Through the Eyes of a Revolutionary Panther (Notes on the Black Side)

An illustration from the interior panel of a Black Panther Logo The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, or Black Panther Party, was a short-lived political party that formed in 1966 to represent African Americans in the central Alabama Black Belt counties. Though the organization failed to win any election, its influence was felt far beyond Alabama by providing the foundation for the better-known Black Panther Party for Self-Defense that arose in Oakland, California.



"History's Forgotten Heros" by Michael Merritt

History's forgotten heros were passion people in motion.

They fought against society's odds and won. They starred down double barrow shotguns of death and did not flinch.

With their souls united in righteous struggle and their feet deeply rotted in the moral high ground they vowed to change the course of the day. Armed with the knowledge of their past they were steadfast in their vision of a equal and brighter future for the world.

History's forgotten heros had firm brows, signifying struts and clinched fists and shouted: "Black is Beautiful, (FREE HUEY!) Set our Warrior Free!!"

Armed with a shotgun full of ammunition of not only bullets but knowledge of self and responsibility and involvement within the community they established free breakfast programs for children before going to school , medical care and education classes for the poor. They declared: " We will feed our children, teach the masses and take care of our community by Any Means Necessary" (David Hillard, Masai Hewitt, Eldridge Cleaver, Sam Napier, Emory Douglass).

History's forgotten heros had unwavering faith , humble hearts and the patience of Job. They marched down racists streets and sang "We Shall Over Come!"

For the right to vote their blood flowed along that bridge in Selma.

For public equality their skin burned from fire hoses of hate sprayed in Birmingham, Alabama, but they continued to sing: "And We Shall Over Come Someday!" (John T. Porter, Fannie Lou Hammer Ozzie & Ruby Davis, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Medgar Evers)

Their reward was found in knowing that their fight was right and that people all over the world understood their plight and discovered that they were not alone. They will never be forgotten.

I have assembled different interviews and information gathered, read and discovered over the years about the Civil Rights struggle. In this blog I will spotlight Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. who was a member within the Black Panther Party in the 1960's to its emergence with Tupac Amaru Shakur and T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E. in the 1990's

Fred Hampton - The Black Panther Party

In Chicago, the leader of the Panthers local, Fred Hampton, led five different breakfast programs on the West Side, helped create a free medical center, and initiated a door to door program of health services which test for sickle cell anemia, and encourage blood drives for the Cook County Hospital. The Chicago party also reached out to local gangs to clean up their acts, get them away from crime and bring them into the class war. The Party's efforts met wide success, and Hampton's audiences and organized contingent grew by the day.

About the same time that Hampton was successfully organizing young African Americans for the NAACP, the Black Panther Party (BPP) started rising to national prominence. Hampton was quickly attracted to the Black Panthers' approach, which was based on a ten-point program of a mix of black self-determination and certain elements of Maoism. Hampton joined the Party and relocated to downtown Chicago, and in November 1968 he joined the Party's nascent Illinois chapter — founded by a student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizer Bob Brown in late 1967.



Over the next year, Hampton and his associates made a number of significant achievements in Chicago. Perhaps his most important accomplishment was his brokering of a nonaggression pact between Chicago's most powerful street gangs. Emphasizing that racial and ethnic conflict between gangs would only keep its members entrenched in poverty, Hampton strove to forge a class-conscious, multi-racial alliance between the BPP, the Young Patriots Organization and the National Young Lords under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez. Later they were joined by the Students for a Democratic Society, the Blackstone Rangers, the Brown Berets and the Red Guard Party. In May 1969, Hampton called a press conference to announce that a truce had been declared among this "rainbow coalition," a phrase coined by Hampton and made popular over the years by Rev. Jesse Jackson, who eventually appropriated the name in forming his own unrelated coalition, Rainbow PUSH.

Hampton's organizing skills, substantial oratorical gifts, and personal charisma allowed him to rise quickly in the Black Panthers. Once he became leader of the Chicago chapter, he organized weekly rallies, worked closely with the BPP's local People's Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6am, and launched a project for community supervision of the police. Hampton was also instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program.

When Stokely Carmichael in the FBI-fomented SNCC/Panther split, Hampton assumed chairmanship of the Illinois state BPP, automatically making him a national BPP deputy chairman. As the Panther leadership across the country began to be decimated by the impact of the FBI's COINTELPRO, Hampton's prominence in the national hierarchy increased rapidly and dramatically. Eventually, Hampton was in line to be appointed to the Party's Central Committee's Chief of Staff. He would have achieved this position had it not been for his death on the morning of December 4, 1969.



At 4:00 a.m., the heavily armed police team arrived at the site, (2337 W. Monroe, Chicago, IL) dividing into two teams, eight for the front of the building and six for the rear. At 4:45, they stormed in the apartment. Mark Clark,a fellow BPP from Peoria was sitting in the front room of the apartment with a shotgun in his lap, was on security duty. He was killed instantly, firing off a single round which was later determined to be a reflexive reaction in his death convulsions after being shot by the raiding team; this was the only shot the Panthers fired.

Hampton's funeral was attended by 5,000 people, and he was eulogized by such black leaders as Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King's successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In his eulogy, Jackson noted that "when Fred was shot in Chicago, black people in particular, and decent people in general, bled everywhere."

Tupac Amaru Shakur - THUG LIFE

T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E. is a word that evolved by the late Tupac Shakur. Commonly mistaken for a Criminal. Thug Life is the opposite of someone having all he needs to succeed. Thug life is when you have nothing, and succeed, when you have overcome all obstacles to reach your aim. "When my heart beats, it screams THUG LIFE! Thug Life is a acronym for "The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everyone". This acronym was made popular by American rap artist Tupac Amaru Shakur. The Codes Of Thug Life where a set of codes written by Tupac in collaboration with Mutulu Shakur and various people in the street life across the country. The codes where designed to give order to the rise of gang violence and drug dealing. It made certain immoral actions against the code which would become a code of the street. These codes where signed by heads from the Bloods and Crips at a peace treaty picnic called the Truce Picnic, in California in 1992. Thug Life was a rap group as well formed by Tupac which consisted of him and 4 others: Mopreme, Macadoshis, Big Syke, and The Rated R after 2Pac was imprisoned on rape allegations the rappers would disband. Some would regroup after 2Pac's release and signing with Death Row Records and form the beginning of rap group called Tha Outlawz.



“I didn’t create T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E., I diagnosed it.” – Tupac Shakur

CODE of THUGLIFE: http://www.thuglifearmy.com

TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR FOUNDATION: http://www.tasf.org