Legacy of Panther Fred Hampton

[Nesayem]

Chicago Police Attacking the Legacy of Panther Fred Hampton
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To arms, to arms, Illinoisans, Hoosiers, and Wisconsin folk & Bay Area Supporters!

The Chicago Sun-Times has reported that the pigs trying to pressure Ald.
Madeline Haithcock (D-2) to withdraw her resolution for honorarily naming the
stretch of Monroe Street near the site of the Dec. 4, 1969 Cook County sheriff's
deputies atrocities against the Illinois Black Panther Party commune Chairman
Fred Hampton Sr. Drive.

Her office phone is 773.924.0014, her ward office addresses 449 E. 35th St.,
Chicago, IL 60616 and 701 S. Western Ave., 60612, and her ward office phone is
312.924.0014. She's the chair of Chicago City Council's committee on special
events and cultural affairs. Her City Hall office is 121 N. LaSalle St.,
Chicago, IL 60602, and her City Hall office phone is 312.744.6836.

The next Chicago City Council meeting is tomorrow, Wed., March 1, at 10 a.m.
I goes without saying that we have to stack the meeting, stack the emails at
cityclerk@cityofchicago.org, tie up the phone lines, and also worry City Hall
and the Cook County Sheriff's Department to distraction at 311.

Below is the link to rules on admission to Chicago City Council meetings:

www.chicityclerk.com/city...sion.html.

Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of Prisoners of Conscience (Youth Black Panthers),
who drafted the proposal for the street naming, is planning to issue a
statement on the matter than would be posted at www.sfbayview.com/.

I've already alerted Ron Pitts and Sam Greenlee on the matter, and I'm
already trying to get up my documentary crew for Birth of a Hip-Hop Nation to weigh
in on his thing. I'm calling Alderwoman Haithcock's office with haste to find
out which aldermen and cops are behind harrying her. And I'm on the heels of
caucusing Chairman Fred Sr.'s widow, Chairwoman Akua Njeri of the Dec. 4
Committee, to determine how we can personally assist her.

This will be an excellent opportunity for PACT, the Chicago LOC of the
National Hip-Hop Convention, the Greater Chicagoland chapters of Hip-Hop Congress,
and Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative NFP to petition their government for redress of
grievances. Anyone who benefited from the free lunch program will honor the
memory and legacy of the man responsible for it by setting up a luau for the
pigs.

For those who need it for their Web sites. I've got mint condition copies of
the People's News Service Ministry of Information Bulletin No. 2, Jun. 8,
1970, of the Illinois Black Panther Party; the brief for People of Illinois v.
Fred Hampton (seeking an overturn in the Illinois Appellate Court of Chairman
Fred Sr.'s conviction on charges of robbing an ice cream truck); the collected
speeches of Chairman Fred Hampton Sr., published a year after his death;
Education & Revolution by Eldrige Cleaver, and Huey Newton Talks to the Movement;
and Black Liberation on Trial: the Case of Huey Newton to quote from.

If you're a current student at Crane High School or Malcolm X College, the
first where Chairman Fred Sr. did much of his work and he later where he was the
top student, you must weigh in on this thing.

I'll update everyone as more information becomes available.

MA


MORE CONTACTS TO STACK & HARRY THE PIGS @

Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, First Municipal, 312.341.2743,
District 4 Maywood, 708.865.6080

Cook County Sheriff’s Office, Criminal Court Div., 773.869.2700, Mawood
708.865.4700

Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, 312.733.7776

Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 73, 312.733.7272

Fraternal Order of Police - District of Columbia - Lodge 1, 202.408.7767, fax
202.408.7880, lodge@dc-fop.org

LINK & STORY ON ORDINANCE TO NAME CHAIRMAN FRED HAMPTON WAY

www.suntimes.com/output/n...her28.html


*Chicago Sun-Times

News
Street name sparks outrage

February 28, 2006

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Fred Hampton -- slain state chairman of the Black Panthers party that urged
followers to "off the pigs" -- would join the parade of Chicagoans afforded
honorary street designations, under an ordinance advanced Monday that outraged
the police union.

Hampton and fellow Panther leader Mark Clark were gunned down by Chicago
Police officers working under Cook County State's Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan in
an infamous December 1969 raid at Hampton's apartment that ultimately cost
Hanrahan his job.

But it was the violence that Hampton and the Panthers advocated against
police officers that stuck in the craw of Fraternal Order of Police President Mark
Donahue.

Donahue was incredulous when informed that the City Council's Transportation
Committee had voted without debate to rename Monroe Street -- from Western to
Oakley -- as "Chairman Fred Hampton Way." The ordinance was sponsored by Ald.
Madeline Haithcock (2nd).

Fred Hampton would be honored for the Black Panthers’ fight against racism
and discrimination, said the alderman proposing the idea.

RELATED STORY

Fatal raid led to indictments, but all acquitted
"You can murder a liberator but you can't murder liberation," a fiery Fred
Hampton said in a speech in the spring of 1969. By winter, Hampton was dead at
age 21.


Requested by Hampton's son


"You've got to be kidding me. I can't believe they would do that," Donahue
said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

"It's a dark day when we honor someone who would advocate killing policemen
and who took great advantage of the communities he claimed to have been
serving. We have real, everyday heroes within the department who would be better
honored than someone of the stature of Fred Hampton."

Haithcock said she proposed the honorary designation for the street that runs
in front of Hampton's former South Side home at the request of Fred Hampton
Jr., son of the Panther leader.

"I'm not going on the negative. I'm only going on the good things they did
for the community. The Black Panthers were the first ones to start breakfast
programs in the schools," she said.

"I don't think their purpose was to go out and destroy police officers. Their
purpose was housing, education, clothing and justice. They fought racism and
discrimination. That's the part I was going on. Only the good things."

Told that the police group was furious about the designation, Haithcock
initially defended it. "There's a lot of negative things that a lot of people have
done. We're doing negative things right now in Iraq."

Popular perk

Pressed further, Haithcock said she would gauge reaction to the designation
before putting up the sign proclaiming "Chairman Fred Hampton Way."

"It's only one block -- and it's not even a long block. But I don't want to
cause dissension among our police officers. If that's going to cause dissension
with all of the negative things the Black Panthers did, then I won't put up
the sign," she said.

Honorary street designations are a Chicago tradition and a way for aldermen
to curry favor with clout-heavy constituents. But it's a perk that's been mired
in controversy over the years.

In April, 2000, female aldermen and women's groups managed to defeat in
committee an honorary street sign for Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, whom they called
the "world's biggest pornographer," only to have Ald. Burton F. Natarus
(42nd) use a parliamentary maneuver to ram it through the next day.



Edited by: mrdaveyd at: 3/1/06 9:11 am