“The People Have to Have the Power” and the "Select Bibliography™
were originally published in Ler Nobody Turn Us Around: An Afi-
can-American Anthology. “You Can Murder a Liberator, But You Can'e
Murder Liberation” was originally published in The Black Panthers
Speak.

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The People Have to Have the Power

By 1969, Black Panther chapters had been estabished thronghont the
United State, from North Carolina 1o Nebraskea. That same year, 27
Panthers were killd by local pofice and low-enforement agencies and 749
members were arrested. Perbaps the most infential chapter otside of the
Bay Area was beaded by activst Fred Hampton (1915-1969 in Chicago
Hampton was an oustanding organizer and charismatic speaker. In 1969,
the Chicago police launched a carcfuly plomed raid against the Pantier
beadguarters and murdered Hampton. In this excerpt, Hampton presents
in 0 popular style a syntheis of Marsian teory witbin the framework of
Black Puner:

Alot of people get the word revolution mixed up and they think
revolution’s a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having
4 sote on your body and then you put something on that sore
to cure that infection. I'm telling you that we're living in a sick
society. We're involved in a society that produces ADC victims.
We're involved in a society that produces criminals, thieves and
robbers and rapers. Whenever you are in a society like that, that
is a sick society.

We'te gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary
political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting
the power structure, arm ourselves, and we're gonna fight
reactionary pigs with international proletarian revolution. That's
what it has to be. The people have to have the power—it belongs
o the people.

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 3
Unless people show us through thei social practice that
they relate to the struggle in Babylon, that means that they're
not internationalists, that means that they're not revolutionarics.
And when you're marchin’ on this cruel war in Washington, all
you radicals . . . we need to have some moratotiums on Babylon.
We need to have some moratotiums on the Black community in
Babylon and all oppressed communitics in Babylon.

We have to understand very clealy that there’s a man in
our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's Black and
sometimes he's white. But that man has to be deiven out of our
community because anybody who comes into the community to
make profit off of peaple by exploiting them can be defined as
4 capitalist

Any program that's brought into our community should be
analyzed by the people of that community. It should be analyzed
0 see that it meets the relevant needs of that community:

That's what the Breakfast for Children Program is. A lot
of people think it's charity. But what does it do? It takes people
from a stage to a stge to another stage. Any program that's
revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.

We say that the Breakfast for Childzen Program is a socialistic
program. It teaches the people basically that—by practice. We
thought up and let them practice that theory and inspect that
theory. What's more important?

And a woman said, “I don't know if 1like communism, and |
don’t know if 1 like socialism. But I know that the Breakfast for
Children Program feeds my kids. And if you put your hands on
that Breakfast for Children Program ..

You know, a lot of people have hang-ups with the Party
because the Party talks about a class struggle. ... We say primarily
that the priority of this struggle is class. That Mars and Lenin
and Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung and anybody else that has
ever said or knew or practiced anything about revolution always

4 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
said that a revolution is a class struggle. It was one class—the
oppressed, and that other class—the oppressor. And it’s got to
be a universal fact. Those that don't admit to that are those that
don’t want to get involved in a tevolution, because they know as
long as they're dealing with a race thing, they’ll never be involved
ina revolution.

We never negated the fact that there was racism in America,
but we said that the by-product, what comes off of capitalism,
that happens 1o be racism . . . that capitalism comes first and
nextis racism. That when they brought slaves over here, it was to
make money. So first the idea came that we want to make money,
then the slaves came in order to make that money. That means,
through historical fact, that racism had to come from capitalism.
It had to be capitalism first and racism was a by-product of tha.

We may be i the minosity, but this minority is gonna keep
on shouting loud and clear: We're not gonna fight fire with fire,
we're gonna fight fire with water. We're not gonna fight racism
with racism, we're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We're not
onna fight capitalism with Black capitalism . . . we're gonna fight
capitalism with socialism.

We know that Black people are most oppressed. And if we
didn’t know that, then why in the hell would we be running around
talking about the Black liberation struggle has to be the vanguard
for all liberation struggles? Any theory you gor, practice it. And
when you practice it, you make some mistakes. When you make
a mistake, you correct that theory, and then it will be corrected
theory that will be able to be applied and used in any situation.
That's whatwe've got to be able to do.

Alot of us read and read and read, but we don’t get any
practice. We have lot of knowledge in our heads, but we've
never practiced it; and made any mistakes and corsected those
mistakes so that we will be able to do something properly. So we
come up with, like we say, more degrees than a thermometer but
we are not able to walk actoss the street and chew gum at the
same time. Because we have all that knowledge but it's never been

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS s
exercised, it's never been practiced. We never tested it with what's
ceally happening, We call it testing it with objective reality. You
might have any kind of thought in your mind, but you've got to
test it with what's out there. You sce what | mean?

The only way that anybody can tell you the taste of a pear is
if he himself has tasted it. That's the only way. That' objective
reality. That's what the Black Panther Party deals with. We're not
into metaphysics, we're not idealists, we're dialectical materialists,
And we deal with what reality is, whether we like it or not. A lot
of people can' relate to that because everything they do s gauged
by the way they like things to be. We say that’s incorrect. You look
and sce how things are, and then you deal with that.

We some Marsist-Leninist cussin’ niggers. And we gonna
continue to cuss, goddammit. "Cause thar’s what we relate to,
That's what's happening in Babylon. That's objective reality.

You're dealing in subjectivity, because you're not testing it
with objective reality. And what's wrong is that you don't go test
it Because if you test it, youll get objective. Because as soon
as you walk out there, a whole lot of objective reality will vamp.
down upon your ass.

You can jail a revolutionary, but you can'tjail the revolution.
You can lock up a freedom fighter like Huey P. Newton, but you
can't lock up freedom fighting.

Because if you do, you come up with answers that don’t
answer, explanations that don't explain, conclusions that don’t
conelude. If you think about me and you think about me, niggers,
and you ain't gonna do no revolutionary act, then forget about
me. 1 don’t want myself on your mind if you're not going to
work for the people. Like I always said, if you're asked to make a
commitment at the age of 20, and you say I don’t want to make
fio commitment only because of the simple reason that I'm too
young to die, I want o live a litle bit longer. What you did is
you're dead already;

6 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
You have to understand that people have to pay the price for
peace. You dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not
strugele, then goddammit you don't deserve to win. Let me say to
you peace if you're willing to fight for it

Let me say in the spirit of liberation—I been gone for a litdle
while, at least my body’s been gone for a little while, But I'm back
now; and 1 believe I'm back to stay. T believe 'm going to do my
job. 1 believe I was born not to di in a car wreck. I don’t believe
D' going o dic in a car wreck. I don't believe I going to dic
slipping on a piece of ice. 1 don't believe I going to die because [
have a bad heart. I don’t believe I'm going to die because | have
lung cancer.

I believe I'm going to be able to die doing the things 1 was born
for. 1 believe I'm going to die high off the peaple. I believe 'm
going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary
proletarian steuggle. I hope each one of you will be able to die
[in] the international revolutionary proletarian strugele, or you'll
be able to live in it. And I think that strugele’s going to come.

Why don't you live for the people.

Why don't you struggle for the people.
Why don't you die for the people.

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 7
You Can Murder a Liberator,
But You Can’t Murder Liberation

On Aprl 27, 1969, Fred Hampton, chairman of the Uinois
Black Panther Party, deltered the following specch. On December 4, 19639,
Hampton was dead in bed, murdered in a polic raid on an aparimens
at 2337 W. Monrae Strct in Chicago. (Mark Clark, Pantler semier
Jrom Pearia, Uinois, was also illed; four oiber Pantlers were eriicaly
wounded, and three were arrested anbarmed. One pofieman was slightly
wounded. ) State’s Attorney Edard V. Hanraban held a press conference
laer that day, diplaying what e s was the arms cache recovered from the
partment and saying that the paice had fred only becase they had been
attacked by the Black Pantbers. Bat it soon became clar that th police
ad massed a beary con centration of machine-gun and shotgan fire at one
lving-raom wall and into 10 bedrooms, and that there was lite f any
sign of e turn fire. In short, the murder of Foed Hampton was part of a
pattern of constant arests, epeatd raids on Black Panther beadguarters
“and asassinaion o the movements eadersip i orde o dstry e Black
Panther Party. A Faderal Grand Jury invesigating the marders reached the
concusion that the plic carge that they had fied in sefdefense s fale
bt o police ofcals were indicted

Hampton'sspecch desribes, s be put i, “what the Black Pantler
Party i abon.”

5 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
What we are basically going to be talking about today is what the
pig is doing to the Panthers all azound the country. We are going
to have o talk about what we are going to have to do about the
reptession that they are putting on the Black Panther Party. We
are not worried about getting off it-ler’ try to deal with it

We got to talk fisst of all about the main man. The main man in
the Black Panther Party, the main man in the struggle today—in
the United States, in Chicago, in Cuba and anywhere else—the
main man in the liberation strugele is our Minister of Defense,
and yours too, Huey P. Newton. He's the main man because the
head of the imperialist octopus lies right in this country and
whoever is dealing with the head of the octopus in this country is
the main man. He's in jail now: We must tell the world that Huey
P, Newton was tried by the pigs and they found him guilty. He
was tried by the people, who found him not guilty, and we say let
him go, let him free, because we find him not guilty. This is our
relentless demand. We will not let up one day, we will not give up
the struggle to liberate our Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton
and we will continue to exert pressure on the power structure and
constantly bombard them with the people’s demand that Huey P
Newton be set free.

It was Huey P. Newton who taught us how the people learn. You
learn by participation. When Huey P. Newton started out what
did he do? He got a gun and he got Bobby and Bobby got a gun.
They had a problem in the community because people was being
£un over, kids were being run over—at a certain intersection. What
did the people do? The peaple went down to the government to
redress their grievances and the government told them to go to
hell : “We ate not going to put no stoplights down there UNTIL
WE SEE FIT” What did Huey P. Newton do? Did he go out
and tell the people about the laws and write letters and try to
propagandize ‘em all the time? NO! Some of that's good, but
the masses of the people don’t read—that’s what 1 heard Huey
say—they learn through observation and participation. Did he just
say this? NO! So what did he do? He got him a shotgun, he got
Bobby and he got him a hammer and went down to the corner. He

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS o
gave Bobby the shotgun and told him if any pig motherfuckers
come by blow his mother fuckin brains out. What did he do? He
went to the corner and nailed up a stop sign. No more accidents,
fio more trouble. And then he went back-anather situation like
that. Whatd the people do? They looked at it, they observed;
they dida' get a chance to participate in it. Next time whatd they
do? Same kind of problem came up. The PEOPLE got THEIR
shotguas, got THEIR nine milimetess, got THEIR hammers.
Howd they learn? They learned by observation and pasticipation.
They learned one thing. When thete is a fire you gather round
the fire. Huey got a shotgun and everybody gathered round him
and Bobby. They saw what was going on and they had a chance
to participate in it. As the vanguard leader, he taught the people
about the power structure; he led the people down the correct
foad of revolution. What are we doing?

Breakfast for Children
Our Breakfast for Children program is feeding a lot of children
and the people understand our Breakfast for Childzen program.
We sayin’ something like this—we saying that theory’s cool, but
theory with no practice ain't shit. You got o have both of them-—
the two go together. We have a theory about feeding kids frec.
What'd we do? We put it into practice. That's how people learn.
Alot of people don't know how serious the thing is. They think
the children we feed ain't really hungry. I don' know five year old
kids that can act well, but I know that if they not hungry we sure
ot some actors. We got five year old actors that could take the
academy award. Last week they had a whole week dedicated to
the hungry in Chicago. Talking ‘bout the starvation rate here that
went up 15%, Over here where everybody should be eating, Why?
Because of capitalism.

What are we doing? The Breakfast for Children program. We
are running it in a socialistic maaner. People came and took our
program, saw it in a socialistic fashion not even knowing it was
socialism. People are gonna take our program and tell us to go on
to a higher level. They gonna take that program and work it in a
socialistic manner. Whatd the pig say? He say, “Nigger—you like
communism?” “No sir, I'm scared of it “You like socialism?”

10 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
“No Sit, 'm scared of it “You like the breakfast for children
program?” “Yes sis, Id die for it”. Pig said, “Nigger, that program

is a socialistic program.” “I don't give a fuck if s Communism.
You put your hands on that program motherfucker and Il
blow your motherfucking brains out.” And he knew it. We been
educating him, not by reading matter, but through observation
and participation. By letting him come in and work our program.
Not theory and theory alone, but theory and practice. The two go
together. We not only thought about the Marsist- Leninist theory—
we put it into practice. This is what the Black Panther Party is
about.

Subversives
Some people talk a lot about communism, but the people can't
understand and progress to the stage of communism right away or
because of abstract arguments. They say you got to crawl before
you can walk. And the Black Panther Pasty, as the vanguard party,
thought that the Breakfast for Children Program was the best
technique of erawling that any vanguard party could follow. And
we gor a whale lot of folks that's going to be walking And then
a whole lot of folks that's gonna be running, And when you got
that, what you got? You gor a whole lot of PIGS that’s gonna be
running That's what our program’s about.

The Black Panther Party is about the complete revolution. We not
gonna go out there and half do a thing. And you can let the pigs
know it. They come here and hide—they so uncomfortable they
sitting on 4 tape-recorder, they got their gun in their hair—they
ot to hide all this shit and they come here and do all this weird
action. All they got to do is come up to 2350 West Madison any
day of the week and angbody up there’ll let them know let the
motherfucker know: Yes, we subversive. Yes, we subversive with
the bulishit we are confronted with today. Just as subversive as
anybody can be subversive. And we think them motherfuckers
s the criminals. They the ones always hiding, We the ones up in
front. We're out in the open, these motherfuckers should start
weating uniforms. They want to know if the Panthers are goin’
underground-these motherfuckers IS under ground. You can’t

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS n
find “em. People calls the pigs but nobody knows where they at.
They'te out chasing us. They're hiding-—can't nobody even see ‘em.

When peaple got a problem they come to the Black Panther
Party for help and thar's good. Because, like Mao says, we are
supposed to be ridden by the people and Huey says we're going
to be ridden down the path of social revolution and that’s for the
peaple. The people ought to know that the Black Panther Party is
one thousand percent for the People. They write a lot of asticles,
you know, niggers'll run up to you in a minute-when I say niggers
I mean white niggers and black niggers alike-niggersll run up
t0 you and talk that shit about, Man, I read in the Tribune today
Well you say, Man, fuck it right there. If you didn't read it in the
BLACK PANTHER paper, in the MOVEMENT—then you ain't
read shit,

Mickey White
We in the Black Panther Party have another brother I want to
take some time to rap about. This brother is constantly on our
mind. This brother’s name is Michacl White-Mickey White.
This brother is beautiful. He's being held now in jail for one
hundred thousand dollars bail. Some of you who listen to the
radio might have heard about brothers in the state chapter, our
feld secretary of Defense Captain, brother Nathaniel Junior and
Brother Mersill Harvey being laid up on some phoney gun charge.
We don't say the Panthers don't want guns, but we already got
guns and we don't have to go and try and steal or connive to
buy any guns from anybody. What they are trying to do is to
squash out the Black Panther Party, they're trying to squash out
the leadership. Trying to squash out Bobby Rush, the Deputy
Minister of Defense. Trying to squash out Chaka and Che, the
Deputy Minister of Education.

Mickey White was in that bullshit with Nathaaiel Junior and
Mersill Harvey. Last week when they went to court even the judge
in court said, you all gonna get a fair trial whether you deserve
it or not. These are the types of actions we are confronted with.

12 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
Mickey White i in solitary confinement and doesa't get to come
out of his cell for anything at any time. And he might be in that
cell for the rest of his life. His bond is $100,000. That's $10,000
cash,

Mickey White is a proven revolutionary. He's not nobody we
THINK is going to be a revolutionary. He's not nobody we trying
to make a revolutionary. He's a proven revolutionary. All of you
have to understand that Mickey White is a Panther in ideology,
he's a Panther in word, and he's a Panther in deed. He's a Panther
that understands s a class struggle-not a face question. You
have to understand the pressures the Black Panther Party goes
through saying this. You can see the pressures the Black Panther
Party goes through by making a coalition with whites.

When the Black Panther Pasty stood up and said we not going to
fight racism with racism US said “NO, we can’t do that because
its a race question and if you make it a class question then the
revolution might come sooner. We in US ain't prepared for no
revolution because we think that power grows from the sleeve
of a Dashiki.” They are armed with thetoric and hetoric alone.
And we found that when you're armed with thetoric and rhetotic
alone a lot of times you get yourself hurt. Eldridge Cleaver told
them, even though you say you fight fire with fire best, we think
you fight fire with water. You can do cither one, but we choose
to fight with water. He said, we'te not going to fight racism with
eacism, we're going to fight racism with solidarity. Even though
you think you ought to fight capitalism with black capitalism,
we're going to fight capitalism with socialism.

We got a whole lot of people being busted and you don't even
know about all these people. Theres one here you definitely have
o know about and that's our Deputy Minister of Defense-Bobby
Rush. Our Deputy Minister Bobby Rush was busted on some
bullshit with a gun thing. He's got thee gun charges. He's been
convicted of one with a six month lead. He's out on appeal no.
Ikaow alot of you people say, well goddama, you got a Mickey
White defense fund, an Eldridge Cleaver defense fund, a Merrill
Harvey defense fund, a Nathanicl Junior defense fund, a Huey

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 3
Newton defense fund, a Fred Hampton, Jule, Che, and Chaka
defense fund—nd I just can't keep up with all these defense funds.
But since we are the vanguard party we try to do things right,
50 we got one defense fund so you don't get mixed up on what
name to send it to. We'll decide who it goes to. You can just send
it to Political Defense Fund, 2350 West Madison. If you want to
send something to Breakfast for Childzen, you can sead it to 2350
West Madison also, and you can carmark that money to go to the
Breakfast for Children program.

We got Mickey on our mind tonight—and everybody knows we
ot Huey P. Newton on our mind tonight. We got every political
prisoner in jail on our mind tonight. Eldridge Cleaver—all of
these people either dead, or in exile or in jail. A lot of people
understanding this will lose real faith in the vanguard by not
undestanding what we're talking about.

A lot of these people will go up to you in 2 minute and say,
“Why all these peaple being taken, why haven't they shot it out
with some pigs.” Well, what do we say? If you kill a few, you
get a litdle satisfaction. But when you can kill them ALL you get
complete satisfaction. That's why we haven't moved. We have to
organize the people. We have to educate the people. We have
to arm the people. We have to teach them about revolutionary
political power. And when they understand al that we won't be
Killing no few and getting no little satisfaction, we'll be killing ‘em
all and getting complete satisfaction.

Go with the People
So what should we do if we're the vanguard? What s it right
to do? I it right for the leadership of that struggle to go faster
than the followers of that struggle can go? NO! We're not going
to be dealing in commandism, we're not going 1o be dealing in
no tailism. We say that just as fast as the people can possibly go,
thar’s just as fast as we can take it

While we take it we must be sure that we are not missing the

people in the valley. In the valley we know that we can learn
to understand the life of the peaple. We know that with all

" FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
the bullshit out there, you can come to consider yourself on
the mountain top. 1 may even consider myself one day on the
mountaintop. 1 may have alzeady. But I know that in the valley
there are people like Benny and there are people like me, people
like Mickey White and people like Huey P. Newton and Bobby
Seale. And that below the valley are people like Bobby Hutton,
peaple like Eldridge Cleaver. We know that going into the valley
is a dangerous thing. We know that when you go out to the valley
you got to make a commitment.

Aot of people think the revolution s bullshit, but it not. A lot
of us think that when you get in the revolution you can talk your
way out of things, but that’s not true. Ask Bobby Hutton, ask
Huey Newton, ask Eldridge Cleaver, Mickey White and Dennis
Mora. Ask these people whether it a game. If you get yourself
involved in a revolutionary struggle then you've got 1o be serious,
You got to know what you're doing. You got to already have
practiced some type of theory. That' the reason we ask people
to follow the leadership of the vanguard party. Because we all
theorizing and we all practicing. We make mistakes, but we're
always correcting them and we're always geting better.

We used to run around yellin ‘bout Panther Power—the Panthers
£un it. We admit we made mistakes. Our ten point program is in
the midst of being changed right now, because we used the word
“white” when we should have used the word “capitalist”. We're
the first to admit our mistakes. We no longer say Panther Power
because we don't believe the Panthers should have all the power.
We are not for the dictatorship of the Panthers. We are not for
the dictatorship of Black peaple. We are for the dictatorship of

the people.

The difference between the people and the vanguard is very
important. You got to understand that the people follow the
vanguard. You gor to understand that the Black Panther Party
1S the van guard. If you are about going to the people you got
to understand that the vanguard leads the people. After the
social revolution, the vanguard party, through our educational
programs-and that program is overwhelming-the people are

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 15
educated to the point that they can run things themselves. That's
what you call educating the people, organizing the people, arming
the people and bringing them revolutionary political power. That
means people’s power. That means the people’s revolution. And if
you're not about being involved in a people’ revolution then you
ot 10 do something You got to support the people’s revolution.

Complete Satisfaction
The Black Panther Party is the vanguard party. You better get
on the Black Panther Party. If you can't get on, goddamit you
better get behind. If you can't get hehind goddami, you better
get hehind somebody else so you'll at least be able to follow
indireetly, motherfucker. We ain't asking you o go out and ask no.
pig; to leave us alone. We know that the pigs fuck with us cause
they know we're doing something,

Cause a lot of dudes walk around and write articles about it. 1
know some revolutionary groups say these niggers are runnin
around saying these things—the PL, shit, couldn’t even find
things to criticize. They was so far in the ground. What was they
doing? Organizing groundhogs, educating groundhogs, arming
groundhogs and teaching groundhogs revolutionary political
power.

I say that we're the first group to come above ground where the
peaple can follow you and see you. And if you make a mistake
its better than not even being at all. When I made that mistake
I made it for the people, and I corect it for the people. You
don’t hear there was a raid on PLs office last night. You ain't
never heard that. When you hear of PL busted in New York, PL's
leader in jail with no bass, PL leader run out of the county, PL
leader shot 18 times while he was running with his back turned
and hands tied up, PL leader gets breakfast for childsen for 1800
people a week. You ever hear it? Ya never heard it. I want to hear
it IF you do hear it, itll be because of the Black Panther lead.
P not putting all these things out and saying PL doesat know
‘em. But I'm saying that when people write something like this, a
lot of people don’t understand it. And I wanted to take the time
to explain i,

16 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
There are some things that PL says that are valid. Don't
misunderstand me. We don't get mad because in some way o
another PLis trying to better the Black Panther Party by trying to
eriticize it. But 1 just want to let you know, ain't nothing all right
and ain’t nothing all wrong. We're not all right-though we trying
to get that way. We make mistakes but we understand that we
gonna make some more mistakes. And we gonna try and correct
these mistakes and we gonna try and keep on moving,

So what do we say? Don't get the pigs offa us cause we can
stand em. We jail Mickey White, we should let em murder Bobby
Hutton, we should let em run Eldridge Cleaver out of the countay.
Why? Because you can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail the
revolution. You can run a freedom fighter around the country
but you ean't run freedom fighting around the country. You can
murder a liberator, but you can’t murder liberation,

Kill a few and get a litle satisfaction. Kill some more and you
get some more satisfaction. Kill ‘em all and you get complete
satisfaction. We say All Power to the People-Black Power to
Black People and Brown Power 1o Brown People, Red Power to
Red People and Yellow Power to Yellow People. We say White
Power to White People EVEN. And we say Panther Power to the
vanguard Party and we say don’t kill a few and don’t kill some
more. As a matter of fact we rather you didn’t move unil you see
we teady to move, and when you see we ready to move you know
we not dealing with a few, we not dealing with some more. You
know that when we get ready to move we dealing from complete—
thas what we're afier—total, everything, everybody—complete
satisfaction,

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

~The Movement, Janusaty, 1970

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 7
Power Anywhere There’s People

Power anywhere where there’s people. Power anywhere where
there’s people. Let me give you an example of teaching people.
Basically, the way they learn is observation and participation. You
know a lot of us go around and joke ousselves and believe that
the masses have PhDs, but that's not true. And even if they did, it
wouldn't make any difference. Because with some things, you have
to learn by seeing it or cither participating in it. And you know
yourselves that there aze people walking around your community
today that have all types of degrees that should be at this meeting
but are not here. Right? Because you can have as many degrees as
4 thermometer. If you don't have any practice, they you can't walk
across the street and chew gum at the same time.

Let me tell you how Huey P. Newton, the leader, the organizer,
the founder, the main man of the Black Panther Party, went about

The community had a problem out there in California. There
was an intersection, a four-vay intersection; a lot of people
were getting killed, cars running over them, and so the people
went down and redressed their grievances to the government,
You've done it befote. I know you people in the community
have. And they came back and the pigs said “No! You can't have
any” Oh, they dont usually say you can't have it. They've gotien

s FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
4 little hipper than that now: Thar’s what those degrees on the
thermometer will get you. They tell you “Okay, we'll deal with i.
Why dont you come back next meeting and waste some time?”

And they get you wound up in an excursion of futility, and you
bein a cycle of insaneness, and you be goin’ back and goin’ back,
and goin’ back, and goin’ back so many times that you're already
crazy

S0 they tell you, they say, “Okay niggers, what you want?” And
ey you jump up and you say, “Well, its been so long, we o't
know what we want”, and then you walk out of the meeting and
you're gone and they say, “Well, you niggers had your chance,
didat you?”

Let me tell you what Huey P. Newton did.

Huey Newton went and got Bobby Scale, the chairman of the
Black Panther Party on a national level. Bobby Seale got his 9mm,
thar’s a pistol. Huey P. Newton got his shotgun and got some stop
signs and got a hammer. Went down to the intersection, gave his
shotgun to Bobby, and Bobby had his 9mm. He said, “You hold
this shotgun. Anybody mess with us, blow their brains out.” He
put those stop signs up.

There were no more accidents, no more problem.

Now they had another situation. That's not that good, you see,
because its two people dealing with a problem. Huey Newton and
Bobby Seale, no matter how bad they may be, cannot deal with
the problem. But let me explain to you who the real heroes are.

Next time, there was a similar situation, another four-way corner.
Huey went and got Bobby, went and got his 9mm, got his
shotgun, got his hammer and got more stop signs. Placed those
stop signs up, gave the shotgun to Bobby, told Bobby “If anybody
mess with us while were putting these stop signs up, protect the
peaple and blow their brains out.” What did the people do? They
observed it again. They participated in it. Next time they had

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 19
another four-way intessection. Problems there; they had accidents
and death. This time, the people in the community went and got
their shotguns, got their hammers, got their stop signs.

Now, let me show you how were gonna try to do it in the Black
Panther Party here. We just got back from the south side. We
went out there. We went out there and we got to arguing with the
pigs o the pigs got 1o arguing-he said, “Well, Chairman Fred, you
supposed to be so bad, why dont you go and shoot some of those
policemen? You always talking about you got your guns and got
this, why dont you ga shoot some of them?”

And I've said, “you've just broken a rule. As a matter of fact, even
though you have on a uniform it doesn’t make me any difference.
Because I dont care if you got on nine uniforms, and 100 badges.
When you step outside the realm of legality and into the realm
of illegality, then I feel that you should be arrested.” And I told
him, “You being what they call the law of entrapment, you tried
to make me do something that was wrong, you encouraged me,
you tried to incite me to shoot a pig: And that ain’t cool, Brother,
you know the law, dont you?”

1 told that pig thae, T old bim “You got a gun, pig?” I told him,
“You gotta get your hands up against the wall. We're gonna do
what they call a citizens arrest.” This fool dont know what this s
L said, “Now you be just as calm as you can and don’ make t00.
many quick moves, cause we don't wanna have to hit you.”

And 1 told him like he alvays told us, 1 told him, “Well, I'm
here to protect you. Don't wotry about 4 thing, ‘m here for your
benehit” So 1 sent another Brother to call the pigs. You gotta
do that in citizen's arest. He called the pigs. Here come the
pigs with carbines and shotguns, walkin' out there. They came
out there talking about how they're gonna arsest Chairman Fred
And I said, “No fool. This is the man you got 1o arrest. He's the
one that broke the lav.” And what did they do? They bugged their
eyes, and they couldn't stand it. You know what they did? They
were so mad, they were so angry that they told me to leave.

El FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
And what happened? All those people were out there on 63rd
Street. What did they do? They were around there laughing and
talking with me while 1 was making the arest. They looked at me
while I was rapping and heard me while I was rapping, So the nest
time that the pig comes on 63rd Street, because of the thing that
our Minister of Defense calls observation and participation, that
pi; might be arrested by anybody!

So what did we do? We were out there educating the people.
How did we educate them? Basically, the way people learn, by
observation and participation. And tha’s what were trying to
do. That's what we got to do here in this community. And a lot
of people don’t understand, but there’s three basic things that
you got to do anytime you intend to have yourself a successful
revolution,

Alot of people get the word revolution mixed up and they think
revolutions a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having
4 sote on your body and then you put something on that sore
to cure that infection. And Im telling you that were living in an
infectious society right now. I telling you that were living in a
sick society. And anybody that endorses integrating into this sick
society before its cleaned up is a man whos committing a crime
against the peaple.

If you walk past a hospital room and see a sign that says
“Contaminated” and then you try to lead people into that room,
cither those people ate mighty dumb, you understand me, cause
if they weren's, they'd tell you that you ae an unfair, unjust leader
that does not have your followers” interests in mind. And what
were saying is simply that leaders have got to become, we've
got to start making them accountable for what they do. They're
goin” around talking about so-and-so’s an Uncle Tom so we're
onna open up a cultural center and teach him what blackness
is. And this n**#*t is more aware than you and me and Malcolm
and Martin Luther King and everybody else put together. That's
right. They're the ones that are most aware. They're most aware,
cause they're the ones that are gonna open up the center. They're
gonna tell you where bones come from in Affica that you can’t

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 2
even pronounce the names. Thats ight. They'll be telling you
about Chaka, the leader of the Bantu freedom fighters, and Jomo.
Kenyatta, those dingo-dingas. They'l be running all of that down
to you. They know about it all. But the point is they do what
they're doing because it is beneficial and it is profitable for them,

You see, people get involved in a lot of things that’s profitable
to them, and we've got to make it less profitable. We've got to
make it less beneficial. I'm saying that any program that’s brought
into our community should be analyzed by the people of that
community. It should be analyzed to see that it meets the relevant
needs of that community. We don't nced no a*#*#+s coming into
our community 10 be having no company to open business for
the n**+¥*s. Theres too many n**+**s in our community that
can't get erackers out of the business that they're gonna open,

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the
masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk
about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking
about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow
masses, 100, We've got to face the fact that some people say you
fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with
water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna
fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with
0 black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

We ain't gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down
the street being reactionary; we're gonna organize and dedicate
ourselves to revolutionaty political power and teach ourselves the
specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves,
and we're gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL
PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That's what it has to be. The
peaple have to have the power: it belongs to the people.

We have to understand very clearly that there’s a man in our
community called a capitalist. Sometimes he’s black and sometimes.
he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community,
because anybody who comes into the community to make profit
off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a captalist

2 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
And we don't care how many programs they have, how long a
dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the
sleeve of a dashiki political power flows from the barrel of a gun.
It flows from the barel of a gun!

A lot of us running around talking about politics don’t even
know what politics is. Did you ever see something and pull it
and you take it as far as you can and it almost outstretches itself
and it goes into something elsc? € you take it so far that it is two.
things? As a matter of fact, some things if you stretch it 50 far,
itllbe another thing. Did you ever cook something so long that it
turns into something else? Ain't that right?

That's what were talking about with politics.

That politics ain nothing, but if you stretch it so long that it
can't go no fusther, then you know what you got on your hands?
You got an antagonistic contradiction. And when you take that
contradiction to the highest level and stretch it as far as you
can stretch it, you got what you call war. Politics is war without
bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed. If you don’t
understand that, you can be a Democrat, Republican, you can be
Independent, you can be anything you want to, you ain't nothing.

We don't want any of those n*****s and any of these hunkies
and nobody else, radicals or nobody talking about, “'m on the
Independence ticket.” That means you sell out the republicans;
Independent means you'te out for graft and youll sell out to the
highest bidder. You understand?

We want people who want to run on the People’s Party, because
the people are gonna run it whether they like it or not. The people
have proved that they can run it. They run it in China, they're
onna run it right here. They can call it what they want to, they
can tlk about it. They can call it communism, and think that
thar's gonna seare somebody, but it ain't gonna seare nobody.

We had the same thing happen out on 37th Road. They came
out 10 37th road where our Breakfast for children program is,

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS »
and started getting those women who were kind of older, around
58-—that’s, you know, I call that older cause Im young, I aint 20,
ight, right! But you see, they're gonna get them and brainwash
them. And you ain't seen nothin tll you see one of them beauriful
Sisters with their hair kinda startin getting grey, and they ain't got
many teeth, and they were tearin’ them policemen up! They were
tearing em up! The pigs would come up to them and say “You like
communism?”

The pigs would come up to them and say, “You scared of
communism?” And the Sisters would say, “Not scared of it, |
aint never heard of it

“You like socialism?”

“Not scated of it. I ain't never heard of it”

The pigs, they be crackin’ up, because they enjoyed seeing these
people frightened of these words.

Yeah, wel, thats whac I live with. 1 like i
“You like the Breakfast For Children progeam, n*++:3"

And the pigs say, “Oh-oh.” The pigs say, “Well, the Breakfast
For Children program is a socialistic program. lts a communistic
program.”

And the women said, “Well, 1 tell you what, boy. 've been
knowing you since you were knee-high o a grasshopper, n***.
And I don't know if 1 like communism and 1 dont know if 1
like socialism. But I know that that Breakfast For Children
program feeds my kids, n****z. And if you put your hands on
that Breakfast For Children program, I'm gonna come off this
can and I'm gonna beat your ass like a ..”

2 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
That's what they be saying Tha's what they be saying, and it
is a beautiful thing. And that’s what the Breakfast For Children
program is. A lot of people think it is charity, but what does it do?
It takes the people from a stage to another stage. Any program
thar’s revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is
change. Honey, if you just keep on changing, before you know
it in fact, not even knowing what socialism i, you dont have to
know whatitis, they're endorsing it,they're participating in it, and
they're supporting socialism.

And alot of people will tell you, way, Well, the people dont have
any theory, they need some theory. They need some theory even
if they don't have any practice. And the Black Panther Party tells
you that if a man tells you that he's the type of man who has
You buying candy bars and cating the wrapping and throwing the
candy away, he'd have you walking East when you're supposed to
be walking West. Its true. If you listen to what the pig says, you be
walkin’ outside when the sun is shining with your umbrella over
your head. And when it’s raining youll be goin’ outside leaving
your umbrella inside. That's right. You gotta get it together. Im
saying that's what they have you doing,

Now, what do WE do? We say that the Breakfast For Children
program is a socialistic program. It teaches the people basically
that by practice, we thought up and let them practice that theory
and inspect that theory. What's more important? You learn
something just like everybody else

Let me try to break it dowa to you. You say this Brother here goes
to school 8 years to be an auto mechanic. And that teacher who
used to be an auto mechanic, he tells him, “Well, n¥**+7, you gotta
o on what we call on-the-job-training” And he says, “Damn,
with all this theory I got, | gotta go 10 on-the-job-training? What
for”

He said, “On on-the-job-tsaining he works with me. Ive been
hete for 20 years. When I started work, they didat even have
auto mechanics. 1 aint got no theory, 1 just got a whole bunch
of practice.”

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 2
What happened? A car came in making a whole lot of funny
noise. This Brother here go get his book. He on page one, he
aint got to page 200. I'm sitting here listening to the car. He says,
“What do you think it is?”

Isay, “I think its the carburetor.”

He says, “No I don't see anywhere in here where it says a
carburetor make no noise like that.” And he says, “How do you
know its the carburetor?”

1 said, “Well, 0"+, with all them degrees as many as a
thermometer, around 20 years ago, 19 to be exact, I was listening
to the same kind of noise. And what 1 did was 1 took apart
the voliage regulator and it wasn't that. Then I taok apart the
alternator and it wasn't that. 1 taok apart the generator brushes
and it wasn't that. 1 took apart the generator and it wasn't tha.
I took apart the generator and it wasn't even that. Afier 1 took
apart all that [ finally got to the carburetor and when 1 got to
the carburetor 1 found that that's what it was. And I told myself
that “fool, next time you hear this sound you better take apart the
carburetor first”

How did he learn? He leatned through practice.

I dont care how much theary you got, if it don't have any practice
applied 1o it, then that theory happens to be irrelevant. Right?
Any theory you get, practice it. And when you practice it you
make some mistakes. When you make a mistake, you correct that
theory, and then it will be corrected theory that will be able to
be applied and used in any situation. Thats what we've got to be
able to do.

Every time 1 speak in a church T always tey o say something,
you know, about Martin Luther King 1 have a lot of respect for
Martin Luther King I think he was one of the greatest ofators
that the country ever produced. And I listened to anyone who
speaks well, because 1 like to listen to that. Martin Luther King
said that it might look dark sometime, and it might look dark over

% FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
here on the North Side. Maybe you thought the room was going
to be packed with people and maybe you thought you might
have to tuen some people away and you might not have enough
people here. Maybe some of the people you think should be here
are not here and you think that, well if they'te not here then it
won't be as good as we thought it could have been. And maybe
you thought that you need more peaple here than you have here.
Maybe you think that the pigs are going to be able to pressure you
and put enough pressute to squash your movement even before it
starts. But Martin Luther King said that he heard somewhere that
only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And were not
worried about it being dark. He said that the arm of the moral
universe is long, but it beads toward heaven.

We got Huey P, Newton in jail, and Eldridge Cleaver underground.
And Alprentice Bunchy Carter has been murdered; Bobby Hutton
and John Huggins been murdered. And a lot of peaple think that
the Black Panther Party in a sense is giving up. But let us say this:
That we've made the kind of commitment to the people that
hardly anyone else has ever made.

We have decided that although some of us come from what some
of you would call petty-bousgeois familics, though some of us
could be in a sense on what you call the mountaintop. We could
be integrated into the society working with people that we may
never have a chance to work with. Maybe we could be on the
mountaintop and maybe we wouldn't have to be hidin’ when we
o to speak places like this. Maybe we wouldn't have to worry
about court cases and going to jail and being sick. We say that
even though all of those lusuries exist on the mountaintop, we
understand that you people and your problems are right here in
the valley

We in the Black Panther Party, because of our dedication and
understanding, went into the valley knowing that the people
are in the valley, knowing that our plight is the same plight as
the people in the valley, knowing that our enemies are on the
mountain, to our friends are in the valley, and even though its
nice to be on the mountaintop, we're going back to the valley.

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 27
Because we understand that there’s work to be done in the valley,
and when we get through with this work in the valley, then we
ot 10 go to the mountintop. We're going to the mountaintop
because there’s a motherfucker on the mountaintop that's playing
King, and he's been bullshitting us. And weve got to go up on the
mountain top not for the puspose of living his life style and living
like he lives. We've got 1o go up on the mountain top to make this
motherfucker understand, goddamnit, that we are coming from
the valley!

SPEECH DELIVERED AT OLIVET CHURCH, 1969

B FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
It’s A Class Struggle Goddammit!

What we're going to try to do, is we're going to try to rap and
educate. We're glad to try 10 throw out some mose information.
And it going to be hard 1o do. The Sister made a beautiful
speech as far as 'm concerned. Chaka, the Deputy Minister of
Information, that’s his job--informing. But I'm going to try to
inform you also.

One thing Chaka forgot 1o mention that Brothers and Sisters
don't do exactly the same. We don’t ask for any Brother to get
pregnant or anything. We don’t ask no brothers to have no babies.
So that's a litle different also.

After we get through speaking, for those peaple of you who don’t
think you understood all of the ideology exposed here so far,
and the ideologies that 1 will espouse, we will have a question
and answer period. For those people who have their feclings
hurt by niggers talking about guns, we'll have a cry'in after the
question and answer period. And for those white people that are
hete to show some type of overwhelming manifestation of guilt
syndromes, and want people t cry out that they love them, after
the cry-in, if we have time, we'll llow you all to have a love-in.

So now we'll get down to business. First of all, about what some
peaple call the TRIAL. We call it a HECATOMB, we call it a
hecatomb. That's spelled h-e-c-a-t-o-m-b. And I know there’s
enough dictionaries floating around up here to probably 6l the

£oom up, 50 you can check that ou. It means a sacrifice. It usually
means a sacrifice of an animal. So we'd like you, if you'd like to

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS E)
do that, so peaple ask you “Have you been to the trial” tell them
that youve been down or heard about the hecatomb, because
thar's what it is. 1t a public sacrifice. 16s a situation where they're
trying to unjusdly, illegally tey our Chairman,

We look at it as a 1969 manifestation of the Dred Scott Decision.
We look at Chairman Bobby as being the manifestation of
Dred Scort in 1857, And we look at Judge Hoffman as being
a manifestation of Judge Taney in 1857. Because in 1857 Dred
Scott was a negro, a former slave-he was sill a slave, because
we're slaves--who went into court and evidently had some type of
misunderstanding about what he was in American society, where
he fit in.

So he went o the Supreme Court 1o have Judge Taney answer
him and try to clear up some mistaken ideas that he had floatin’
around in his litdle old head. Ang Judge Taney did just that. Judge
Taney explained to him very clearly that, “Nigger, you're nobody,
you're property, you're a slave. That the systems-—the legal system,
the judicial system--all types of systems that are functioning in
America today was set up long before you got here, brother.
Because we brought you over to make money to keep what we've
got going, these avaricious, greedy businessmen, to keep what
we've got going, going on.”

And Dred Seott couldn't understand this. There was a big rebuttal.
And at that time, Judge Taney made a scatement that has beeome
famous. And that statement, maybe not in the same words but
through actions ant through social praciice, is being manifested
down at the New reigstag Building at Jackson and Dearbor. It's
being manifested through Judge Hoffman by saying the same
thing that Judge Taney said in 1857 When he told Dred Scott
that “Nigger, a black man in America has no rights which a white
man is bound to respect.” And that's the same thing that Judge
Hoffman s telling our Chairman every day:

And we understand. You know a lot of people have hang-ups

with the Party because the Party talks about a class struggle.
And the people that have those hang-ups are opportunists, and

0 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
cowards, and individualists and everything thac’s anything but
revolutionary. And they use these things as an excuse to justify
and 1o alibi and o bonify their lack of participation in the real
revolutionary struggle. So they say, “Well, I can' dig the Panther
Party hecause the Panthers they are engrossed with dealing with
oppressor country radicals, or white peaple, or hunkies, or what
have you. They said these ate some of the excuses that I use to
negate really why | am not in the struggle.”

We got a lot of answers for those people. First of all, we say
primarily that the priority of this struggle is class. That Marx, and
Lenin, and Che Guevara end Mao Tse-Tung and anybody else
that has ever said or knew or practiced anything about revolution,
always said that revolution s a class strugele. 1t was one class--the
oppressed--those other class—the oppressor. And it’s got to be a
universal fact. Those that don't admit to that are those that don’t
want to get involved in a revolution, because they know that as
long as they're dealing with a race thing, they’ll never be involved
in a revolution. They can talk about numbers; they can hang you
up in many, many ways, but as soon as you start talking about
elass, then you got to start talking about some guns. And that's
what the Party had to do.

When the Pasty stasted to talk about class struggle, we found that
we had to start talking about some guns. If we never negated the
fact that there was racism in America, but we said that when you,
the by-product, what comes off of racism, that capitalism comes
first and next is racism. That when they brought slaves over here,
it was to take money. So first the idea came that we want to make
money, then the slaves came in order to make that money. That
means that capitalism had to, through historical fact, racism had
to come from capitalism. It had 10 be capitalism first and racism
was a by-product of that.

Anbody that doesn’t admit that is showing through their non-
admittance and their non-participation in the struggle that all
they are, are people who fail to make a commitment; and the only
thing that they have going for them s the education that they
receive in these institutions—education enough to teach them

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 3
some alibis and teach them that you've gotta be black, and you've
gotta change you name. And thar’s crazy.

The minister of education of the Party, Raymond “Masai” Hewitt,
and Chief of Staff, David Hillird, just got back from Africa
visiting Eldridge Cleaver. And they said niggers over there never
will be wearing the type of garb that some of these Africanized
fools over here wear. They're wearing rags o either they're
weating nothing. And if you want to dress like some African
people, then you oughta dress like the Angolans or the people in
Mozambigue. These are the people that are doing something, You
nieed to dress like people that are in liberation struggles. But nab,
you don’t want to get that Afficanized, because as soon as you
have to dress like somebody from Angola or Mozambique, then
after you put on whatever you put on, and it can be anything from
£ags to something from Saks ifth Avenue, you got 1o put on some
bandoliers and some AR-15' and some 38%; youve got to put on
some Smith and Wessons and some Colt 45's, because that’s what
they're wearin’ in Mozambique. And any nigger that runs around
hete tellin’ you that when your hair’s long and you got a dashiki
on, and you got bubus and all these sandals, and all this type of
action, then you're a revolutionary, and anybody that doesn't look
like you, he’s not—that man has to be out of his mind,

Because we know that political power doesn't flow from the
sleeve of a dashiki. We know that political power flows from the
barrel of a gun. And that’ true. It has o be true. We know that
in order to be able to talk about power, that what you've got to be
able to talk about is the ability to control and define phenomena
and make it act in a desired manner. That means that if you
can't control and define phenomena and make it act in a desired
manner, then you don't even have any dealings with power, you
don’t know and you probably never will know what power is. And
we know what power is, and we know who's doing harm to the
people—the enemy;

And everybody wanis to talk about...the pork chops will tell

you in a minute “The pigs don't want you to get black. They
don’t want you to get no black studies programs. They don't want

2 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
you to wear dashikis. They don’t want you to learn about the
motherland and what zoots to eat of the ground. They don't want
that—because as soon as you get that, as soon as you go back
11th century culture, you'll be alright.”

Check the people who went back to 11th century culture. Check
the people that are wearing dashikis and bubus and think that
that’s going 1o frec them. Check all of these people, find out
where they're located, find out the addresses of their office, write
them a letter and ask them if in the last year how many times their
office been attacked. And then write any Black Panther Party,
anywhere in the United States of America, anywhere in Babylon,
and ask them how many times the pigs have attacked them. Then
when you get your estimation of both of them, then you figure
out what the pigs don't like. That's when you figure out what the
pigs don' like.

We've been attacked three times since June. We know what pigs
don'tlike. We've got peaple run out of the country by the hundreds.
We know what pigs don't like. Our Minister of Defense is in jail,
our Chairman s in jail, our Minister of Information’s in exile,
our Treasurer, the first member of the Pasty,is dead. The Deputy
Minister of Defense and the Deputy Minister of Information,
Bunchy, Alprentice Bunchy Carter, and John Huggins from
Southern California, murdered by some pork chops, talking about
2 BSU program. We know what the pigs don't like

We said nobody would shoot a Panther but a pig, because Panthers
don't pose a theat to anybody but pigs. And if people tell you
that Panthers pose threats, then ask them what kind of sense it
would make, ualess it to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to
feed somebody’s son and then at 3 o’clock that afternoon shoot
him—save a meal. We don't need to do that. What sense does
it make for us to open up a free health clinic where the only
pretequisite that you got to have to receive free medical aid is the
pretequisite that you be sick. And we've got students whao jiving
themselves and running around playing, talking about they doin’
something for the struggle, and I want (o know what more could
you do? And you all people come from Chicago.

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS n
Peaple talking about the Party co-opted by white folks. That's
what that mini-fascist, Stokely Carmichacl said. He's nothing but
4 jackanapes. As far as 'm concerned, hes a jackanapes, cause
I've been knowing him for years, and that's all he could be, if he
o0 around murder-mouthin’ the Black Panther Party

If we're co-opted by white people, then check the locations
of our offices, our breakfast progeam, our free health clinic is
opening up probably this Sunday at 16th and Springficld. No
does everybody know where 16th and Springfield is at? That's
not in Winnetka, you understand. That's not in Dekalb. That's
in Babylon. That’s in the heart of Babylon, Brothers and Sisters.

And that free health clinic was put there because we know where
the problem is at. We know that black people are most oppressed.
And i we didac know that, then why the hell would we be running
around talking about the black liberation struggle has to be the
vanguard for all liberation struggles? If there’s ever going to be
any liberation in the mother country, ever gonna be any liberation
in the colony, then we got to be liberated by the leadership of the
Black Panther Party and the black liberation struggle. We don’t
negate that fact.

We're not hung up in anybody’s not a Panther. We don't want to
et you thinkin’ that, because we can dig Fred, | mean Everett,
we can dig him. But we can't dig Ron Karenga and LeRoi Jones.
We can't dig that. We can't see any social practice on the part of
them Brothers. We know that they both have names longer than
my arm. And both of them supposed to be so intelligent and so
smart. And that’s the problem right novw.

We're talking about destroging the system, and they have hang-
ups doing that because they'te constantly buying property within
the system. And it kind of hard to bun up on Tuesday what
you bought last Monday. Because they're a bunch of unepentant
capitalists. They'll never repent. And they know better. We try
to make excuses for them—“Magbe they'll have t0 go through
stages, Fred.” No, that’s not it. Because they're much older than
we ate—P'm 21. We're all young, So stages, they don went through

34 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
them. Ron Karenga has more degrees than a thermometer. That's
right, he has more degrees than a thermometer and he continues
to do what he's doin’. And how do they fool you? Because they
pick the leadess they want. And they put those people up there
and portray them as being your leaders when, in fact, they're
leaders of nobody

we call the oppressed apologists. Because after something’s
happened, all they can do is apologize for it. Look in the papers.
Now they're drawing pictures of the Chairman chained and
agged. Don't you know that if the news media, the established
press, had moved before this, that they could have stopped this
sising tide of fascism years ago. But they endorsed, they joined,
they supported what fascists were doing at the time. And now its
being heaped down upon all of the people.

And a lot of people think now that their hands are getting dirty.
We call them ideological servants of United States fascism. And
thar's what they are, because they serve fascism by doing nothing
about it untl the law goes over and then they apologize for it,
they get apologetic. But we say i’ the same press that we'll look
at and believe and think is bona fide; the same press that talked
us into believing that we was somebody when in fact we were
nobody.

I don't think there’s anything more important. I think that what
Malcolm says is important. Now think back. Those students
were laughing at Malcolm. Can you dig it? They were laughing
at Malcolm. Why? Regis Debray, he says the revolutionaries are
in the future. That militants and pork chops and all these people,
eadical students, ase in the present, and that most of the rest of
the people try to remain in the past. That's why when somebody
comes that's in the future of a lot of us can't understand him.
And the same thing that you don’t understand Huey P. Newton
now; you didn’t understand Malcolm when he was living. But we
know that when Malcolm left, the well almost ran dry. You don’t
miss the water til the well runs dry, and it almost ran dey:

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS »
Huey P, Newton got to reading, and he's not like a lot of us. A lot
of us read and read and read, but we don’t get any practice. We
have a lot of knowledge in our heads, but we've never practiced
it; and made any mistakes and corrected those mistakes so that
we will be able to do something properly. So we come up with
like we say more degtees than a thermometer, but we're not able
to walk across the street and chew gum at the same time, because
we have allthat knowledge but it’s never been exercised, it’s never
been practiced. We never tested it with what's really happening,
We call it testing it with objective realit. You might have any kind
of thought in your mind, but you've got to test it with what's out
there. You see what | mean?

They talked us into buying candy bars and throwing the candy
away and eating the wrapper. They're the only people in the
world, you understand, that's right, that can sell ice boses to
Eskimoes. They can sell natural wigs to niggers that’s got natural
hair already. And see, this is a shame. They can sell a one-legged
man probably 24 tickets in a asskicking contest, and he knows
he has no business being there. See, these are the things they can
do to us and then they have us believe that what they'e tellin’
us s righ, it's bona fide, it justified. We say that’s wrong, that's
incorrect, that Malcolm, when he spoke to students, and you
probably heard that record, he speaks to some Jews, some slick
people, and he told them.

You might say, “Well, the way 1 feel, people ought to be able
to walk asound naked because rape is love.” That’s idealism. See
what I mean? You're dealing in metaphysics. You're dealing in
subjectivity, because you're not testing it with objective reality
And what's really wrong is that you don't go test it. Because if you
test it, you'll get objective. Because as soon as you walk out there,
a whole lot of objective reality will vamp down upon your ass and
£ape you of whatever you have. So whenever this happens, this
is when people get a whole lot of mistaken ideas. That’s why a
lot of you can’t understand and can't agree with a lot of what we
said. You've never tried it

36 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
You don't know whether people relate to the breakfast program,
because you've never fed anybody. You don’t know anything
about the free health clinic because you never asked anybody.
You don’t know anything about the good that a gun does you,
because you never tried one. And we say that if you was born
and if you said you didn't like pears and you never tasted pears,
you'd have to be a liar. You don't know whether you like pears,
but you can't claim that you don't like pears. The only way that
anybody can tell you the taste of a pear s if he himself has tasted
it That's the only way. That's the objective reality. That's what the
Black Panther Party deals with. We're not metaphysicians, we're
not idealists, we're dialectical materialists. And we deal with what
reality is, whether we like it or not

Alot of people can't relate 1o that because everything they do is
agged by the way they like things to be. We say thats incorrect,
You look and see how tings ate and then you deal with that. We
runnin’ around talking about “We gonna love all black people. We
have an undying love for all black people.” And you know what?
That if Malcolm came back, he'd walk pas a million Klansmen to
et to Stokely and whoop his motherfuckin’ ass. Because Malcolm
was standing right like this in a room, where white people weren't
even allowed. You hear me? They wouldn't allow no white people
in there. But Malcolm’s dead. Now what happened? What'd that
fool's name, James Whitmore. Didn't he do his little skin?

Because they had names with 37X, 15X, blacker than black, and
they were able to sneak in because of this ignorant potient #0
that these maniacs are trying to whoop on us—“We gonna love
all black people because every Negro is a potential black man.”

The man that testified against Chairman Bobby in the Conspiracy
Trial down in Chicago was a black man. The man that has
Chairman Bobby on a murder trial in Connecticut is a black man.
The man who murdered Malcolm X is a black man. The judge
that denied Eldridge Cleaver bond after a white man had granted
him bond—a nigger who investigated on his own and said,
“Nigger, I don't think you ought to be on the street,” was a black
man, Thurgood Marshall, Thusgood NOGOOD Marshall, that
the NAACP put in. That’s one of the things about sittin’ in and

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 7
dyin’ in and waitin’ in and eryin’ in got us. If Thurgood Marshall
hadn't been there, then Eldridge Cleaver would probably still be
hete with the people.

He's anigger, a bootlicker, tonto, a jackanapes. You understand?
Goin’ “I don'e think you should be on the streets.” And we runnin’
around lettin’ niggers tell us we got to love all black people.

You heard about the conspiracy trial on the West Side that they
were able to win, with Doug Andrews and Fat Crawford, when
they had the big burn on the West Side in the Martin Luther King
rio? Ask ‘em! Brothers, whats wrong with you, Brothers and
Sisters? Ask ‘em was that a white man. No! Because Doug and
them they criticized us for our liberal stand. They call it liberal
So they let nobody in their hood but black people. But they didn’t
know. Anybody ever hear about Gloves on the South Side of
Chicago? He's not white. [Glove Davis was later on one of the
Chicago policemen that participated in Fred assassination.] Did
you think Buckney was white? Buckney, who's taking all of your
Brothers and all of your little Sisters and all of your little cousins
and nephews, and he's gonna continue to take ‘em. Aad if you
don't do anything, he's gonna take your sons and your daughters.
And 2 lot of niggers is going to school now trying to make a
name. We don't hear nobody running around talking about “I'm
Benedict Arnold, 111, because Benedict Arnold's childsen don’t
want 1o talk about they his children. You hear people talking
about they might be Patrick Henry’s children—people that stood
up and said “Give me liberty or give me death.” Or Paul Revere’s
cousin. Paul Revere said, “get your guns, the British ate coming”
The British were the police.

Huey said “Get your guns, the pigs are coming” Same thing.
There'll be a lot of Newtons running azound. A lot of your kids
will be calling themselves Huey P. Newton, I1L. They won't be
calling themselves Ooga-Booga or Karangatng Karenga, or
Mamalama Karenga—none of that shit. They won't be calling
themselves that. You see, ask the pigs in California. Ask them!
You see that? Hand me one of them posters, Brother. The one
ight there. Now if you think I'm lying, look at this. Take a look at

3 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
this. Now all you Sisters here, tell me what looks better—a nigger
runnin’ around in a robe and a staff pole, lookin” like Moses, or
these bad—these are the baddest lookin’ ... You might think,
you might say you're chauvinistic, organizational chauvinistic you
might call it. You might call me wrapped up in the Party’s own
ego. But P'm wrapped up in the truth. And I think the Sister can
verify that these are the baddest. These are the movie stars for
Babylon, Godamnit. Hub? Fuck John Wayne and all this other
shit,

Aleight. But you see, if you look at that, that's what we look good
in. We don't care if niggers wear dashikis. You understand? That's
not gonna mean anything in the final analysis. But we're saying
that you need some tools.

You ever had the oceasion to have a dactor come to your house,
or a plumber comes to your house? Suppose a plumber came to
your house, he opened up his bag and he had stethoscopes and
thermometers and hypodermic needles and syringes. Youd say
“You came to fix the plumbing? Brother, you got the wrong tools.
Something suspicious is going on because you don't even have
the proper tools” Ain't that right?

Suppose somebody came to deliver your baby and he had
plumber’s tools? I know you Sisters would scream bloody murder.
No but youd say, “This is not right, Brother. We can’t have this,
You got to, you understand, you gotta come a little easier, you got
to show me something better. You got to have some tools that
are more appropriate for the occasion, you understand, because |
don’t have any runny faucets or anything.”

So when people come into our community with tanks, when they
come into Babylon or Warsaw, or whatever you want to call it like
they did into Henry Horner Projects—and that’s a manifestation
of, a very clear manifestation of what's happening in Babylon.
When they do that, when they come in there with tanks and those
tanks are tools, those tanks are tools of war, they're declaring
war on the community. And if you, when they come into the
community with tanks, you come out with dashikis and nothin’

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS »
but dashikis, bubus and nothin’ but bubus, sandals and nothing
but sandals, then you're in the wrong place at the wrong time
with the wrong people. Youd better go back in the house, if
you have to strip buck naked, if you got to get asshole naked,
put you on even if it ain't nothing but a holster and a gun and
some ammunition. Take your bear ass, you understand, and they
won't consider you being naked. Nobody will try, you understand,
to whistle at you, or anything. Cause this will be gone from the
minute ...any kind of sesual asaction you had will be gone.
Cause they will be looking at Mr. and Mes. Cole .45, Ms. and Mrs.
357 Magnum. And the shapes on them are the best shapes we
have in Babylon to deal with. And you Brothers holdin’ a 357
Magnum in your hand, there ain't nothin’ that feels like a 357
Magnum, except one of these beautiful black Sisters. But we need
them.357 Magnums also.

When we go out there, we'll be able to protect ourselves. Huey
P, Newton issued a mandate 2 long time ago. It was executive
Mandate #3. It said we need to draw the line of demascation.
And when pigs move on our cribs, we have to protect our crib
with gun force. Pigs don't move on Panther cribs. When they
move on Panther cribs, they make sure the Panther’s out of town.
We had a situation where they moved on a Panther erib and they
had three helicopters above his crib. I'm serious, I'm serious. See,
they come prepared. Because they know when they comin’ to a
Panther’s erib that we might talk a lot of rhetoric, but we deal
with the same basic jargon that the people in Babylon deal with. Tt
takes two to tango, motherfucker. As soon as you kick that door
down, T have to kick it back to you. We don't lock our doors. We
just get us some good guns and leave them motherfuckers open
and when people come in there we put something on them that
will make them go to the hardware, buy a lock, come back, pull
the door closed, lock it and stay their ass outside!

We're gonna move as quickly as we possibly can for the people
with the questions and answers and the people with the guil
syndrome and the peaple that have been embarrassed and shamed
and disgraced. And we've talked about their leaders like LeRoi
Jones and Mamalama Karangatang Karenga, a big bald-headed

W0 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
bazoomie as far as we're concerned. That's what he is. And we
think that if he's gonna continue to wear dashikis, that he oughta
stop wearin® pants. Cause he's look a lot better in miniskirts.
Thats all a motherfuckin’ man needs in Babylon that ain’t got no
gun, and that’s a miniskist. And maybe he can trick his way out of
somethin’. Cause he not gonna shaot his way outta nothin’. He
won't fight tempration, but he never killed angbody but the Black
Panther member. Name somebody. Name me a time you read
about Karangatang’s office being attacked. The only time he ever
had the occasion 10 use a gun was on Alprentice Bunchy Carter,
4 revolutionary. This Brother had more revolutionary poctry
for a motherfucker than anybody. Revolutionary culure. John
Huggins. The only time they lifted a gun was against these people.
As Huey says in prison when they lified their hands against Bunchy
and when they lifted their hands against John, they lifted their
hands against the best that Babylon possesses. And you should
say that. You should feel anytime when revolutionary Brothers
die. You never heard about the Party going around murdering
people. You dig what 'm saying? Think about it. 'm not even
onna tell you. You think about it for yourself.

We started the Black Panther Pasty in 1966. I'm gonna tell you
the whole story in a minute. We started dealing with pigs. You
think we scared of a few karangatangs, a few chumps, a few male
chauvinists? They tell their women “Walk behind me.” The only
reason a woman should walk behind a faggot like that is so she
can put his foot knee deep in his ass.

We don't need no culture except revolutionary culture, What we
mean by that is a culture that will free you. You heard your Field
Licutenant talking about a fre in the room, dida’t you? What you
worry about when you got a fire in this room? You worry about
water or escape. You don't worry about nothin” else. If you say
“What's your culture during this fire?” “Water, that's my culture,
Brother, that's my culture.” Because culture’s a thing that keeps
you. “What's your polities?” Escape and water. “What's your
education?” Escape and water. When people ask us about our
culture, we say our culture’s guns, baby. Our culture’s revolutionary
art, like that. And when you see those two Brathers who picked

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS W
up them guns and went out into Babylon in '66 when a lot of
us were scated to do anything except lock ourselves up in the
closet and listen to Coltrane—ain't that something for woopin’ a
motherfucker's ass. And this turned us on and this made us black
enough that we were bad. Then this made us black enough to
get out and launch a blanket indictment at the murder-mouthin’
rest of the black people. Nigger, you ain't got no natural. Nigger,
how come your name ain't changed? Ask the pigs in California.
Ask ‘em. “Who do you fear most? Ron Mamalama Karenga, or
Huey P, Newton, who is named after a demagogic, yin’ politician,
Huey P, Long?” And pigs don't care about that. Because you don’t
have to call,if your shotgun’s a Browning, you don’t have to give
it no African name, because believe me, it shoots the same. You
understand? It shoots the same.

Changing your name is not gonna change our set of arrangements.
The only thing thar’s gonna change our set of arrangements is
what's gotten us into this set of arrangements. And that's the
oppressor. And it's on three stages, we call it the three-in-one:
avasicious, greedy businessmen; demagogic, lyin’ politicians; and
eacist, pig fascist, reactionary cops. Unel you deal with those
thiee tings, then your set of arrangements will remain the same.
The only difference will be that you're still under fascism, but
instead of Fred being under fascism, Il be Oogabooga under
fascism. But Il feel the same. Instead of me goin’ to the gas
chamber, Il go to an African section of the gas chamber. We
so Afficanized over here that if Africans came over here, you'd
have to give them a catalogue to find out what the fuck they were
buyin’. Thaes right, you'd have o give them a catalogue to find
out what the fuck they were buyin’. You got posters and pictures
and names, we're namin’ things and namin’ ourselves names they
never even heard of. And we call ourselves Afficanized. And ain't
that somethin’? You understand?

IF you're sacist, let me tell you somethin’. Ot if you're a reactionary
nationalist. White folks run it. Go to south Africa and ask ‘em. Go
ahead. If you want an esample of cultural nationalism, the best
one I can give you is Papa Doc, Duvalier. In Haiti, all the black
people, “We need some black-ness” Papa Doc—naw; Duvalier

2 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
said “Right on, we need some blackness. Let’s get all the white
folks out of here” Got all the white folks out, and now hes
oppressing all the black folks. When the black folks complain
about i, he says, “Well, godamn; what you all complainisy’ about
now? Im black. I can't do nothin’ wrong brother. We already
qualified that” That's why these apologists like Wesley South
come on the ar, and 0 rap that sophistry that the Sister was talkin’
about. Talkin’ about, they'ee ballyhooing, reall. Just sappin’ about
nothin’ because they're jackanapes in our community allowed to
femain there only because of their skin complesion. And we
ought to drive them out. Think about it

You've got Bobby Seale chained and gagged at the Federal
Building, You've got James and Michael Soto who was murdered
in two days. By the way, for all you white folks who claim you're
eadicals, that claim you're gonna support the Party. We move in
and we're saying that there’s no better, there’s no higher Marsist
than Huey P. Newton. Not Chairman Mao Tse-Tung or anybody
else. We're saying that unless people show us through their social
practice that they relate to the struggle in Babylon, that means
that they're not internationalists, that means that they're not
revolutionaries, truly Marsist-Leninist revolutionaries. We look at
Kim 1l Sung. We look at Comade the Marshall, Marshall Kim
11 Sung of Korea as towering far and high above in his social
practice as Mao Tse-Tung: If you can relate to that, cool. If you
can't telate to that, walk out with your as picked clean like the
chickens do, you dig? If you can’t relate to that. And we're tellin’
you that,

And you motherfuckers who think you're so radical that you're
trying to radicalise everything in Washington. And 1 don' know
what the fuck you could radicalise, because you ain't gonna do
nothing but walk between the bodies of two dead men, Lincoln
and Washington. And I know you'te not gonna stand up and gain
fo tedsess. And there’s just as much chance for Nison giving
you some redress. If you can't get 200,000 people to mazch on
Washington for something that’s in Vietnam, why the fuck can’t
you get 200,000 people to come to Jackson and Dearborn, the
Federal Building, and march for the Chairman of Babylon, the

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS il
man who did more for Babylon, and more for Vietnam than you
marchin’ maniacs will ever do. Because you're not doin’ nothin’
for nobody but Florsheims and Stetsons or Stacy Adams and
anybody else, because you're gonna wear your soles out—your
metaphysical souls and the soles on your shoes. And we say if you
can't relate to that, then fuck you.

Because ourline’s been consistent. We know the Marsist-Leninists.
Peaple who might not want to dig on it, they say Marsist-Leninist
they don't curse. This is something we got from slave masters. We
know niggers invented the word motherfucker. We wasn't fuckin’
nobody’s mother. 1t was the master fuckin’ people’s mothers.
We invented the word, you dig? We relate o that. We Marist-
Leninist niggers, and we some Marxist-Leninist cussin’ niggers,
and we gonna continue to cuss, godamait. Cause that's what we
relate 1o, that's wha's happening in Babylon. That's objective
reality. Don't nobody be walkin around in Babylon spoutin’ out
at the mouth about a whole lot of academic bullshit, intellectually
masturbating, catching diarrhea of the mouth. We say to those
motherfuckers if you want to catch a mouth disease, you come
and talk that shit in a community where the Panthers are at, and
you'll get a mouth disease alright. You're gonna get hoof-in-
mouth; Panther hoof-in-mouth. So if you radicals can’t relate to
that, then fuck you, because we know what Chairman Bobby did
for the struggl.

And we know that the people in Vietnam, they know that peace,
just like Huey P. Newton tells about our motto, that we are the
advocates of the abolition of war. We do not want war, but we
understand that war can only be abolished through war. That
in order to put down the gun, make a man get rid of the gun,
its necessary to pick up a gun. And you motherfuckers that'
for peace in Viemam, the Black Panther Party is for victory in
Vietnam. We say that they're aggressots, they're a bunch of lackey
running dogs, that they're imperialists. They're a bunch of Wall
Street warmongers. And they need to be deiven out of there.

w“ FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
And the only way that the liberation of the oppressed people
Vietnam or the oppressed people of Babylon's frecdom can be
founded, it has to be founded on the land that is ferilized by
the bones and blood of these aggressive pig dogs that come into
our communities and occupy our communities like troops occupy

4 forcign territory and go into Vietnam and fight and struggle
relentlessly against the people in Vietnam to have a right to self-
determination. We don't care whether anybody likes it or not.
Thats our line. I¢s a Massist-Leninist line. It’s consistent. Its
going to remain that way, and it’s been that way:

If you can'c get 200,000 people to come see about Bobby, then
we say you're counter-revolutionary. That what you'te doing is
you're taking some kind of route from DeKalb where you're
going to get o Vietnam without even passing the Henry Horner
Projects on the West Side of Chicago. That’s impossible. You
think Vietnam is bad? Check the laws. In Vietnam if you lose
one son they allow you to keep the other one. They say, “Here,
mother dear, hold him—hold him tight.” He can stay at home,
you understand. I you have twa in there and one dies, they'll ship
him back. They'll ship him back and get him out of the war where
there'l be no chance of him dying, because “Miss, this war is not
going to take both of your sons.” And then you'te marchin’ on
this cruel war in Washington, all you radicals, and what about Mes
Soto, who lost two sons in one week? That proves to us through
historical fact that Babylon is worse than Vietnam; we need to
have some moratoriums on the black community in Babylon and
all oppressed communities in Babylon.

And Chasles Jackson, from Aligeld Gardens. Last week a 14-year-
old boy throwing rocks. The pigs told him to halt, and the
motherfucker shot and murdered him. Murdered him in cold
blood. And then you motherfuckers got the nerve to go tramping
off o Washington, marching between two dead motherfuckers.
The Panther Party is going to criticize you motherfuckers.
We gonna criticize you out open because we believe in mass
revolutionary criticism. We're gonna tell you that you're wrong,
because we done had a lot of criticism levelled at us for fucking
around with you. You will cither be part of the problem or

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 5
you're gonna be part of the solution. And if we find out you
motherfuckers is part of the problem, we're gonna start turning
the guns on you crazy motherfuckers.

We're gonna have some questions and answers. We're gonna do
one thing, t0o. And this is another thing out of sight 1o show the
peaple where we come from. We come from Babylon. The Black
Panther Party’s ran solely by black people. IF you get a chance—I
don't think it's gonna be this Sunday, but we taped this Sunday
and shown next Sunday, I'm almost sure. I’ gonna be taped this
Sunday and shown next Sunday. There'll be a big round table
discussion that’s gonaa be on “For Blacks Only”, any you can
check the thing and see what it is. And either myself or Chaka will
be there, We'll be presenting the Black Panther Party. Anad if you
et a chance, why don't you look a it

If you wanna do something for me, we'd like to do something
for Chairman Bobby, if you just clap your hands for me. This is
what we call—you don’t have to clap to loud—his is what we
call the people beat. It a beat that was stated in 1966 by Huey
Newton and Bobby Seale. It a beat that never stops because
its the beat they got because they knew it couldn’t be stopped.
105 the beat that manifested in you, the people. Chairman Bobby
Seale says that as long as there’s black people, there'll always
be the Black Panther Party. But they never can stop the Party
unless they stop the beat. As long as you manifest the beat, we
can never be stopped. You think the beat is dangerous? We know
its dangerous. Because when the beat started out on the West
Coast, the chief pig out there, Mafioso Alioto, said to the rest
of his people that helped him with his fascism out there, he said,
“Listen to those people beat. Hey, they're beating much to fast,
Why don't they go back home where they belong.” When that
beat started last November a year ago in Chicago, linois, at
2350 W. Madison, when me and Chaka and Bobby Rush and Che
and some more Brothers and Jewel got together and said we're
onna start a Black Panther Party right here. Because this is part
of Babylon; the Party exists tight here too. That we might be in
school now, might think we're on the mountain top, but we're
gonna come down to the valley, because people in the valley,

3 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
commitment’s in the valley, oppression’s in the valley, aggression,
repression, fascism, all exists in the valley. No matter how nice it
might be on the mountain top, we've got a commitment, o we're
going back. We got to go back to the valley

And when we did that, even Daley and Hanrahan and Judge—we
call him Adolph Hitler Hoffman—the chief fascist who knows
the art of tapista, the art that Mussolini was supposed to have
mastered. We say that Hoffman is better at the art of tapista than
Mussolini ever was, because we know what the art of tapista
st its an art of good tming. And when we started that beat,
Judge Hoffman and Mayor Daley and hammerhead Hanahan
said, “Hey, listen to the people. It’s Chicago beat. Politically they
are even beating beating much too fast. Why don’t they go back
home?” To live with all black peaple where they belong, to live in
dashikis and bubus and to be porkehop nationalists and cultural
nationalists. Why don't they go back home to thinkin’ what
you're wearin’ is going to change you? Why don't they go back to
“Political power flows from the sleeve of a dashiki.” And we said,
Nol” As long as that beat continues, we continue, because it gives
usin the Party a type of intoxication, that i let’s us understand.
we're so revolutionary proletarian intosicated that we cannot be
astronomically intimidated.

Don't worry about the Black Panther Party. As long a5 you keep
the beat, we'l keep on going, IF you think that we can be wiped
out because they murdered Bobby Hutton and Alprentice Bunchy
Carter and John Huggins, you're wrong. 1f you think that beeause
Huey was jailed the Party’s gonna stop, you see you're wrong, 1f
you think because Chairman Bobby was jailed the Party’s gonna
Stop, you see you're wrong. If you think because they can jail
me you thought the Party was gonna stop, you thought wrong,
Because they can “Rage”, Eldridge Cleaver out of the country.

you're wrong Because we said it before we left and we said it today.
That you can jal a revolutionary, but you can't jail the revolution,
You can lock up a freedom fighter like Huey P. Newton, but you
can’t lock up freedom fighting. You might hire some pork chops

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS 4
like Mamalama to murder Alprentice Bunchy Carter, a liberator,
but you can't murder liberation, because if you do, you come up
with answers that don’t answer, explanations that don't explain,
conelusions that don't conclude.

We say that if you dare to struggle, than you dare to win. If you
dare not to struggle you don’t deserve to win. We wouldn't go
into the ring with Muhammad Ali and not fight and wonder why
we lost, would we? If you don't fight, then you don't deserve to
win. If you don't move on these fascists, then you're erazy. We say
its no longer a question of violence or non-violence. We say it a
question of esistance to fascism or non-existence within fascism.
We say let’s stop the war in Vietnam. Lets stop it by acquiring
victory for the spirit of Ho Chi Minh. We say let’s stop the war in
Babylon. Lets initiate the decentralization of the police.

The only real thing is the peaple, because pigs bite the hand that
feeds them and they need o be slapped. And like Chaka said,
when you catch them in you're house, hit ‘em with anything
You shouldn't argue about whether to hit ‘em with a chair or a
table, because they're out of order from the start. We say that
the appressor—fuck Judge Taney—the oppressor has no rights
which we, the oppressed, are bound to follow:

If you get a chance, come sce about Bobby. You oughta come
sce about Babby because Bobby came and saw about you. You
oughta come see about Babby because in 1966, when we didn’t
even think we were important enough to protect ourselves, Bobby
and Huey got their guns and went into the community. They left
college. They where pre-engineer students, that was Bobby, and
Huey was a pre-law student. And what they read they put into
practice. You oughta come see about Bobby because Bobby came
and saw about you. P'm gonna see about Bobby and if you have
anything to say you'll come sce about Bobby. Come down to
Jackson and Dearborn and see about our Chairman, because he's
the Chairman of Babylon. He's the father and the founder of the
breakfast programs and the free health clinics, and there’s nothing
wrong, nothing in the world wrong with that.

a8 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
All power 1o the peaple. Northern Illinois power to the people
that go here to Northern Winois University.

We say that we need some guns. There’s nothing wrong with guns
in our community, there’s just been a misdistribution of guns in
our community. For one reason or another, the pigs have all the
guns, 5o all we have to do is equally distribute them. So if you see
one that has a gun and you don’t have one, then when you leave
you should have one. They way we'll be able to deal with things
ight. 1 remember looking at T.V. and 1 found that not only did
the pigs not brutalize the people in western days, they had to hire
bounty hunters to go arrest them. They shoot somebody with no
intention of arresting them. We need some guns. We need some
guns. We need some force.

Thank you. I'm going to call Chaka end Sister Joan back up here
to deal with any questions that you want answered, because we
have pleaty of time to spend; we don’t have any time to waste. As
the sister said, “Time is short, let’s seize the Gme.”

Thank you,

SPEECH DELIVERED AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS
UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER, 1969

FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS W
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Actists United, When One of Us il a Thousand Wil Take
His Place (Chicago: Artists United, 1970),

Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression:
“The FBI Secret Wars Against the Black Pantber Party and the American
Indian Mavement (Boston: South End Press, 1988).

Commission of Inquiry into Black Panthers and the
Police, Ramsey Clark and Roy Wilkins, chaitmen, Search and
Destroy: A Report (New York: Metsopolitan Applied Rescarch
Center, 1973)

50 FRED HAMPTON SPEAKS
Like Lalways said, ifyou're asked to make a commitment
at the age of 20, and you say I don’t want to make no
commiement only because of the simple reason that I'm
t00 young to die, I want to live a little it longer-what
youdidis. .. you're dead already.

You have to understand chat people have to pay the price
for peace. You dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you
dare not struggle, then goddammit you don’e deserve to
win.

—Fred Hampton

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