I found this man laying,
with his head roughly the center of the bed,
his body coming back like this.
His two hands were laying over the, the bed like this,
and just off, or right below his, uh, right hand,
was a 45 automatic. Just a short way away from his left hand
was a shotgun. I didn't know if he was, uh, how bad he was injured,
so I picked up, I grabbed him by the left wrist,
and I pulled him out into, or onto the door
which had been used as a barricade.
I then backed off again.
That's where he (unclear)
I'm the Deputy Chairman of State of Illinois Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton.
I have pledged tonight to introduce you to who I believe
is one of the baddest motherf***ers in the world.
A man that did something that a lot of us
oughta be very glad that he did.
He was a part
of making the only party which exists
in the United States today
that represents the people.
As a matter of fact, he was one-half
Him and Huey P. Newton started out in 1966.
Sometimes I think where some of us went in 1966.
I think what we would've said
if we'd heard about some n***ers,
going out in the street, talkin about sheriffs and guns,
fight all them policemen, because we didn't know they was pigs,
out there in the streets.
And I think I'm speaking for the whole Party of the state of Illinois,
I know I am, when I say that we love Huey P. Newton.
(Crowd) Right on! (Hampton) We love Eldridge Cleaver.
(crowd) Right on! (Hampton) We love Bobby Hutton. (crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) We love the Black Panther Party. (crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) And we love Chairman Bobby Seale. (crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) We love him because they was the first ones
to take a stand against capitalism and racism
and said we are going to fight it to the end.
We said, we'll join the line somewhere motherf***er,
if you try to pass us, we'll blow your brains out. (crowd) Right on!
They was the first ones that came through with the program
that was initiated for the, uh, for the benefit of the people.
All those things that I named, and reasons why we love them
are reasons that make it beneficial to us.
But let me simply say that when I introduce Brother Bobby
that we love him. Because he loves
to hear the love. Chairman Bobbby Seale. (crowd erupts in approval)
(Seale) Right on!
(Seale) Alright. We here for some jive conspiracy.
You know what we gonna do?
We are going to defend ourselves.
Because Huey P. Newton said,
that power, power is the ability to identify phenomena
and make it act in a desired manner.
Power is the ability to define phenomena.
And make it act in a desired manner.
What kind of phenomena? Social phenomena.
What is the social phenomena?
Black people, Mexican American, any kind of people,
begin to learn that the social phenomena
is that, in fact, U.S., racist, decadent, capitalist, imperialistic America
is a phony state. That a phony state exists here
that these pigs are doing nothing but
protect the avaricious businessman,
and the demagogic politician.
Protecting the exploitative system that they got going.
That, in fact, we are tired of it,
sick of it,
you've been brutalizing Black people.
You been murdering and lynching them.
Black people are tired.
Black people are the vanguard of the revolution all of a sudden.
And its phenomena correct also.
But we are concerned with that social phenomena.
We are concerned with that exploitation.
We are concerned with the, uh, oppression that Black people
and all other peoples in the world,
who are suffering the same common oppression
that we are suffering today.
The thing is that we have the ability to define it.
If we have the ability to define it,
the only next thing to do
is get organized.
Get organized.
So when a pig walks up to you,
or a pig get too jive with the people,
you'll be so organized,
you'll be learning some tactics,
you'll be learning some revolutionary principles,
you'll be having some guns hid out somewhere,
you'll have some proper tactics.
That when the pig get to jiving with you,
the pig is wrong. You whip your gun out on him,
blow him away,
and then you have the ability, in fact
you have made that pig act in a desired manner.
(crowd) Right on!
(Seale) But for what?
But for what?
For the system, brothers. We need a new system.
The people need a new system.
(Rennie Davis) I sat yesterday afternoon next to Bobby Seale,
while he said that a federal marshal
tried to ram a 4-inch piece of cloth
gauze, into his mouth,
three marshals held his head,
one marshal held his nose so that he couldn't breathe,
and a fifth marshal attempted to press against his mouth,
with all his weight,
this gauze.
That ultimately resulted in Bobby bleeding profusely
around the mouth and the lips
as they tried to jam this piece of object into his mouth
to silence him.
(Seale) I'm so thirsty for revolution.
I'm so crazy about the people.
We're gonna stand together.
We're gonna have a Black army, a Mexican American army,
and our lines of solidarity with progressive whites.
All of us.
And we're going to march on this big power structure,
and we're going to say, "Stick 'em up, motherf***er,
we come for what's ours." (crowd voices approval)
(Seale) Up against the wall!
Power to the people. Thanks, brothers.
(crowd cheers)
When they got together, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale
yes, they got together with guns,
and there's nothing wrong with that.
Because we need some guns,
Black people need some peace.
White people need some peace.
And we're going to have to fight,
we are going to have to struggle,
we're going to have to struggle relentlessly
to bring about some peace, because the people that we are asking for peace,
they are a bunch of megalomaniac war-mongers,
and they don't even understand what peace means,
and we've got to fight 'em, we've got to struggle with them,
to make 'em understand what peace means. (crowd applause)
(Hampton) Bobby Seale is going through all types of physical
and mental torture. But that's all right,
because we say it, even before this happened,
and we going to say it after I'm locked up, and after everybody's locked up,
that you can jail the revolutionary,
but you can't jail the revolution.
Right.
You might run a liberator like Eldridge Cleaver out the country,
but you can't run liberation out the country.
You might murder a freedom fighter like Bobby Hutton,
but you can't murder freedom fightin',
and if you do, you'll come up with answers that don't answer,
information that don't explain,
you come up with conclusions that don't conclude.
And you have come up with people
that you thought should be acting like pigs,
is acting like people,
and moving on pigs, and that's what we've got to do.
So we going to see about Bobby,
regardless what these people think we should do.
Because schools is not important,
and work is not important.
Nothing is more important than stopping fascism,
because fascism will stop us all.
We going to see about Bobby,
because Bobby saw about us.
(Davis) When I saw he had sixteen pieces of adhesive
strapped across his mouth,
when I saw the gauze around his head,
when I saw that his ankles were strapped in leg-irons to his chair
and his hands handcuffed to his side,
I knew that we would unite in this country
to stop this outrageous, criminal,
Nixon stampede over elementary human rights.
We will free Bobby Seale,
and we will stop this trial.
(Hampton) A lotta people don't understand
the Black Panther Party's relationship with white mother-country radicals,
lotta people don't even understand their words and their refusals a lot.
But what we're saying is that there are white people in the mother country,
that are for the same types of things that we are for:
stimulating revolution in the mother country.
And we said that we'll work with anybody,
form a coalition with anybody,
that has revolution on their mind.
And we're not a racist organization
because we understand that racism is an excuse
used for capitalism.
If we know that racism is, it's just a by-product of capitalism.
Everything would be alright if
everything was put back in the hands of the people,
and we going to have to put it back
in the hands of the people.
Everybody in the state of Illinois,
is going to have to be involved,
or even around, the revolution because we're going to have one.
We going to have to, we're going to have to do more than talk,
we're going to have to do more than listen.
We're going to even have to do more than learn.
We're going to have to start practicing,
and that's very hard.
We're going to have to start getting out there
with the people.
And a lot of times we think we better than the people,
and that's an insult,
that's criminal,
It's going to take a lot of hard work.
(male Panther) Come on in, little brother,
come on in, little sister.
Y'all can sit down and get something to eat.
Y'all take off y'all's coat.
We need some more cups out here.
(Kids talking)(male Panther) Sit down, man!
Y'all can eat as much as y'all want to.
Right on.
(Kids chatting)
(male Panther) Who wants seconds?
Who all wants cereal?
One, two...who wants milk? Raise their hand.
Who...anybody want milk?
Alright.
If you want milk then so be it.
Well take it.
That's for your teeth, man, that makes your teeth strong.
Who else didn't...who else (unclear)
(Hampton) That's a (unclear) to the program meals,
a lotta people think it's charity,
but what...it takes the people on the stage, another stage,
and another stage, and any program of the revolutionary
is an advanced program.
Revolution gets change, unending, just keep on changin',
that's what we do.
We take the people in there,
and take them through those changes,
and before you know it, they are, in fact,
not only knowing what socialism is,
they do not need to know what it is, they are endorsing it,
they are participating in it,
they are observing, and they are supporting socialism.
(female Panther) Alright. All power to the people.
(Hampton) That's the people's thing!
Socialism is the people!
You afraid of socialism? If you afraid of socialism you afraid of yourself.
Basically, you knowing my ideology,
and basically, me knowing yours,
you can, um, support some of our programs,
that what you're saying?
(Diaga) Why not?
(Hampton) And you believe in the program Breakfast for Children program,
free health clinics? Brown brothers?
(Diaga) We believe they are good things (Hampton) Uh-huh.
(Diaga) As the focal point to organize their mothers and fathers. (Hampton) Uh-huh.
(Diaga) Peace. (Hampton) M-hm.
There's no educational program in here?
(Diaga) Uh, that's a social license thing, you know, you set that up, brother,
you can't put everything on one piece of paper.
(Hampton) What about this bank?
(non-Panther) Credit union? (Hampton) Mm. (non-Panther) Credit union.
Credit union, my brother, is a bank.
Are you hip to credit unions? It is a bank.
(Hampton) Yeah, you go and buy money...?
(Diaga) Yeah, that's a bank. It's a bank. Owned by the people.
Run for the people. And by the people.
(Hampton) What would money be given out to people for?
(Diaga) Well, the people would decide that...you want money for
whatever, you know the people in the community decide.
(non-Panther) You need some living room furniture maybe?
You need a car, maybe?
(Hampton) See, the thing is with me, Diaga,
I need to know some more about...I wish you had some
more literature about the educational thing here.
Because, you dig, as far as we concerned
y'know, you struggling,
the way you look at struggling is that, uh,
this depends on the educational thing, you dig.
(Diaga) This depends on the education.
But the whole thing... (Hampton) No, but ain't any of this does.
You, you could form this without education.
(Diaga) Uhhh
(Hampton) You could form this here.
(Diaga) Uh, no, not the way we talk about forming it.
Y'know, right, we talking about forming it right.
Y'know, it's not on paper.
We didn't write it on paper.
(Hampton) You know, form it right.
You dig?
Let me give you an example:
Uh, Jomo, Jomo Kenyatta formed an excellent revolution
with no education, and all it did in the end
thing, Jomo told them motherf***ers,
he said...well, uh, you know,
you can educate, uh, hate in every blood.
I mean, the brother, after he beat the revolution,
now I'm going to oppress you.
Another example: Papa Doc in Haiti.
Papa Doc in Haiti hated everything white.
Man, you couldn't put this white paper in front
of Papa Doc's face, but he moved all the white people
out and he took over to be oppressor, he did,
because of no education.
And if the people had been educated
they'd have said, that "We don't hate the motherf***er
white people, we hate the oppressor,
whether he be white, Black, brown, or yellow."
So we got to know the educational program
to find out what is going to be in the finale.
Lot of people would, Jomo Kenyatta's called not a
'never-revolutionary' but an 'ex-revolutionary.'
So is Papa Doc. They brought on successful revolution.
That thing in the Mau-Maus was a b**ch.
Bantu, freedom fighters, all that kind of action.
What we saying is, is that the end.
But you don't judge Castro now. You can't do it.
Nobody in this room can judge whether Castro's
going to be a revolutionary now.
Uh, (unclear).
We talking 'bout things, y'know, meet with, uh, China, the People's Republic,
and even at the state they in now,
talking about even going on further
into a Communistic state.
That's what we talkin' about.
Those are revolutionary.
So we got to understand here,
the educational program you have,
to be able to figure out whether we're going
the right lines, where the people will end up in a situation,
where they can be able to really control themselves.
You understand what I'm saying?
Uh, with no education, the people that take the local foundations
start stealing money, because they won't be really educated
to why it's the people's thing anyway.
You understand what I'm saying?
With no education you have neocolonialism
instead of colonialism.
Like you got in in Africa now,
like you got in, uh, in uh Haiti.
So, what we talking about is, it has to be
uh, educational program,
that's very important.
As a matter of fact, this is so important to us
We, it's so important to us,
that a person has to go through a six-week
of our political education,
before they can consider themself a member of the Party,
able to even run out ideology for the Party.
Why? Because if they don't have any education,
then, they're nowhere.
You dig what I'm saying?
You nowhere.
Because you don't even know why they doing what they doing.
You be, you might get caught up in the emotionalist,
uh, you understand me? You might, you know,
you done caught up, and caught being poor,
and they want something.
And then, if they're not educated,
they'll want more,
and before you know it, they'll be capitalist,
and before you know it we'd have Negro imperialists.
(Diaga) Yeah, but see brother,
the reason we don't do a lot of talking,
is because you see it's a foregone conclusion
with us.
(Hampton) Yeah, well see, brother,
the reason I do do a lot of talking
is because I don't, there's no foregone conclusions with me.
Who the programs are geared towards?
you got Black Easter, you got Black Christmas,
you got Black Groundhog Day, you got Black April Fool's,
ain't geared toward nobody but Black businessmen.
And I said that anybody that comes into
our community, and sets up any type of situation
that does not meet the needs of the masses,
then I, Chairman President of the Black Panther Party,
say that I catch that n***er by his collarneck,
and beat him to death with a Black Panther paper.
We not foolin'. (crowd voices approval)
(Bobby Rush) In that area, where you have
a high infant mortality rate,
where you have, uh, lead poisoning,
where you have inadequate medical service,
we saw, we saw the basic need for free medical service,
and we worked hard, and work over long period of time,
in order to make that a reality.
Now up to this date in the Black community,
you have doctors there who are more concerned with
private wealth rather than public health.
The concept behind the medical center is
that we'd take the profit out of the medical profession.
Our medical center is a direct result
of the basic need in the Black community
for free medical service.
(Doctor) You had this done about three days ago, you said?
This is not the burned hand? (Patient) Right.
(Doctor) Oh.
(Doctor) Does it feel painful?
Like it's infected and everything?
(Patient) No, it's not painful.
('Doc' Satchel) We got doctors every day this week,
next week, we got, no, we need one for next Thursday.
(Secretary) Come to the clinic tomorrow for an appointment.
(Rush) What are the chances we get an ambulance down?
(Satchel) We can buy an ambulance.
That's about the best chance. (Rush) Well, what about...ain't a bad idea?
(Satchel) Idea's alright, but...you know, the idea's alright,
but we just gotta have money to get an ambulance.
(Rush) But how is it...can we get a used ambulance?
(Doctor) A couple of pharmacists from the hospital where I am,
they're going to come out, and see,
and they're interested in working, y'know.
(Satchel) We can have patients come through
see a doctor. After they gets through,
get tested, what have you,
then they comes in and see the people's advocate.
That's a community person or personal partner
that acts like a liaison between the center here itself
and the community.
He asking, what type of service
they thought they got here, in the center.
You know, any other criticisms of the medical center itself.
It's also to deal with problems outside medical problems,
you know.
People's Advocate has a resource file;
in this file we have, uh, teachers, uh,
sociologists, speech therapists, social workers,
y'know this is all a part of resource files.
(Hampton) Okay, well look it here. Look it here.
You sit over here, and talk about all that
jail time he had behind his motherf***in' badge,
and said, "I got the rap, too."
This is Bobby Rush. The Deputy Minister (inaudible) of the State of Illinois...
Bad motherf***er. You can tell the way that
Huey...that if, that if the Chairman Bobby Seale
feels the way about Huey P. Newton,
that I feel about Bobby Rush.
We didn't start the Black Panther Party,
but we do know this:
That we are some bad motherf***ers. (crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) Black Panther Party going to remain
in the State of Illinois. (crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) You know some time we get to talkin',
and I go to court, and they say "Well, Fred," I come back and Rush say,
"Fred, we got to keep you on the streets."
Then Rush'll go to court, and he come back,
and I'll say, "Rush, we got to keep you on the streets."
And he and I, that we just went back and forth,
we decided that we like each other so well,
Goddamnit, we're going to both stay on
the motherf***in' streets. (crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) Ain't nobody goin' nowhere. (crowd applause)
We in there, they ain't taking us nowhere,
we going to stay right here with the people.
We are going to have to move,
and we're going to have to move fast,
we're going to have to move hard,
and we're going to have to move organized.
To be able, to keep Bobby Rush on the streets.
They got our field secretary, Dave Samuels, Jr., up against the wall.
They got our Minister of Information, Chaka,
up against the wall.
Everybody...they even got Chairman Fred
up against the wall.
Everybody against the wall.
They even talking about giving folks twenty years,
talking about giving me twenty years.
They did...for the ice cream truck robbery.
That's right.
71 dollars' worth of ice cream,
710 ice cream bars.
I might be big, but I can't eat 710 ice cream bars.
(crowd applause)
But even though they tried to give me
all that bad publicity,
they still came out, in the end,
showing the true nature of capital.
Because they said I went in to the truck,
beat up this pig that was in our community,
exploiting people, took the ice cream bars from him,
handed them out to the kids. (crowd cheers)
(Hampton) Even though they make me a thief,
they make me a Robin Hood-type thief.
Yay, to the people.
Here is a man of the revolution, people,
(inaudible) Field Secretary for the State of Illinois,
bad motherf***er, a brother of mine,
a brother I've been working with a long time,
and don't pretend to work with,
I'm going to eat with him, I'm going to sleep with him,
I'm going to die with him, I'm going to live with him,
I'm going to lead with him: Bobby Rush. (crowd applause)
(Rush) We going to take the case to the people,
the people said that Fred is going to remain free,
that Fred is innocent of anything against the people,
he might be, uh, guilty of, uh, f***in' with the power structure,
but we can relate to that. (crowd) Right on!
(Rush) Power to the people...
and we are going to move on this power structure,
like Bobby said, we going to say
"Get up against the wall, motherf***er,
because this is a hold-up,
and we came to get what's ours." (crowd) Right on!
(crowd applause)
(Hampton) Okay now, we're going to organize the movement so big,
to make sure that the leader of the Black Panther Party
in this state, are not political prisoners,
and not exiled, and not killed,
that that movement is going to be so big,
that we might have to go and get Huey P. Newton,
and let him carry a sign.
We going to have everybody come.
We're going to have everybody involved.
Ay, we going to start a thing called "Free Fred."
Know what that sound like?
Ay, let's do that.
"Free Fred!" (crowd) Free Fred!
(Hampton) Free Fred! (crowd) Free Fred!
(Hampton) Free Fred! (crowd, louder) Free Fred!
(Hampton) Hey, I ain't even in jail yet.
(Bailiff) The State of Illinois versus Fred Hampton,
the Honorable Judge Elijah presiding.
(Judge) The defense will call its first witness.
(Hampton) I like you, uh, again, to describe to me
what happened, if anything, after you and
Officer Dunn pulled onto the school ground.
(Witness) Um, I identify you, as the person who, uh
grabbed me by the throat and held me down
in the ice cream van.
(Officer Dunn) We were walking,
looking through the crowd,
and looking for the one that beat him up.
(Hampton) And what, if anything, did he say when he saw me?
Or what, if anything, did you say to him?
Who said something first?
(Dunn) He said, "That's him.
I'll never forget his face. That's the one."
(Hampton) Okay, now when that police car pulled up,
what, if anything, happened? (Witness) Well,
the policemen, one policeman was on the outside
of the car, and one was on the inside of the car.
Officer Dunn pointed to Fred, and said,
"That's the man that did it, isn't it?"
(Hampton) Mm-hmm.
(Witness) And the ice cream man, um,
he said, "Yes, I think so."
(Hampton) So in other words,
the officer pointed out me as being the, the, the
person who had robbed this man,
and in response to that, after that,
the, um, ice cream truck driver said, "Uh,
yes, that's the man."
(Witness) That's right.
(Hampton) What race was this policeman?
(Witness) One was white, and one was colored.
(Hampton) Right on. (crowd laughter)
(Hampton) Officer Dunn,
do you know the defendant Fred Hampton?
(Dunn) Yes, I know Fred Hampton.
(Hampton) Do you know, of, uh, basically what
Fred Hampton stands for?
Politically.
(Dunn) No, I don't.
(Hampton) Uh, Officer Dunn, do you know,
do you know, the, the, the situation that...
core people, black people and white poor people,
and red people, and the brown people in
in this country today?
(Dunn) Well, not completely.
(Hampton) But you do know that, that -
a part of you do know that, is that part
include the fact that, uh, these people are being, uh
oppressed, by the white people, that, uh,
like to oppress people to make profit?
Do you know - (Lawyer) Objection!
(Judge) Sustained. (Hampton) Let me rephrase the question.
Do you know, uh, a whole lot of, uh,
blood-sucking pigs are vampires -
(crowd interrupts with laughter) Right on!
(Hampton) Do you know, uh...
Do you think you're free, officer?
(Dunn) Yes, I think I'm free.
(Hampton) No more questions, Officer Dunn.
God help you.
So we say, as we always say at the Black Panther Party,
that they can do what they want to, to us,
we might not be back, I might be in jail,
I might be anywhere,
but when I leave, you can remember I said,
with the last words out of my lips,
that I am, a revolutionary.
And you're going to have to keep on saying that.
You are going to have to say that I am a
proletariat. I am the people. I'm not the pig.
You got to make a distinction.
And the people are going to have to attack the pigs.
The people are going to have to stand up against the pigs.
That's what the Panthers are doing,
and that's what the Panthers are doing
all over the world.
(Plaintiff) We have brought to trial here, Fred Hampton.
You are here to judge between two conflicting testimonies.
Somebody is lying. Now reason stands,
the reason is very clear here, that Private Jones,
who had come from Sanford, North Carolina,
would have no great desire to see Fred Hampton
up in this trial.
But, Fred Hampton, a key figure in this community,
has great reason for not wanting to be put, uh, in jail.
(Hampton) But, the state's attorney,
and the state's attorney office,
has reason to see Fred Hampton in jail.
We've got a new state's attorney.
And he said already what he's all about.
People that had different, uh, political beliefs than he had...
his speeches sound somewhat like those of Hitler.
And we know why he wants to see Fred Hampton put in jail.
Why do I have a lot of arrests? Because of harassment.
Why is there harassment? Because the people that harass me
has set up a problem that made me.
Disagree with them violently, and they,
they set up this problem in order to exploit me
and other people like me.
And why do they want to get rid of me?
Because I'm saying something that might wake up
other exploited people,
and some other oppressed people.
And if all these people ever get together,
then these pigs that are exploiting us,
we'll be able to run into the lake.
That's why they want to get rid of us.
And, it's just, uh, it's sorta like a primary thing
with me. I'm the, the first move that they'll make.
I'm a part of the organization that will be
the first organization they'll move on
because I happen to be a part of an organization in
the Black Panther Party, that is the only organization, in fact,
that has came out and stood up, loud and clear,
and said that we don't care what anybody says,
whether they have guns or not,
and badges, or eighteen uniforms,
if whenever they step outside the bounds of legality,
into the bounds of illegality,
we will blow they brains out.
If they bother the people.
And what makes them mad about that?
They constantly bothering the people.
Anybody that's out there for the protection of the people
happens to be in direct conflict with them.
What makes them mad about it?
What makes them mad about it is,
that they had Black people, and white poor people,
and red poor people, and Puerto Rican poor people,
and Latin American poor people, of, uh,
poor people of all descent.
They had them caught up in their movements
based on racism when the Black Panther Party stood up and said,
"We don't care what anybody says.
We don't think to fight fire with fire.
We think to fight fire with water."
We ain't going to fight the racist not with racism,
but we going to fight with solidarity.
We say we not going to fight capitalism with Black capitalism,
but we going to fight it with socialism.
We stood up and said, "We not going to fight reactionary pigs,
and reactionary state's attorneys like this,
and reactionary state's attorneys like Hanrahan,
with any other reactions on our part."
We're going to fight their reactions with
all of us people getting together, and having
an international, proletariat revolution.
(crowd) Right on.
(Hampton) And that's saying all power to the people.
(crowd) Right on.
(Hampton) Best saying that no matter what color you are
you go into two classes.
And that's saying there's a class over here,
and there's a class over there,
and the reason that this class over here
has never did anything to get this class off its back,
because this is lower, this is upper,
this is the oppressed, this is the oppressor,
this is the exploited, this is the exploiter,
and these people in this class have divided themselves,
and said, "I'm Black, and I hate white people."
"I'm white, and I hate Black people."
"I'm Latin American, and I hate hillbillies."
"I'm hillbilly, and I hate Indians."
So we fighting amongst each other.
And here you heard the testimony of pigs here,
and you got pigs of all colors, you know that.
You got pigs that are white,
you got pigs that are Black.
You've even got pigs that are Black and white.
Propagating the same kind of madness
that, uh, this buffoon Hanrahan would be propagating
if he were here himself.
And why?
Because they want to keep you to believing
that I'm your enemy.
And that everyone else that's Black,
and that wears a lot of hair on his head,
and hair on his face,
they want to keep you thinking that he's your enemy.
Why?
Because if ever you were to disregard him,
and overlook him for just a minute,
and throw away the cause of the racist,
and start to dealing with a little logic,
then they can be beaten.
There would be no one else you could attack.
Other than Hanrahan. Other than Daley.
And other than 'Tricky Dicky' Nixon.
If you make the right decision,
then the oppressed people of the world
give complete satisfaction.
I know you'll return the verdict of 'Not Guilty', thank you.
(Announcer) Today is May 1st.
Huey P. Newton's promise is fulfilled today.
(crowd) Free Huey! Free Huey!
(Announcer) Our Chairman Fred Hampton has not arrived yet.
The pigs are trying to incarcerate him,
these are some of the things we have to deal with.
(Rush) Somebody, somewhere, knows what happened
to Fred this afternoon. So dig,
you motherf***in' pigs, get off your dead asses FBI,
and J. Who Edgar, and go,
and find Fred before 7 o'clock.
(crowd) Right on!
(Rush) You find Fred, motherf***er.
And anybody out there, with him,
that's harming him, or that's kidnapped him,
and he happens to be a pig,
well then we just don't discriminate about who,
who's ass we going to kill.
(crowd) Right on!
(Rush) Y'all go home, now, and, uh,
grease some pieces. (crowd) Right on!
(Rush) And set them sights, and what-not,
raise the windows, and if we can't find Fred
we going to give y'all the call.
I know somebody going to construe this
to be that we advocate people to go out and ride,
but I told y'all before, that riding just ain't no hip thing no more.
And we want everybody, when they leave here,
we gotta leave here,
at 2 o'clock I think, uh, hey pig right there,
do we have to leave at 2?
(lady in crowd) Ask him again!
(Rush) Hey pig in the back...
(crowd catcalls)
(Rush) Why don't you talk to that chief pig,
old, decrepit motherf***er, and ask him
why don't we stay a little longer?
(Rush) Marxism consists of thousands of truths,
but they all boil down to one single thing:
Right to rebel.
(Narrator) Panther headquarters.
A police raid is expected.
(Hampton) We praying that Hanrahan leaves his charge.
(Woman) What type of blood do you have?
(Man) B-positive. Make sure you don't give me no pig's blood.
(Woman) If, uh, an atom bomb, I mean,
tear gas is thrown, here's your water and your mask,
keep this on you. All times.
(Hampton) You know, I know a lot of people in here
saying it's a cheap thing like this,
couldn't understand the motive behind this.
Some of us young people, you know what I mean,
know a lot of people couldn't understand
the, uh, me myself, you know, I was born in a so-called
bourgeois community, and had some of the better things
you could say it lightly,
and I found that even some of the better things in life
for Black people, they want to improve.
And I found that there were more people starving,
than people eating, and I found there are more people
didn't have clothes, than did have clothes,
and I found that I just happened to be one of the few.
And I made it a commitment to myself that
I wouldn't stop doing what I was doing
until all those people are free.
A lotta times, I wanted for it to be possible
for people to be free under capitalism,
I wanted for socialism to be able to be brought about
through means other desired means.
But those were times when I was trying to be subjective,
I was looking at the things and try to make them
the way I wanted to make them to be.
Because I didn't Nine-and-Dine, but I thought,
well, anybody shouldn't have to die.
What we saying is, that we're more than people
that are for armed struggle.
We're people that are for armed struggle,
for the purpose of bringing on the revolution.
For the purpose of setting up initially the socialistic state,
and for the purpose, secondarily, of advancing into
what you could call utopia,
or what you could call the Communist state.
We are saying, that by observation and participation,
by educating, and by arming, and by
teaching the people their revolutionary political power,
we think that we as vanguard can move those people,
that need to be moved that way.
We can let those people ride our backs
down the path to social revolution.
And on, and on, and on, and finally,
like we say, utopianism or what you call Communism.
(to other man) I be very confident that no one
is coming through the front door.
Nobody gettin' on the roof.
(man) You see, in other given situations,
like when you're trying to fight, and you see
because, uh, you got height, and you got firepower too.
Only way we could, uh, get him, is out-shoot him,
get more firepower.
See, we keep him pinned down.
He can't get up and shoot, when he feel the bullets comin' at him.
So the only way that we can, uh, get him,
is out-shoot him, put too much firepower on,
where he can't jump up.
(Hampton) Just, that, and a whole lotta semi-automatic and
automatic action on him over there,
he ain't got no time to save nobody.
Keep him down.
(Man) I just wish they would come tonight.
(Hampton) This is the difference between 20 million n***ers,
and 20 million n***ers armed to the hilt.
We, we put Rush out there, and you...
he won't even be able to get up.
(Sounds outside the building)
(Man) Wait a minute, what was that?
(Hampton) We draw the line right here.
Pigs will come no further.
They are not going to make us retreat.
We are going to have somewhere,
no matter how far we run, no matter how long we got to run,
that when we reach that point,
we going to be able to stop and say,
in the voice that Huey would say it in,
that, uh, motherf***er, you done went too far,
you dig?
Because, uh, I got my gun, motherf***er,
and you got yours.
And you got to shoot me with your gun, motherf***er,
and, if you try to take my gun, well then,
I had to throw your motherf***in' brains out.
(crowd roars)
(Hampton) That's what it's got to be about.
(Judge) Has the jury reached a verdict?
(Juror) We have Your Honor.
(Judge) What is your verdict?
(Juror) We, the jury, find the defendant,
Fred Hampton, not guilty. (crowd) Right on!
(Rush) Illinois Chapter, Black Panther Party,
2350 West Madison, Chicago, Illinois.
Press Release, May 27th, 1969.
Pig Power Structure, and their lackeys,
in another attempt of pig repression,
have sentenced Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton
to two-to-five years in prison.
(Narrator) While Chairman Fred is in prison,
the police attack Panther headquarters.
There are 3 Panthers in the office,
5 policemen are shot, the 3 Panthers are beaten
when they run out of ammunition.
(crowd singing) The Revolution has come!
It's time to pick up the gun!
No more brothers in jail!
Off the pig!
(speaker) I am! (crowd) I am!
(speaker) a Revolutionary! (crowd) a Revolutionary!
(crowd singing) Piggy Wiggy, oh Lord,
I say you gotta go now,
Oink Oink, Bang Bang, Dead Pig!
Piggy Wiggy, oh Lord, I say you gotta go now,
Oink Oink, Bang Bang, Dead Pig!
Piggy Wiggy, oh no, I say you gotta go now,
Oink Oink, Bang Bang, Dead Pig!
Piggy Wiggy, oh oh, I say you gotta go now,
Oink Oink, Bang Bang, Dead Pig!
(crowd yelling at passing police vehicles)
(Reporter) This is the first day that the, uh,
headquarters have been raided?
(Panther) It wasn't raided this time,
we were attacked.
They just, they just, you can look at the windows,
man...
(Reporter) Was there a fire in the...
(Panther) They set a fire. They got...
the pigs set a fire.
They did it.
(Satchel) They went down there,
and the fire started.
(Reporter) Nobody was up there,
except the police, when the fire started?
(Satchel) Right.
(Reporter) Frank, you wanna come...
(Satchel) Get a picture of that, too, man.
(reading from newspaper) The Panthers' cook said
he had strict, standing orders to not fire,
or return any fire directed at them.
A man, identified as Larry White (inaudible)
(Man) We here, we ain't goin' nowhere.
(Rush) We say to pigs Daley,
Hanrahan, Pig Connor, and the rest,
no more brothers will be taken from us
without cause.
Chairman Fred is gone, gone from the streets
where his heart and people are.
But not for long.
For the people's love of Fred Hampton
is lovelier than lovely.
(crowd singing) Free, Fred Hampton.
Free, Fred Hampton! Hampton!
For he's our warrior to guide us.
Free, Fred Hampton.
Free Fred Hampton! Say!
Free Fred Hampton.
For he's our warrior to guide us.
(Satchel) Last night, when the pigs
vamped on the office,
the community were all out there.
They were in an uproar, they couldn't dig it.
They know we, are the People's Party.
We are working in the interest of the people.
You dig? (crowd) Right on!
(Satchel) I like to talk about what we doing,
because we're in the Black Panther Party.
Yeah, we armed - we are an armed propaganda unit,
but we spend most our time working with these programs,
and helping the people,
serving the people.
Huey P. Newton, our Minister of Defense, says
that the Black Panther Party, uh,
is an organization like ASHN,
to be ridden by the people
down the path of social revolution.
You dig it? (crowd) Right on!
(Satchel) That's what it's all about.
They vamped on our offices
because of these programs.
That we putting these programs out for the people,
dig it? That's what they're for.
The programs are the answer to the basic needs
and desires of the people.
They let the people know that the Black Panther Party
is concerned about the basic needs and desires
of the people.
They educate people to the fundamentals of socialism,
and the height of the contradiction.
That's what it's all about.
And they going to attack us,
'cause we ain't talking about the Black Panther Party
that's going to take over the government,
we said, we going to heighten the contradiction,
so the people can see the injustices that's going on,
and the people can decide whether the government
needs changing or not.
(crowd singing) People get ready.
The Revolution come.
(crowd singing)
(Hampton) I learned a lot while I was in prison.
I had an educational process.
A learning process.
Some take the time to decide to think about
action that's going to be taken against me
and other members of the Party.
And after I don't see why I'm not scared.
You know what I decided it's being?
I decided it's being a people high.
I decided to be high off the people.
You high?
(crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) I'm high, you understand what I'm saying?
I'm high off the people.
Sent me away to the penitentiary,
and I went to penitentiary,
way down in Menard, Illinois.
I'm thinking, I said, well I'm way down here
in the country,
I might get in no people, when I got to Menard,
I'm not them, even being the vanguard,
had to get on my knees and learn from the people.
I had to put my ear to the ground.
And when I pressed my head to the ground,
I heard the people. (crowd erupts in approval)
(crowd begins to chant)
(Hampton) Give me a beat, now, c'mon now.
(crowd chanting)
(Hampton) Ain't you high?
Is you high?
I'm high.
(crowd chanting, clapping)
(Hampton) High, high, high, high
(crowd chanting, clapping)
(Hampton) Oh, I'm high,
Oh, I'm high.
(crowd cheering)
(Hampton) I'm free.
Yeah.
Y'know what we talking about,
we talking about a beat that can't be stopped
by anybody.
We talking about, we going to make some changes
in this system.
We know they have our pictures.
We know they looking for us.
We know they want us.
But we've still said, that even though we could be in offense,
as far as this system goes,
on the mountaintop,
we in the Black Panther Party,
because of our dedication and understanding,
of what's in the valley,
knowing that the people are in the valley,
knowing that we originally came from the valley,
our Black is the same Black as the people in the valley,
knowing that our enemies is also on the mountaintop,
our friends in the valley.
We say that even though it is nice to be
on the mountaintop,
we going back to the valley.
(crowd) Right on! (applause)
(Hampton) I be in the office everyday.
I be in the streets propagandizing everyday.
I be working with everybody everyday.
I be preaching that solidarity is the thing.
The end of, uh, a complete wipeout of the imperialism is the thing.
So if people can be thinking about here,
that's what Bobby would be teaching.
If you going to be thinking about us,
all we said, we don't, ain't no thing about
goin' nowhere.
Getting killed.
All we want to know is that you doing
what we'd be doing if we were there.
And you got to do that.
You can't do it unless you believe you can do it.
(crowd) Right on! (cheers)
(Hampton) In the spirit of liberation,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) we understand that we want
everybody in the Party in jail.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) And we know,
(Hampton) that if we try to figure out
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) and separate,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) and divide,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) who should go,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) and who shouldn't go,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) We spend more time
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) doing that
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) than working for the people.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) So the quickest solution,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) to speed it was,
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) Nobody goes.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) No-body goes.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) We all stay right here.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) With the people.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) 'Cause we love the people.
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) Okay, you can put your hands down now.
And say, "All power to all people."
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) Say, "White power to white people."
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) "Brown power to brown people."
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) "Yellow power to yellow people."
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) "Black Power for Black people."
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) "'X' power for those that we left out."
(crowd repeats)
(Hampton) We say, "Panther power for the vanguard Party."
(crowd) Right on!
(Hampton) When you leave here, you saying the last words,
before you go to bed tonight,
"I am a revolutionary."
Make that the last words,
in case you don't wake up,
then somebody might believe in it.
And you might end up in, what they call it,
Revolutionary Happy Hunting Grounds.
(crowd) Right on.
(Hampton) Say that. That "I am a revolutionary."
(crowd) I am a revolutionary.
(Skip Andrew) God.
That's where the (inaudible) was done.
(Rush) We can mourn today.
But if we, understood Fred,
we are dedicated, that his life wasn't given in vain.
Then there won't be no mournings tomorrow,
then all our sorrow will be turned into action.
He said, "But you have to remember one thing,
to be strong."
He wasn't afraid of anything.
(Hanrahan) The immediate, violent, criminal
reaction of the occupants
in shooting at announced police officers,
emphasizes the extreme viciousness of
the Black Panther Party.
So does their refusal to cease firing at the
police officers when urged to do so
several times.
(Reporter) This is 2337 West Monroe,
described by police as a depot
for Black Panther Party arms and ammunition.
14 State's Attorney's policemen,
led by Sergeant Daniel Groth,
found out indeed it was a depot
for weapons.
After a 15-minute gun battle that cost
Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton
his life,
Sergeant Groth described the raid as
15 minutes of hell,
and a miracle.
A miracle because not one policeman was killed.
A miracle because not more policemen were shot.
The firing stopped only when the occupants realized
their arsenal was no match for the police arsenal.
An arsenal that included a 45-caliber
sub-machine gun, and two shotguns.
(Andrew) What they didn't understand,
and what Edward V. Hanrahan doesn't understand,
and what Richard Jolbeck's chief assistant didn't understand,
and what those police officers
who put those two bullets in his skull,
and in his head as he lay and sleep
didn't understand,
and what Richard Nixon and his assistant lackey
Mr. Mitchell don't understand,
is that you can't kill Chairman Fred.
(crowd) Right on!
(Andrew) What they didn't understand is
that anyone who would try to kill him, is,
and shall ever be, an enemy of the people.
And whoever would do that can only be appropriately called
not a person, but a pig.
(crowd) Right on! (crowd applause)
(Andrew) What they didn't understand
what they didn't understand, when they did that,
is that pigs die, but Chairman Fred lives.
(Rush) You are ones, who are gonna,
decide for yourselves what happened
in that apartment, on the morning of December 4th,
you are going to decide whether or not
Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were the victims
of premeditated murder.
(Sergeant Groth) At this time,
no response from within.
I take my revolver,
in my right hand, and I pound possibly four or five,
or six times.
A voice from within, a male voice from within,
replies, "Who's there?"
I reply, "Police officers,
I have a search warrant, open the door."
(Hanrahan) As soon as Sergeant Daniel Groth
and Officer James Davis, who were leading our men,
announced their office,
occupants of the apartment attacked them
with shotgun fire.
(Groth) I wait several seconds,
with no replies from within,
the door's not open, I again take my revolver
with my right hand. (pounds door)
I wait a second or so, a male voice
from within the apartment says, "Just a minute."
(Reporter) There was no response from the group?
(Hanrahan) The response from the group
was the firing of a shotgun blast at our police officers.
(Reporter) There was no verbal response?
(Hanrahan) The response to our police officers
was the firing at them by a person in the apartment.
(Reporter) Didn't they ask who was it?
(Hanrahan) When the police officers, uh,
announced their office, they were fired upon.
(Reporter) Didn't they ask who is it?
(Groth) I looked at Duke, I said okay Duke,
(Officer Davis) Going in, going over to about here,
And I hit the door,
I go to the back.
(Groth) Duke forces this door open,
simultaneously we enter,
a shot rings out, Duke falls in this direction.
I enter, in a semi-erect position,
there's a woman, lying on the bed with a shotgun,
calmly pumping it,
right in my direction,
and fires.
The, uh, fire illuminates her face, I get
a good look at her.
I feel something go over my left shoulder.
I then step back here,
I look in, get up on my toes, point my revolver,
look in again, cover my face,
and fire several shots at the girl.
(Harris) I heard a knock on the door,
they said, policemen told us to open up.
And Mark Clark said, "Just a minute."
He got up, and next thing I knew,
they had busted into the door,
and came in shooting. They shot my leg,
they shot Mark Clark.
(Davis) This woman fired a shot, and she,
the illumination apparently, illuminates
the fella sitting behind the door in a chair,
he's pumping his shotgun.
I turn in his direction, and fired two shots at him,
as he shot the ground.
He stands up, I stand up with him,
we struggle, he falls down over the chair in the floor,
with his head facing the corner of the door, here,
in the wall, I fall across his body.
(Panther) This here is the room
where first brother Mark Clark was murdered at.
(Panther) Don't touch nothin', don't move nothin',
'cause we want to keep everything just the way it is.
Don't touch no walls.
Okay, this here is the door, they said
sister Fahd went through with the shotgun.
If the sister had fired through this door with a shotgun,
can look at the wall there and see some, uh,
holes that the bullets that left out there,
you see no signs of a shotgun blast being fired
through this door here.
(Reporter) Sir, you say your men were fired upon?
Witnesses who have seen the apartment
say there is no evidence of bullets
from the direction where the, uh,
Panthers were supposedly to be.
(Hanrahan) I said that, uh, after our officers
announced their, uh, purpose and their station
several times, uh, they were fired upon
from within the room.
(Panther) We say this is nothing more
than a fascist lie,
justifies the murder that took place
in this crib here.
The doorway here, is absent of a door,
the door's been removed.
And now is in possession of our defense attorney,
and is going to be used in our case to prove
what happened here, was nothing more than
murder.
(Reporter) After days of maneuvering,
Black Panther attorney Francis Andrew finally
brought a bullet-punctured door panel to the inquest.
However, a controversy immediately arose
to whether Andrew's panel was the same one
that was removed from the Black Panther apartment.
This is Andrew's version.
(Reporter) Which side is the outside, sir?
(Andrew) The outside, uh, you're looking from the inside now.
(Reporter) Looking from the inside now?
(Andrew) Yes.
(turns panel) This is the outside.
(Reporter) It looks like the door is
splintered on both sides.
(Andrew) There's a hole up here,
which none of the police in their testimony
have mentioned,
as a matter of fact,
they have denied.
This hole up here, shows a bullet coming from the outside
to the inside.
(Reporter) The hole at the bottom there?
(Andrew) The hole at the bottom was made
while the door was standing wide-open.
(Reporter) Assistant State's Attorney
Nicholas Motherway says Andrew could've gotten
the panel at any lumberyard.
Motherway's point was backed-up at least in part
by a police crime lab technician,
who examined the door in the Panther apartment
the same day as the raid.
The technician said that, first of all,
there was only one hole in the panel
the day he examined it.
And second of all, he couldn't be sure
the panels were one and the same.
(Andrew) December 4th, 1969, at 10:54am.
My name is Skip Andrew, and I am at
2337 West Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois.
This door, was the door entering into
the living room, has two holes in it.
This one I'm pointing to right here,
10 inches from the edge,
and this one, uh, down here,
12 inches.
Uh, the first one I referred to is 25 from the top,
and the second one 36 from the top.
Now, as you open this, there's also of course
a knob door in this one,
as you open the door, there's, uh, blood
behind the door.
The, uh, top hole shows that the bullet was
incoming.
(Panther) They flied through the door,
and hit the brother through the door.
The brother fell here, and most of the blood
is dried up but you can see a little bit of it there,
and a little bit of it on the floor.
The brother was shot four or five times throughout,
they came through the door, they shot him again,
to make sure he was dead.
(Reporter) Mr. Montgomery, Dr. Constantino
testified today that Mark Clark could not
have struggled after receiving that shot
through the heart.
Now in your mind does this contradict the testimony
of Officer Davis, who described a struggle?
(Montgomery) Uh, yes, it seems to me
that was a very startling thing.
We also learned that, uh, the bullet
which was in fact recovered from Mr. Hampton's body
was a bullet fired out of a carbine by Officer Davis.
So that indicates also that Officer Davis,
uh, may well have walked into that back bedrooom,
contrary to his testimony.
And fired a shot into the body of Fred Hampton
at one point in time or other.
(Officer Carmody) There were six others assigned to the back porch.
I came up on the back porch,
I placed myself to the right of the door.
I put my head down enough so I could hear
if there was any conversation in the building.
I heard people talking in the front,
and then I heard a loud, uh, shot, sounded
like a shotgun.
I backed up, and kicked the door open.
I started in, and before I could get past the threshold,
there were three shots fired from the rear bedroom.
They were directed directly at the back door,
uh, as I was coming in.
I backed out again.
(Hanrahan) Only by the grace of God,
uh, were one of our, or two of our police officers
prevented from being killed, uh, when
they were fired upon as soon as they announced
their office and knocking on the door.
(Andrew) On December 11th, 1969,
the Chicago Tribune carried a story that had
characterized as an exclusive version
from the State's Attorney's office.
(Reporter) Why was the exclusion made in the Chicago Tribune?
(Hanrahan) Because that that newspaper,
the Chicago Tribune, in my opinion,
gave a very balanced, fair report of the events
that occurred.
(Reporter) It has nothing to do with the fact that
the class of people, or the type of people that buy
the Tribune as opposed to other papers in the city?
(Hanrahan) Does anybody have a sensible question?
(Andrew) Included in the exclusive was a photo,
carefully circled to show bullet holes
supposed to be in the back door.
(Hanrahan) The account that we made public yesterday,
gave a detailed explanation of what happened
in that apartment, I stand whole-heartedly
behind it as absolutely accurate.
(Reporter) There is one inconsistency,
well, for example -
(Hanrahan) I do not intend to quibble about
that account.
(Reporter) Do you intend to get the truth?
(Hanrahan) The account that we gave
of the events, is the truth.
(Reporter) One of the four pictures you gave
the Tribune had two bullet holes
in the right side of what was
supposed to be the rear door.
(Rush) Hanrahan has lied before, he's going
to lie again.
That, that hole he's blown up in the paper
is, uh, the whole of a nail.
(Reporter) Tight close-up of the nail head.
Plus the door hasp.
I...here you see the large nail heads
being pointed out.
(Hanrahan) I have said that, uh, we released
the pictures we have not characterized,
or described, uh, the, uh, conditions that they portray,
other than to say, that that is a accurate portrayal
of that, uh, particular object.
(Reporter) Do you know if any of the four pictures
they received had portrayed bullet holes in
any of the walls?
(Hanrahan) I...
(Andrew) Another photo claimed to show the bullet-riddled
door across from the bedroom.
The officers testified that the Panthers fired
into that door from inside their bedroom.
In fact, the door in the photo was the bedroom
door, and the holes in the door were made
by police gunfire at the Panthers.
(Panther) As you can see,
the bathroom door is intact.
Not only does the bathroom door, but the entire wall area
is intact.
(Hanrahan) There was a, there was a picture
of the, uh, the inside of the door to the bathroom,
yes.
(Reporter) That door, our reporters discovered,
corresponded to one on the front living room
adjoining the bedroom.
There were holes in the door, when the door was opened,
they, those holes corresponded to holes that
were in the wall adjoining between the bedroom
and the living room.
When they stuck a stick through the holes,
they all matched up.
(Hanrahan) I have, I make, I say, I make
no evaluation of the pictures,
other than to say they portray conditions
as they existed in that apartment at the time
those pictures were taken.
(Panther) This is the door that is supposed
to contain numerous marks, from, uh,
stray shotgun blasts, small arms fire,
which again was fired by members of the "vicious"
Black Panther Party,
who was standing in this bedroom here,
shooting out into the hallway here.
(Hanrahan) I urge, I urge your inventory of
each of these vicious weapons.
This attack, this attack by the Black Panthers
on the police, plus the weapons that were recovered,
uh, at the, uh, depot where they were storing them,
clearly demonstrates the true character
of the Black Panther Party.
(Rush) Nobody...I have never denied that there was
no weapons there.
As a matter of fact, you'd be a fool
if you didn't have a weapon there.
Knowing, uh, the ferociousness of the pigs,
how they just jumped out of the cars
and shoot you down.
How they knock on your door and blow, uh,
19-year old sister's head off with shotguns,
how they kill two brothers in one week.
Yeah, he's...and as a matter of fact,
everybody that's concerned should have a,
or something in their homes to protect themselves,
because Hanrahan is a madman.
(Reporter) Mr. Hanrahan, can you tell me
why your officers did not try to use tear gas?
Isn't this the usual procedure to flush
someone out of a building?
(Hanrahan) Our officers, uh, used the means
necessary to effect the search.
And to present, prevent themselves from being
killed upon after they were,
killed after they were fired upon.
(Reporter) Isn't it the truth, that you
would usually use, your men usually use, uh,
tear gas, in situations such as this?
And why didn't they use it this time?
(Hanrahan) No, that is not true.
(Reporter) It is not true?
(Panther) They came, uh, with murder
on they mind.
Even if they wanted to take someone to jail,
it would have been just a simple matter of
just shooting some tear gas, and it'd brought
everybody out.
(2nd Panther) Right on.
(Panther) This is where our Chairman
had his brains blown out, and he, uh,
laying in bed, sleeping at 4:30 in the morning.
(Johnson) Someone came into the room,
started shaking the Chairman.
Said, "Chairman, Chairman, wake up.
The pigs was mapping."
Still half asleep, I looked up,
and I saw bullets coming from it looked like
the front of the apartment.
From the kitchen area.
They were, pigs just shooting.
And, uh, about this time,
I jumped on top of the Chairman,
he looked up,
looked like all the pigs just,
merged into the entrance-way to the bedroom-area,
back bedroom-area.
Mattress is just, going,
you could feel the bullets going into it.
I just remember thinking they dead,
everybody in there.
Um, when he looked up, he just looked up,
he didn't say a word, didn't move,
except for moving his head up.
He lays his head back down, to the side like that.
He never said a word, never got up off the bed.
Um, the person who was in the room,
he kept hollering out, "Stop shooting,
stop shooting! We have a pregnant woman,"
or "a pregnant sister in here!"
At that time, I was 8 1/2, 9 months pregnant.
My baby was to be delivered in two weeks.
Pigs kept on shooting.
So I kept on hollering out,
and finally they stopped.
They pushed, um, me and another brother
by the, uh, kitchen door,
he told us to face the wall.
Heard a pig say, "He's barely alive,
he'll barely make it."
I assumed they were talking about Chairman Fred.
So then, they started shooting, the pigs they started
shooting again.
I heard a sister scream.
They stopped shooting.
A pig said, "He's good and dead now."
Pigs running around laughing,
they were really happy, you know,
talking about Chairman Fred is dead.
I never saw Chairman Fred again.
(Hanrahan) Inflammatory statements
and false charges against our office have been made
by spokesmen for the Black Panther Party
and others.
Despite the fact that the speakers had no reliable
knowledge about the occurrence.
(Satchel) Well, the best account that I can give,
is, uh, the room where I was in, uh,
the actions, the things around me, you know.
First thing I remember, when I woke up,
was, uh, a knock on the door,
and it was only a matter of seconds,
in fact, I would say it was less than 5 seconds
that I heard, you know, shots.
Now, the thing that struck me, is that,
I not only heard shots, but I can see plaster
coming out of the walls, of the, of the walls in my room.
So, I knew that the bullets were coming through
the room that I was in.
(Groth) I stepped over,
and I put the machine gun still on single-fire,
and I started from the left side of the wall,
coming across, watching where the rounds were hitting,
and I went over the girl's head, down on the other
side of her, continued fire across this wall.
(Panther) One strange thing about this wall,
is, the State's Attorney's Gestapo raiding pigs say
that they fired, uh, numerous, uh,
slugs, going up and down, up-and-downward motion,
attempting to avoid hitting the people in the apartment here.
You notice that all these slugs are on a straight line,
and also notice that all were fired at a low level,
and about bed level.
(Satchel) Next thing I remember is, uh,
someone, I think it was one of the pigs,
told us to come out of the room.
But there were still shots being fired.
Now I didn't know at this here time,
that the people that had came
were coming through the back door,
but I took it that shots were being fired
at the back of the house and the front of the house.
And, uh, you know, they were all coming through
the walls, the walls were nothing but plaster board.
And, you know, bullets come through the front of the house,
and go all the way through, out the back.
Somebody told us to get out, but I remember
we were afraid, the bullets were still coming,
we remained on the floor.
I heard another pause, and then one of the pigs
told us that, if we don't come out,
he's going to put something in there,
that would really get 'em out.
The idea came to my mind, that they
were going to shoot tear gas or something in there.
(Groth) We realized that there were still
some people remaining in the front bedroom,
we don't know whether they're injured or not,
so I pleaded, I chanted, I begged them to come out,
"Please come out with your hands out,
put down your weapon."
(Satchel) The next thing I heard
was a barrage of shots, real fast.
And, uh, you know, we were hit this time.
(Groth) I started with the gun, still
on single-fire, being very careful
and watching where each round hit on the wall,
I walked them around, uh, the girl sitting on the bed,
and brought it all the way across the wall again.
As I was doing this, Officer Davis was
stepping up, and he started firing across the wall,
from right to left.
I put one shot in the door.
I put a short burst with the machine gun on automatic
fire, into that closet.
(Officer) I fired four or five shotgun blasts
into the bedroom.
(Groth) The second form, still coming up,
caught a blast as the gun came further across the room.
(Satchel) They told me, uh, to you know,
to get up, and walk.
And I told them I couldn't.
And then I think they hit me, some of they
told me they'd kill me if I stay there.
So I kept trying, I managed to, you know,
get up, and uh, I needed a little hop,
and I hopped out.
You know.
(Hanrahan) I am taking the word of our policemen,
uh, over what we understand is supposed to be
a version provided by a defense attorney
and by the occupants of the apartment.
(Satchel) I was hit 5 times.
I was hit, um, 2 times in the stomach,
one time in the leg,
and I was hit, grazed in each hand.
Yeah.
This is just a scar, you know,
I had to have a section of my colon
taken out.
Because of infection.
And I was shot over here.
(Hanrahan) I expect the general public
to recognize the quality of these men's work,
and the political consequences can take care
of themselves.
Of course I don't plan to resign.
(Rush) He's changed the story every time, uh,
from newspaper to newspaper,
Channel 1 to another channel,
and he's had changed the story as we've brought up
facts, truths about the evidence, uh, that he
reportedly had given out.
Such as the nail heads, such as the bullet holes
and what-not in the walls.
And it's only my conclusion, is that Hanrahan,
if he wants to give an objective opinion
about what happened here, that morning,
he would have to come to this apartment and find out,
because he's done a whole lot of subjective analysis
because the man hasn't come to the, uh,
apartment to find out what really did go down
in the apartment.
We have invited Hanrahan here to see
for himself the evidence, that we have shown
to the masses of people and to the public.
(Hanrahan) No, I have not been at the scene.
(Kennon) Based on available evidence,
namely the physical condition of the home
and its contents, they physical conditions of
the remains of Fred Hampton,
the search warrant was merely a subterfuge
and the mission of the police was to murder and maim.
(Streeter) This blatant act of legitimatized murder
strips all credibility from law enforcement.
In the context of other acts against militant Blacks
in recent months, it suggests an official policy of
systematic repression.
The "pious" statements of State's Attorney Hanrahan
concerning the brave response of the police,
against the "vicious" Panther attack,
and his allusion to the "grace of God" concerning
the sparing of the policemen, only makes
the situation more macabre and terrifying.
(Reporter) As an individual, are you convinced
that the official version is a lie?
That, it is a case of murder?
(Robinson) Personally, I am.
(Andrew) Anyone who went through that apartment
and examined the evidence that was remaining there,
could come to only one conclusion, and that is
that Fred Hampton, 21 years old,
and a member of a militant, well-known militant group,
was murdered in his bed, probably as he lay asleep.
It seems very clear to us that he was assassinated.
And the police officer who did that assassination
then walked away from it, walked away from it
and said to other people, "Bobby Rush is next."
Now all of you who know Bobby Rush
know that he is the Minister of Defense
for the Black Panther Party,
and also one of our clients.
And all of you also, I assume know,
that Bobby Rush's apartment was broken into last night,
and also searched, but fortunately for him
he's still alive because
he was not in the apartment.
(Reporter) You think that if you had been
in your apartment yesterday,
you would've been shot by police?
(Rush) Yes, I would have been murdered,
I still think there's a, a great possibility
of people trying to murder me.
All the moves, in the past, initially was done
on the part of the police, they murdered
Fred Hampton, they are out to murder me,
it's like they'll murder anybody that's Black
in this country.
(Reporter) Bobby, do you think there's going to be
retaliation by the Panthers?
(Rush) There won't be any retaliation by
the Panthers.
I think that there are, the time will come
when the people themselves will, uh,
take the power that belongs to them,
into their hands, and move, uh, to,
guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We would not be forced underground till the
people, we really feel satisfied that we've done
our duty, our duty to educate the masses of the people
to the injustices that the power structure
inflicts upon poor people in this country.
All the mass demonstrations and young people
know this is happening right now.
(Reporter) Bobby, what's the next move for you
personally?
(Rush) There's no personal, anymore,
I'm the People's man, and whatever the people
decide, it's nothing personal about it.
And, uh, the Panthers will be there to serve the people.
(Andrew) Of course, numerous people have
attempted to make formal and informal investigations,
with a report by the Grand Jury for the Federal District
Court, the Northern District of Illinois.
And I quote, "This report contains the findings
of the Grand Jury after hearing nearly 100 witnesses,
and considering over 130 exhibits.
Including police records, photographs, moving pictures,
transcripts of testimony before other bodies,
voluminous investigative and scientific reports,
and reports of investigative interviews with over
100 potential witnesses who were not called."
And of course, among the main witnesses before
the Federal Grand Jury were the 14 raiders in the
apartment, the police officers who were assigned to
the State's Attorney's office.
The report tells us, contrary to some of their
testimony prior to the Grand Jury proceedings,
the report tells us that, "At 4am, on December 4,
Sergeant Groth briefed the 13 assembled officers
and told them the location of the raid,
and that Panther arms were involved."
(Reporter) Did you know that they were
Black Panthers?
(Carmody) No, we didn't. We just knew that
we were informed that there were guns,
and some contraband in the building.
(Reporter) Did you have information that
indicated that Fred Hampton might be there?
(Carmody) Not to my knowledge.
(Reporter) You just knew that there were guns,
and the possibility that these might have been
Black Panthers?
(Carmody) All we knew is that there were guns in there.
(Reporter) At this point, it appears that, uh,
the people who were deceased were, uh,
in a gun battle?
(Carmody) Oh, they were definitely in a gun battle.
(Reporter) I mean, that they were firing
at police?
(Carmody) Yessir. We saw the shots coming out
of the two bedrooms.
(Andrew) Sergeant Groth, of course,
from the beginning claimed, along with his fellow officers,
that a shot had been fired by a young Panther woman,
in the far corner of the living room door,
as the officers entered the door.
The report, however, explains the impossibility of this
account given by the officers.
Reading again now from the report from
page 181, it says, "Groth, Davis, Jones,
and Gorman..." Those are all officers.
"...all insist that a shot was fired by Brenda Harris,
at them, as they came in the door.
None of them could explain
what had become of this shot.
And it is not possible to draw a line
from the southeast corner of the living room
where Harris was said by Davis and Groth to
be on the bed and holding the gun,
out through the living room door,
the entrance hall door, and the outside door.
There are no holes in the west wall of the apartment."
(Reporter) Officer Carmody, when you knocked on the door,
what happened?
(Carmody) Well, I didn't actually knock,
I heard our officers at the front, uh,
announce their office, and shots fired,
uh, so I kicked in the back door,
and as soon as the back door opened,
I could see, uh, shots being fired at us
at the back door.
(Reporter) Do you have any idea how many
shots were fired?
(Officer) Uh, quite a few.
I have no idea.
(Reporter) Any idea over how long a period
the gun battle ensued?
(Officer) Seemed like an hour to me.
(Andrew) Of course the raiders would have us
believe that they, approached the apartment
in a gentlemanly fashion, that they were
attempting to save human life.
They knocked on the door,
and they announced their purpose.
They fired no shots, until they were fired at.
They called for "cease fire" on at least
three different occasions.
(Hanrahan) Thereafter, three times, Sergeant Groth
ordered all his men to cease firing,
and told the occupants to come out with
their hands up.
Each time, one of the occupants replied,
"Shoot it out."
And they continued firing at the police officers.
(Andrew) By their own testimony,
they admit that, for 12 minutes,
for 12 solid minutes,
in those early morning hours,
there was gun firing in that apartment.
And yet the Federal Grand Jury concludes that
only one possible shot could've come
from a Panther weapon.
And that shot could've come through the door
by a man who had just been shot in the heart.
They would have us believe that,
even though there was only one Panther shot,
they called for a cease fire on three different occasions,
and didn't get it, and so they continued their firing.
The great variance between the physical evidence,
and the testimony of the officers,
raises the question, as to whether the officers
are falsifying their accounts.
Those officers fired 99 shots.
Through the walls of an apartment
where they knew people were sleeping.
Murder is defined in Illinois as follows:
"A person who kills an individual
without lawful justification,
commits murder if, in performing the acts
which caused the death,
he knows that such acts, create strong probability
of death, or great bodily harm, to that individual,
or another."
Federal Grand Jury comes to its conclusions,
"Unquestionably, the raid was not professionally planned,
or properly executed.
And the result of the raid was two deaths,
four injuries,
and 7 improper criminal charges."
In spite of those conclusions,
the report then goes on to say,
"The physical evidence and the discrepancies
in the officers' accounts,
are insufficient to establish probable cause
to charge the officers with willful violation
of the occupants' civil rights."
(crowd chanting) Power to the People!
Power to the People!