Do You Know Who Fred Hampton Is?

One of my favorite questions to ask nowadays is “Do you know who Fred Hampton is?” As a Baltimorean via South Carolina now in Chicago (for another two weeks), I am excited that this question gets to become a local history lesson with more meaning, even though a figure as significant as Hampton is good for any locale. I first learned about Hampton, in a serious capacity, in college around the time of the Baltimore Uprising in 2015. There may have been times when a teacher introduced him to me at a younger age, but I don’t recall, and the learning wasn’t reinforced in a substantial way for it to matter. The Uprising was a perfect catalyst to witness the contradictions of society - police brutality, the segregation of Baltimore City, generational poverty, and the response of government, specifically Black urban government.

Hampton was born the same year as my grandmother, 1948. With my grandmother’s passing last year, I do wonder how he would’ve been at 76 years old. Society today throws away our elders and sees aging as some wicked process. Some also believe that aging makes some more conservative - which while this does happen - doesn’t account for the various elderly still in radical movement spaces, especially the political prisoners. I also wonder about my grandmother at 21, his age when he was assassinated by Chicago Police. I am impressed that a 21 year old really had niggas shook.

Since I’ve started substitute teaching again in November, I’ve been teaching the students the trivial things about Hampton - his origin in Chicago, his leadership in the Black Panther Party, his assassination - and their curiosity demands more information with them asking me more questions. Then I ask them questions about the world and how they see it. What they want. What they like and dislike about not the world or even the country, but Chicago. Then I ask what they intend to do about it. The kids hate “crackheads”, violence, and homelessness. They also want to give everyone food and homes. They also think a house costs $3,200 to buy. Not rent. Buy.

But still, we talk about what we can do to bring change to the world. And we also talk about obstacles like capitalism because Fred and Huey talk about capitalism. Because if there’s 3 boxes of pizza with 8 slices each for a class of 26, is it fair that four students get 4 slices each leaving the remaining 22 with just 10 slices? In the same way that it’s not fair that the world is running out of water and the tech CEOs have determined that wasting the limited resources we have on AI is the right thing to do.

I remember asking an 8th grade class if they knew who Hampton was and the answer was, as expected, “No.” I then asked them about JuiceWorld, another Chicagoan who died at 21 - though of very different circumstances. Offending quite a few, I relayed my hopes that they very closely consider what they would want to have accomplished by the time they turn 21. I wish for them, as I wish for all the students I encounter, a very full life well beyond 21 years.

Though I’m not sure I have an interest in adult education — I have been asking more adults the question. Schools nowadays have more classroom support, and so in encouraging the kids to have intergenerational conversations with adults I would instruct the kids to ask the other adult in the room if they knew who Fred Hampton was. Honestly, I was expecting mostly “Yes” answers to which I’d ask the adult to share what they know to the kids. This would reinforce the idea of learning from adults.

To my surprise, however, quite a few adults didn’t know who Fred Hampton was. Finding this out not only opened the door for me to share with the kids the value of sharing information they know but also made me realize not to take the information I know for granted. But this small question that seems so trivial opens the doors to a much richer conversation about values, history, and the state of the world. This small question opens the doors for larger discussion around what makes society and its various contradictions. And because adults have more years, experience, and understanding certain patterns make more sense and are recognizable.

When I think of Hampton and Huey I think of Jesus. Jesus as we know it gave his life for sin and fed thousands with fish and bread and healed the sick and so much more. Closer to our lifetime - and verified with no potential to be fiction - Fred Hampton and Huey P. Newton were assassinated fighting for our human rights. The Black Panther Party created breakfast programs and clinics. That deserves reverence and celebration and honor - outside of appropriation and a blurb every February (or August if you know). Instead, in a growingly conservative world steering towards dehumanization and individualism, their message of consciousness and action needs amplification and modeling now more than ever. I used to say conservatives don’t have an answer for the sick and hungry but that was actually very incorrect. The conservative response to the ailing and needy is to let them suffer or die, regardless of circumstance. The kids know this is ridiculous; the adults too, though more resigned to allow the world to continue working this way.

Let us learn about Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party in Chicago. Then let us learn about who cofounded the Black Panthers in the first place. Then let’s read Revolutionary Suicide, as Huey guides us through his relationship with class, family, education, and more. Let us have more questions and be humble enough to not know. Let us be vulnerable enough to learn. Let us be wise enough to study and reinforce. And let us care enough to share.