Uncovering a cold-blooded execution at the hands of a conspiring police force, this engaging account relentlessly pursues the murderers of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Documenting the entire 14-year process of bringing the killers to justice, this chronicle also depicts the 18-month court trial in detail. Revealing Hampton himself in a new light, this examination presents him as a dynamic community leader whose dedication to his people and to the truth inspired the young lawyers of the People's Law Office, solidifying their lifelong commitment to fighting corruption. Contending with FBI stonewalling and unlimited government resources bent on hiding a darker plot, this reconstruction relates an inspiring narrative of upholding morality in one man’s memory.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
On December 4, 1969, Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, was shot dead in his bed during a police raid. Hass and his law partner, Flint Taylor of the perpetually underfunded People's Law Office, spent the next decade fighting a well-financed opposition team and a hostile judge to prove that Hampton had been shot not in self-defense, as the police advocates claimed, but as the result of an FBI assassination The dramatic David and Goliath struggle embodies many of the era's fiercest debates, but Haas lacks the skill to transmute his experience into compelling reading. The prose is studded with clichés, and nearly every physical description reads like a checklist: age, size, build, skin color and length of Afro. Hass strays from the narrative to relate irrelevant information about his personal life, as when he recollects that his third wife first captured his attention when she propped her red, calf-length boots on his desk. The book is most engaging when Hass offers a straightforward account of the legal process, a testament to the power of the story—not the author's proficiency. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A riveting account of the assassination, the plot behind it, the attempted cover-up, the denouement, and the lessons that we should draw from this shocking tale of government iniquity." —Noam Chomsky, author and political activist
"A remarkable work." —Studs Terkel
"People should not forget that State's Attorney Hanrahan, the Chicago Police, and the FBI murdered my son. This book tells the story, not only of Fred’s death, but also of his life. At twenty-one Fred was already a great leader. Who knows what he may have become, if they hadn’t killed him?" —Iberia Hampton, mother of Fred Hampton
"A true crime story and legal thriller, this powerful account puts together all the pieces, step by step, giving us the anatomy of a despicable episode in recent American history. The writing is clear and straightforward; the overall impact devastating." —Phillip Lopate, author, Getting Personal
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Among some circles, Fred Hampton is a luminary without peers. Though new generations may only catch his reference in a song, his legacy in Chicago and to the Black liberation movement is without question. The charismatic Black Panther Party chapter leader demonstrated a natural gift for reaching people, and marshaled young people into political action for the first time. His brutal murder -- in which Chicago police, after wounding him as he slept, delivered two rounds to the head, killing him -- horrified the world. He was just 21 years old.
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered A Black Panther is the account of attorney Jeff Haas' fight to ensure justice for the families of Hampton and Mark Clark, killed in the police raid spun by authorities at the time as repelling a Panther attack. It is also a chilling chronicle of the depths authorities will sink to silence dissent and to cover it up.
Haas and three other lawyers set up the People's Law Office in 1969, and he defended many social justice activists since then. The Hampton case, however, drove Haas. It dragged on for years, facing defeats along the way, until a settlement. The book is as much about the commitment of scores of people, who poured in their time and energies to see that justice was done, as it is the quest to hold the police officers and establishment involved accountable.
Subsequent investigations of Fred Hampton's murder would reveal involvement by a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant and collaboration with local police that resulted in the organizer's assassination. Few knew it at the time, but what occurred would be shown to be part of a sophisticated federal effort, labeled COINTELPRO, aimed at disrupting, demoralizing, dividing and exterminating Black activism primarily among social justice tendencies. It wasn't until activists burglarized a Pennsylvania FBI office and released documents in 1971 that COINTELPRO was exposed. Operative William O'Neal, working through the bureau's Racial Matters unit, provided key information just hours before the murder. His work, and the war the FBI waged on Black revolutionaries, figures prominently in the book.
Those familiar with writings that trace legal trajectories will find The Assassination of Fred Hampton cuts a familiar path, yet one that takes on a particular heft given the case. The final days of Hampton's life is imparted, but it is the excruciating detail with which the murder is told that is where Haas' legal background brings the story out. Culled from volumes of testimony, research, released documents and other sources, Haas compares what happened with conflicting police testimony and justifications. His writing presents a penetrating image of law enforcement bent on protecting its own, even if some recognized the fault in their actions. Indirectly, the book shows the determination of the Hampton and Clark families as well as the legal team to counter the coverup in court and in the community.
Though contemporary political movements in the United States have few comparisons quite like the Fred Hampton case in terms of severity today, Haas' book is a primer on how a movement can challenge official misconduct through a diversity of efforts. The Assassination of Fred Hampton stands out, just as Hampton himself did all those years ago.
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered A Black Panther is the account of attorney Jeff Haas' fight to ensure justice for the families of Hampton and Mark Clark, killed in the police raid spun by authorities at the time as repelling a Panther attack. It is also a chilling chronicle of the depths authorities will sink to silence dissent and to cover it up.
Haas and three other lawyers set up the People's Law Office in 1969, and he defended many social justice activists since then. The Hampton case, however, drove Haas. It dragged on for years, facing defeats along the way, until a settlement. The book is as much about the commitment of scores of people, who poured in their time and energies to see that justice was done, as it is the quest to hold the police officers and establishment involved accountable.
Subsequent investigations of Fred Hampton's murder would reveal involvement by a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant and collaboration with local police that resulted in the organizer's assassination. Few knew it at the time, but what occurred would be shown to be part of a sophisticated federal effort, labeled COINTELPRO, aimed at disrupting, demoralizing, dividing and exterminating Black activism primarily among social justice tendencies. It wasn't until activists burglarized a Pennsylvania FBI office and released documents in 1971 that COINTELPRO was exposed. Operative William O'Neal, working through the bureau's Racial Matters unit, provided key information just hours before the murder. His work, and the war the FBI waged on Black revolutionaries, figures prominently in the book.
Those familiar with writings that trace legal trajectories will find The Assassination of Fred Hampton cuts a familiar path, yet one that takes on a particular heft given the case. The final days of Hampton's life is imparted, but it is the excruciating detail with which the murder is told that is where Haas' legal background brings the story out. Culled from volumes of testimony, research, released documents and other sources, Haas compares what happened with conflicting police testimony and justifications. His writing presents a penetrating image of law enforcement bent on protecting its own, even if some recognized the fault in their actions. Indirectly, the book shows the determination of the Hampton and Clark families as well as the legal team to counter the coverup in court and in the community.
Though contemporary political movements in the United States have few comparisons quite like the Fred Hampton case in terms of severity today, Haas' book is a primer on how a movement can challenge official misconduct through a diversity of efforts. The Assassination of Fred Hampton stands out, just as Hampton himself did all those years ago.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This extraordinary publication reminds us about the power and importance of truth. It is obvious that The Assassination of Fred Hampton is a labor of love and that it took immense amounts of hard work to unravel the myriad details of this story. In addition, the book is beautifully crafted to carry the complex narrative with immense humanist power. At a moment in time when we are, as a nation, once again slipping into reasoned states of indifference in the face of horrifying conditions, having dedicated and gifted workers who are willing to tackle truth allows me to believe that we can still set things right. Thanks to Jeff Haas for his diligence, sensitivity and masterly writing.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This well-written account avoids gratuitous sensationalism and instead gives us a deeper context for the government's crime and the disturbing cover-up that followed. The author brings a personal perspective to an era that many of us know too little about, and reveals his own inner conflicts as he learns just how far our government will go to destroy a movement that threatened the status quo.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Propaganda Continues. If Reality Does Not Fit Your Agenda, Print...
Not unlike the ever evolving legend of 'what really happened' with the murderer Mumia Jamal, Jeffrey Haas, well known left wing extremist and hater of anything remotely considered... Read more
Published 17 months ago by J Mack
Details Illustrate Official Collusion
~Excellent, convincing account of the people, places and events leading up to a morning massacre by police on Chicago's West Side in the late 1960s... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Ink & Penner
Very Good Legal Account of A Complex Case
My Chapter ("Some Call It Murder" in my Memoir, "In The Teeth of The Wind" provides an inside story of the even of the murder (the media calls it killing) of Black Panther Party... Read more
Published on December 26, 2009 by The Little Man
The Politics of Repression
Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was killed in his bed in a pre-dawn raid by Chicago police. The assassination led to a civic uprising and the ouster of the State's Attorney... Read more
Published on December 23, 2009 by Christopher Chandler
Extraordinary story, well told
For any Chicagoan of a certain age, or anyone interested in how our own government suppressed the civil rights movement, the story of Fred Hampton's murder in 1969 is not news. Read more
Published on December 19, 2009 by E. Levin
In the halls of justice
This amazing account of official mayhem belongs in the curriculum of every high school and college history/sociology student. Read more
Published on December 6, 2009 by C. Sills
Knowledge of Self....Thankful for those that came before me!!!
I just recieved my copy today early this morning before I had to go to class. I had the pleasure and honor to meet Fred Hampton Jr and his mother Akua (hope I spelled her name... Read more
Published on November 30, 2009 by Kenneth Johnson
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If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle then damn it, you dont deserve to win.
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There comes a time when one must have a stand that is neither safe, nor popular, but he must take it because it is right.
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We arm Negro soldiers to kill on foreign battlefields, but offer little protection for their relatives from beatings and killings in our own South.
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