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“We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re going to fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.” -BPP Chairman Fred Hampton

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By Carlos “Carlito” Rovira

In a coordinated effort between the Illinois State Attorney’s Office, Cook County Police Department, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in the morning hours of December 4, 1969, a heavily armed assault team launched a heinous attack on the residence of Black Panther Party, Illinois Chairman Fred Hampton.

With a vicious sense of racist hatred and no regard for human life, these law enforcement officials fired a single shotgun blast through the entrance door of the apartment instantly killing Mark Clark, by striking him to the chest. These murderers then fired their weapons at will through a wall separating the hallway from the apartment, critically wounding Fred Hampton as he laid in bed. 

According to accounts, after the police smashed through the front door entering the apartment, one of the police officers who entered Hampton’s bedroom was overheard saying “He’s still alive.” At that point the handcuffed occupants can hear from another room the kill-shot that ended the Panther leader’s life. In a matter of minutes, two inspiring revolutionaries were maliciously murdered.

MARK CLARK WAS A LOYAL PANTHER

Mark Clarke was 22 years old, an enthusiastic youth with talents in the arts. He was eager to fight against the racist oppression Black people endured since chattel slavery. That became the motive why Clark joined the Black Panther Party soon after he met Chairman Fred Hampton during a visit to the BPP national office in Oakland, California. From then on Hampton and Clark became good friends and comrades until the tragic end of their lives.

Once he embraced the BPP ideology and discipline, specifically it’s Ten Point Program and Platform, Clark organized the Peoria, Illinois chapter of the BPP with 50 recruits, including two of his siblings. Under Clark’s leadership a Free Breakfast Program was established which drew support from many residents from Peoria’s Black community. Clark was appointed by the BPP’s Central Committee the rank of Defense Captain, which he accepted and took seriously.

In the days that followed, law enforcement officials were quick to reinvent the facts. They claimed that the occupants of the apartment fired guns at police. Their story never held water. Evidence gathered from the forensic investigation and other inquiries pointed exclusively to police savagery in the attack.

The shaping of Fred Hampton’s leadership

Like millions of African Americans, Hampton’s parents left the South during the Great Migration of the 1930’s to look for a better life and flee the constant threat of racist terror. They settled in Maywood, Ill., a suburb of Chicago where they worked at the Argo Starch Company.

Hampton was attracted to books and took it upon himself to read the speeches and writings of Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois, Joan Elbert, Martin Luther King Jr.,Malcolm X as well as Marxist–Leninist classics. He gained a reputation for his knowledge of Black and world history which helped develop his sense of the need for struggle.

As a student at Proviso East High School, he noticed that most of the students who failed were Black. Hampton began to speak out against the school administration for not providing tutoring and remedial programs for students. He was also critical of the fact that the faculty and administration were all white when one-fourth of the student body was Black.

Hampton challenged the school’s exclusive racist practice of nominating only white girls to compete for “Miss Homecoming Queen.” He organized a protest, walk-out and school boycott. As a result, the following year Black female students were included in this contest.

Fred Hampton was respected by white and Black students alike. The year after he graduated from Proviso East, a school administrator requested his help to calm racial tensions among students.

An event that likely affected the young Fred Hampton, much as it affected most of Chicago’s Black community, was the 1955 gruesome lynching of Emmett Till. The 14-year-old Till was visiting family in Mississippi when he was abducted and killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Till was the son of family friends and neighbors of the Hamptons.

While Hampton was in the NAACP, the Black Panther Party was opening chapters across the country and becoming a prominent force in the Black liberation struggle. Hampton began to absorb and understand the revolutionary content of the Panthers’ political perspective and joined. He soon demonstrated his leadership abilities and became deputy chairman of the party’s Illinois chapter.

His disposition and skills as a speaker earned Hampton a moral authority. His political achievements included brokering peace with the supposed “street gangs” of Chicago, amongst them the Puerto Rican group the Young Lords. Hampton was instrumental in transforming the Young Lords into a revolutionary political organization.

The white, racist U.S. ruling class was appalled. How dare the descendants of African slaves call themselves Socialists and aim to achieve Black people’s right to reparations! Even more daring was the Black Panther Party’s call for the overthrow of capitalism—a demand the ruling class could never tolerate. Their ability to forge unity in struggle was a threat in itself.

All this was happening while resentment for the war in Vietnam was on the rise. The men of privilege and wealth, with a stake in preserving the imperialist system, grew apprehensive the more it became apparent that a mass revolutionary movement was arising.

Hampton valued the need for a multinational revolutionary struggle, and organized the original Rainbow Coalition comprised of the I Wor Kuen of the Asian community, the Brown Berets of the Chicano-Mexican community, the poor white workers of the Young Patriots, the Young Lords and the Black Panthers. The Black Panther Party set standards for waging struggle. Their enthusiastic projection of socialism allowed many to envision its relevance to African Americans and other oppressed nationalities.

Operation COINTELPRO, an acronym for Counterintelligence Program, was established in the mid-1950’s to deter the development of any movement deemed a threat to the existing social, economic and political order. It remained secret until 1971, when courageous anti-repression/anti-war activists broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pa., and confiscated files revealing the hidden operation.

As the Civil Rights movement advanced—galvanizing strength from all sectors of the population, breaking the despicable Jim Crow laws and compelling the U.S. Congress to pass other progressive legislation—the FBI increasingly turned its attention to the Black liberation struggle.

The slanderous editorials against the Panthers in the capitalist-owned mass media, combined with Hoover’s frequent verbal attacks, reflected the wishes of the ruling class who sought the complete destruction of the Black Panther Party and the ideals it embodied. Internal FBI memos show that the government had a special interest in Hampton’s political activities and his associations; Chicago police were encouraged by the FBI to find a way to lock up Hampton, if not worse.

These circumstances compelled the government to carry out the horrible attack on Fred Hampton as part of their strategy to destroy the Black Panther Party and ultimately the entire revolutionary movement.

“The greatest threat to national security”

The Black Panther Party openly advocated for socialist revolution, and openly supported the Chinese and Cuban revolutions. The Panthers’ breakfast program for children, among other social programs, underlined their commitment to meet the needs of communities that received nothing but oppression and neglect from the government.

Prior to Hampton’s death, police raided the Panthers’ Chicago office on three separate occasions. William O’Neal, Fred Hampton’s bodyguard, was a police informant who was instructed to draw up a floor plan of the targeted apartment weeks earlier. Law enforcement used the information gathered by O’Neal to murder Hampton.

The staunch anti-capitalist stance of these young revolutionaries who declared themselves Marxist-Leninists made them the target of the most ruthless, racist elements in power. On numerous occasions, the notorious FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover expressed a special disdain for the Black struggle, particularly towards Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Many were not surprised when Hoover declared the Black Panther Party “the greatest threat to national security.”

Hampton’s murder was part of a pattern of police raids, false imprisonment and executions of Black Panthers. COINTELPRO documents proved that assassination of Black leaders was among its aims. Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party had to be eliminated simply because they had touched upon capitalism’s greatest weakness—the decisiveness and strength that a multi-national movement has in a battle against this system.

The Black Panther Party arose from the struggles of the African American people, historically the most oppressed and exploited group in the United States. They symbolized hope and received the greatest affection. They attributed Black oppression to the capitalist system, and dared to pick up arms against the state. The militancy and defiance of these young revolutionaries deeply impacted the Civil Rights and socialist movements.

Hampton and the Black Panthers believed all would benefit if the struggle against racist oppression was taken up by the whites as their own. Hampton knew that it was possible to smash the racial barriers created by capitalism to divide and conquer the working class. His confidence was based on the strong belief that this system provides motivation for all to unite and engage in revolutionary struggle.

Long live the Legacies of Fred Hampton & Mark Clark!

Long live the Legacy of the Black Panther Party!  

 

 

 

 

By Carlos “Carlito” Rovira

 

THE U.S. MILITARY REFLECTS THE RACISM IN CAPITALISM

African Americans’ role in the military during the Civil War was wholly progressive. Indeed, Black soldiers had a vital stake in smashing the hideous system of slavery.

While President Abraham Lincoln often expressed his indifference to the issue of emancipation, he was forced to recognize the absolute necessity of arming African Americans.

Black soldiers soon became feared by the Southern slave-owning class. Their tenacity, skill and valor as soldiers proved decisive to the North winning the Civil War. For instance, when General Ulysses S. Grant was sent to fight Gen. Robert E. Lee’s military forces in Virginia, he requested Black regiments as his principal shock troops.

Then there was Harriet Tubman. A former slave, she became an intelligence officer for the Union Army, operating behind enemy lines. Tubman’s courage made possible the capture of Confederate garrisons and by working with the “Underground Railroad” she led hundreds of slaves to their freedom.

But Tubman’s boldest and most successful mission is when she led many Black Union soldiers on the daring raid at Combahee Ferry on June 1863. In this courageous action Tubman and Black soldiers under her command were able to free 700 slaves while under fire from charging Confederate troops.

The Civil War was the last time African Americans had a positive stake in a U.S. war’s outcome. It was the only time in U.S. history when the interest of the capitalist class coincided with the aspirations of Black people.

After the Confederacy was militarily defeated “colored” volunteer units of the U.S. military were disbanded. All told, 200,000 African Americans served in the Army and Navy while 30,000 of that number died in combat.

After African Americans were betrayed during Reconstruction, they were further undermined and impoverished when the South was overrun by capital investments in manufacturing, lumber and agriculture. The capitalist rulers began to cast their eyes abroad.

By 1870 four regiments of Black troops were re-organized but were used for the vicious campaign to annihilate tribal Indigenous nations in the “Indian Wars” of the West and Southwest United States. These units were named by Indigenous people “Buffalo Soldiers.”

In 1898 all four of these re-organized Black regiments were sent to be among the invading forces in the Spanish-American War. African American soldiers were used for conquering other oppressed people. The U.S. became a world imperialist power.

BLACK SOLDIERS IN THE IMPERIALIST ERA

The mysterious explosion of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana, Cuba on Feb. 18, 1898, served as an excuse for Washington officials to declare war on Spain. The U.S. invaded the Spanish colonies of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, colonizing them anew. The Monroe Doctrine had already reserved all of Latin America and the Caribbean to be exploited exclusively by U.S. capitalists.

In 1899 under the leadership of Aguinaldo, the Filipino people furiously fought the new invaders. They inflicted many casualties on the U.S. Army, which falsely claimed to be “helping the people’s quest for freedom.” The U.S. government retaliated by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Filipino women, men and children.

This genocide was not passively accepted inside the United States, as mainstream historians contend. The Anti-Imperialist League held many mass protests in major cities throughout this country.

Significant anti-war sentiment was also expressed widely in the Black community. The Black press as well as other representatives of the African American people vigorously denounced the war. The great historian, socialist and African American leader W.E.B. Du Bois played a notable role in this anti-war movement.

Most important, Black resistance surfaced inside the U.S. military. Four Black regiments sent to fight in the Philippines established a bond with the Native people there, who also were dark-skinned. These Black troops resented white officers and soldiers describing Filpinos with the same racist slurs applied to African Americans in the United States.

Filipino insurgents appealed to Black soldiers not to fight on the side of U.S. imperialism. Posters denouncing racist lynchings in the United States were placed throughout the islands, as a show of Filipino solidarity with African Americans. This political agitation helped lead to many Black troops deserting the U.S. military.

Some of these African Americans soldiers went over to the other side, joining the Filipino guerrilla army. The most notable was David Fagan, formerly of the 24th Infantry Division. The Filipino freedom fighters so respected Fagan that he was made a commander in their army. David Fagan’s example demonstrates how unity among different oppressed people is possible.

BLACK RESISTANCE IN THE MILITARY

In the post-Reconstruction period, as Jim Crow laws re-introduced the “Black Codes” throughout the South, top military officials were contemptuous to the idea of having large numbers of African American recruits. But in 1917 President Woodrow Wilson conveniently signed the Selective Service Law. The U.S. entered World War 1.

The two world wars in Europe created circumstances that demanded the recruitment of large numbers of soldiers. African Americans were now accompanied by Puerto Ricans, Indigenous, and Mexican Americans as oppressed nationalities looked upon as cannon fodder. Military recruits from these sectors of society faced disproportionate casualty statistics while continuing to confront racist segregation, discrimination and violence, during and after their service.

Although African Americans made an exerted effort to prove their bravery and diligence as soldiers during war they were unable to escape discriminatory practices and customs deemed “normal” in the United States.

An example was the Tuskegee Airmen, known as the “Red Tails.” These African American pilots proved their bravery and high-level of skills in aerial combat with Germany’s Luftwaffe during World War II. Until the end of the war, they were denied recognition by top military and government officials to avoid acknowledging that they were Black.

On June 24, 1943 racism within the U.S. military showed its ugly head once again. But this time the dignity and defiance of Black people also showed it’s face in the form of armed resistance at the Battle of Bamber Bridge.

England did not have racist segregation laws like the United States. Black soldiers were embraced in social settings by British citizens. However, white U.S. military officers, especially those from southern states, objected to racial interactions involving Black servicemen under their command.

In one particular instance military police were sent to Bamber Bridge, in the township of Lancashire to absurdly enforce segregation laws. African American soldiers from the 1511th Quartermaster Truck Regiment were abruptly confronted by MP’s in pubs and restaurants. Before long a deadly clash ensued between Black and White men wearing the same uniform.

AFRICAN AMERICANS & THE VIETNAM WAR

By the second half of the 1960’s the Civil Rights movement began to gather widespread approval and support while anti-war sentiments grew in response to U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. Washington and Pentagon officials had unleashed a massive military campaign in an attempt to crush the Vietnamese revolution, which defeated the French in 1954.  

The outcry opposing this war increased in Black and Brown communities, due to the agitation of the Black Panther Party and Dr. Martin Luther King’s open condemnation of the war in 1968. Growing resistance to the military draft paralleled the rise of the Black power movement. Black and Brown resentment to racism was now accompanied by widespread opposition to conscription.

The Vietnam War was the first U.S. military incursion where units were no longer racially segregated. However, white racist die-hearts among officers and enlisted soldiers continued with their traditional outlook towards Black and Brown people.

In addition to mistreatment, Black and Latino soldiers were usually ordered to carry out life threatening tasks, usually suicide missions. Although they comprised less than 30% of the U.S. population combined at the time their death toll was 3 out of 5 killed in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese understood the plight of Black people in the U.S. and sympathized with their struggles. In 1924 Vietnam’s iconic revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh wrote his famous pamphlet titled “On Lynching and the Ku Klux Klan” which served as a condemnation of racism in U.S. society and outlined the commonalities between the Black and Vietnamese liberation struggles.

It was no coincidence when Vietnamese insurgents (National Liberation Front) released Black and Brown G.I.’s captured in battle. After having political exchanges with the prisoners Black and Brown soldiers were usually released and not held as POWs.

As the war intensified many Black and Brown soldiers rebelled by collectively refusing to obey orders, and in many cases causing injury or death to white officers. In every objective sense the rebelliousness of Black and Brown soldiers, along with the spread of the anti-war movement at home aided the Vietnamese liberation struggle, thus weakening U.S. imperialism.

Being aware of internal friction and demoralization within the U.S. military while the Vietnamese People’s Army and the National Liberation Front gained the upper hand militarily, compelled U.S. rulers to withdraw from that war in 1975.

Throughout the history of Black people serving in the U.S. military were never free of the same racist oppression they faced in civilian life. The U.S. Armed Forces were created to preserve a system of inequality and for securing U.S. domination throughout the world. The ideological foundation of U.S. militarism is also based on white supremacy.

Since the Civil War the presence of Black people in the military has presented a paradox to U.S. rulers. Out of necessity government officials welcome the enlistment of people of color but at the same time fearing them obtaining skills that can be used against this system in revolutionary struggle.

When oppressed and exploited people find common ground in their quest for freedom unity can be established, as what occurred in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War and in other instances where Black soldiers were sent to shed blood. Social movements throughout history have proven that oppressors are only as strong as we the people allow.

Working class people of all races and nationalities in this country comprise the majority and are in the position to put a stop to the chaos that now exist. Such is what will lay the basis for ending Black oppression and the reign of U.S. imperialism. It is the only way that we can bring into existence a world without continual war and suffering.

NO TO BLACK OPPRESSION & IMPERIALIST WAR!