent and its diaspora, but also larger aspirations for a collective black future.

Black is King, Beyoncé’s elaborate, new marriage of music video and movie, is a finely-textured collage of cultural meaning. Though it is not possible, in the scope of this essay, to interpret the film’s full array of metaphors, one may highlight certain motifs and attempt to grasp their social implications.

An extravagant technical composition, Black is King is also a pastiche of symbols and ideologies. It belongs to a venerable African American tradition of crafting images of Africa that are designed to redeem the entire black world. The film’s depiction of luminous, dignified black bodies and lush landscapes is a retort to the contemptuous West and to its condescending discourses of African danger, disease and degeneration.

Black is King rebukes those tattered, colonialist tropes while evoking the spirit of Pan African pride. It falls short, however, as a portrait of popular liberation. In a sense, the picture is a sophisticated work of political deception. Its esthetic of African majesty seems especially emancipatory in a time of coronavirus, murderous cops and vulgar black death. One is almost tempted to view the film as another iteration of the principles of mass solidarity and resistance that galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement.

“In a sense, the picture is a sophisticated work of political deception.”

But Black is King is neither radical nor fundamentally liberatory. Its vision of Africa as a site of splendor and spiritual renewal draws on both postcolonial ideals of modernity and mystical notions of a premodern past. Yet for all its ingenuity, the movie remains trapped within the framework of capitalist decadence that has fabulously enriched its producer and principal performer, Beyoncé herself. Far from exotic, the film’s celebration of aristocracy and its equation of power and status with the consumption of luxury goods exalts the system of class exploitation that continues to degrade black life on both sides of the Atlantic.

That said, the politics of Black is King are complicated. The picture is compelling precisely because it appears to subvert the logic of global white supremacy. Its affirming representations of blackness and its themes of ebony kinship will resonate with many viewers, but will hold special significance for African Americans, for whom Africa remains an abiding source of inspiration and identity. Indeed, Black is King seems purposefully designed to appeal to diasporic sensibilities within African American culture.

“For all its ingenuity, the movie remains trapped within the framework of capitalist decadence.”

At the heart of the production lies the idea of a fertile and welcoming homeland. Black is King presents Africa as a realm of possibility. It plays on the African American impulse to sentimentalize the continent as a sanctuary from racial strife and as a source of purity and regeneration. Though the movie does not explicitly address the prospect of African American return or “repatriation” to Africa, allusions to such a reunion shape many of its scenes. No doubt some African American viewers will discover in the film the allure of a psychological escape to a glorious mother continent, a place where lost bonds of ancestry and culture are magically restored. 

The problem is not just that such an Africa does not exist. All historically displaced groups romanticize “the old country.” African Americans who idealize “the Motherland” are no different in this respect. But by portraying Africa as the site of essentially harmonious civilizations, Black is King becomes the latest cultural product to erase the realities of class relations on the continent. That deletion, which few viewers are likely to notice, robs the picture of whatever potential it may have had to inspire a concrete Pan African solidarity based on recognition of the shared conditions of dispossession that mark black populations at home and abroad.

“Some African American viewers will discover in the film the allure of a psychological escape to a glorious mother continent”

To understand the contradictions of Black is King, one must examine the class dynamics hidden beneath its spectacles of African nobility. The movie, which depicts a young boy’s circuitous journey to the throne, embodies Afrocentrism’s fascination with monarchical authority. It is not surprising that African Americans should embrace regal images of Africa, a continent that is consistently misrepresented and denigrated in the West. Throughout their experience of subjugation in the New World, black people have sought to construct meaningful paradigms of African affinity. Not infrequently, they have done so by claiming royal lineage or by associating themselves with dynastic Egypt, Ethiopia and other imperial civilizations.

The danger of such vindicationist narratives is that they mask the repressive character of highly stratified societies. Ebony royals are still royals. They exercise the prerogatives of hereditary rule. And invariably, the subjects over whom they reign, and whose lives they control, are black. African Americans, one should recall, also hail from the ranks of a service class. They have good cause to eschew models of rigid social hierarchy and to pursue democratic themes in art and politics. Black is King hardly empowers them by portraying monarchy as a symbol of grandeur rather than as a system of coercion.

There are other troubling allusions in the film. One scene casts Beyoncé and her family members as African oligarchs. The characters signal their opulence by inhabiting a sprawling mansion complete with servants, marble statues and manicured lawns. Refinement is the intended message. Yet the conspicuous consumption, the taste for imported luxury products, the mimicry of European high culture and the overall display of ostentation call to mind the lifestyles of a notorious generation of postcolonial African dictators. Many of these Cold War rulers amassed vast personal wealth while their compatriots wallowed in poverty. Rising to power amid the drama of African independence, they nevertheless facilitated the reconquest of the continent by Western financial interests. 

“Ebony royals are still royals.”

Black is King does not depict any particular historical figures from this stratum of African elites. (Some of the movie’s costumes pair leopard skin prints with finely tailored suits in a style that is reminiscent of flamboyant statesmen such as Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo.) However, by presenting the African leisure class as an object of adulation, the film glamorizes private accumulation and the kind of empty materialism that defined the comprador officials who oversaw Africa’s descent into neocolonial dependency.

Black is King is, of course, a Disney venture. One would hardly expect a multinational corporation to sponsor a radical critique of social relations in the Global South. (It is worth mentioning that in recent years the Disney Company has come under fire for allowing some of its merchandise to be produced in Chinese sweatshops.) Small wonder that Disney and Beyoncé, herself a stupendously rich mogul, have combined to sell western audiences a lavishly fabricated Africa—one that is entirely devoid of class conflict.

Anticolonial theorist Frantz Fanon once warned, in a chapter titled “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness,” that the African postcolonial bourgeoisie would manipulate the symbols of black cultural and political autonomy to advance its own narrow agenda. Black is Kingadds a new twist to the scenario. This time an African American megastar and entrepreneur has appropriated African nationalist and Pan Africanist imagery to promote the spirit of global capitalism.

“By presenting the African leisure class as an object of adulation, the film glamorizes private accumulation and empty materialism.”

In the end, Black is King must be read as a distinctly African American fantasy of Africa. It is a compendium of popular ideas about the continent as seen by black westerners. The Africa of this evocation is natural and largely unspoiled. It is unabashedly black. It is diverse but not especially complex, for an aura of camaraderie supersedes its ethnic, national and religious distinctions. This Africa is a tableau. It is a repository for the black diaspora’s psychosocial ambitions and dreams of transnational belonging.

What the Africa of Black is King is not is ontologically African. Perhaps the African characters and dancers who populate its scenes are more than just props. But Beyoncé is the picture’s essential subject, and it is largely through her eyes—which is to say, western eyes—that we observe the people of the continent. If the extras in the film are elegant, they are also socially subordinate. Their role is to adorn the mostly African American elites to whom the viewer is expected to relate. 

There are reasons to relish the pageantry of Black is King, especially in a time of acute racial trauma. Yet the movie’s mystique of cultural authenticity and benevolent monarchy should not obscure the material realities of everyday life. Neoliberal governance, extractive capitalism and militarism continue to spawn social and ecological devastation in parts of Africa, the Americas and beyond. Confronting those interwoven realities means developing a concrete, global analysis while resisting metaphysical visions of the world.

Russell Rickford is the author of We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power and the Radical Imagination.

This article previously appeared in Black Perspectives .

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