Activist Legacy
From Social Justice Wiki
"Everyday I continue to work and put into practice what Chairman Fred said, 'You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill a revolution.'" - Fred Hampton, Jr.
Fred Hampton, Jr. is often called "Tha Cub," and the Prisoners of Conscience Committee - the organization he now chairs - is often referred to as "The New Black Panther Party." In the 1960s, street organizations would collaborate with the Black Panther Party to achieve specific goals affecting their community. Hampton, Jr. uses this same strategy in building coalitions with unpoliticized street organizations around some point of political unity. However, Fred Hampton, Jr.'s life embraces not only the legacy of his mother, Revolutionary Freedom Fighter Akua Njeri, and father, Black Panther Party Chicago leader Fred Hampton, Sr., but also the very period of revolution into which he was born. From the social currents of the 1960s he draws his vision for today.
The 1960s and 70s were characterized by the prominence of race-class struggles against social, economic, and political inequity - and for the emergence of black nationalist identities. In those years the efforts of youth-driven grassroots organizations, including the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, (SNCC), gained national attention. Social movements quite literally affected every aspect of peoples' lives, and it seemed that all parts of the black community internalized the spirit of collective protest.
The urgency people felt to force some type of wide-spread change was so strong that Marvin Gaye had no choice but to ask "What's Going On?" and James Brown couldn't help but scream "I'm Black and I'm Proud." Fred Hampton, Jr. doesn't see enoguh of this level of all-encompassing urgency within African American communities today despite there being a need. Thus, his mission has become one of holding people accountable for their inaction, and subsequently, inciting action.
Tapping into the revolutionary spirit which has always surrounded him, Hampton, Jr.'s organizing work revolves around the following three points:
1. Bringing attention to blatant contradictions of this nation in its promises to vs. actual treatment of African-Americans.
2. Making accountability the law of the land for all people - the powerful and the powerless.
3. Drawing oppressed people to some point of political unity in order to act on a commonly-identified goal.