The Beat Goes On--newsletter of the Dec. 4th Committee: 1975
The Beat Goes On was the newsletter of the December 4th Committee headed by Akua Njeri (formerly Deborah Johnson), a Chicago Black Panther and the fiancé of slain Panther leader Fred Hampton.
The Committee was formed to expose the truth of the December 4, 1969 killing orchestrated by Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan, who was assisted by Chicago police and the FBI, and to keep Fred Hampton’s political contributions alive.
Vol. 1 No. 1 of the newsletter recounts Fred Hampton’s history, the events of the raid and a timeline of developments up until August 1975. It also contains an advertisement for a commemoration of the Attica prison uprising, urging amnesty for prisoners.
The Committee was still in existence as of 2021.
Hampton came to prominence in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party, and chair of the Illinois chapter.
Hampton was a Marxist-Leninist who formed first Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots (which organized poor whites), and the Young Lords (which organized primarily among people of Puerto Rican descent), and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change.
In 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Hampton as a radical threat. It tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers organization.
In December 1969, Hampton was drugged, shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, who received aid from the Chicago Police Department and the FBI leading up to the attack.
Law enforcement sprayed more than 90 gunshots throughout the apartment; the occupants possibly fired once. During the raid, Panther Mark Clark was also killed and several others were seriously wounded.
MEA Worldwide interviewed Njeri in 2021 after the release of the film Judas and the Black Messiah and wrote about the night of the raid:
“Shedding light on Fred's last few moments, Deborah said they called his mother to tell her they wouldn't come that night. Fred fell asleep while talking to her and she couldn't wake him up. The first thing she remembered about the next morning was being awakened by somebody shaking Fred saying, “Chairman, Chairman, wake up, the pigs are vamping, the pigs are vamping!”
“Armed with a map, cops burst through the doors and showered a series of bullets. The events of the horrific night remained fresh in Deborah's mind for a long time. “I remember it like it was yesterday. The police knocked on the door (around 4.35 am) and Defense Captain Mark Clark (who headed up the Black Panther’s Peoria chapter) answered the door by saying, ‘Who is it?’ The police said, ‘Tommy.” And Mark responded, ‘Tommy who?’ Then the police responded back, ‘Tommy gun.’ After that, the police kicked in the front door and started shooting. And Mark was killed instantly.”
“Fred was shot dead in the next few moments and 25 days later, she [Njeri] gave birth to their son. The night turned out to be the biggest catastrophe in her life.
“Describing how the cops manhandled her, she said, “The policeman grabbed me by the hair and pretty much just shoved me — I had more hair then — pretty much just shoved me into the kitchen area.” She asked for a policeman to pin up her robe because it was open and heard someone say, “He's barely alive, he'll barely make it,” adding, “He's good and dead now.”
In January 1970, the Cook County Coroner held an inquest; the jury concluded that Hampton's and Clark's deaths were justifiable homicides.
A civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark. It was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million (equivalent to $4.96 million in 2020); the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government each paid one-third to a group of nine plaintiffs. Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, many scholars now consider Hampton's death an assassination at the FBI's initiative.
--description partially excerpted from Wikipedia
For more information and images related to the Washington, D.C. Black Panther Party, see flic.kr/s/aHsjBUuu3J
For issues of the Black Panther Party newspaper, see washingtonareaspark.com/contributors/periodicals/
For a PDF of the 8 ½ x 11, The Beat Goes On, see
Vol. 1 No. 1 – Aug. 1975 - washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1975-f...
Donated by Robert “Bob” Simpson
The Beat Goes On--newsletter of the Dec. 4th Committee: 1975
The Beat Goes On was the newsletter of the December 4th Committee headed by Akua Njeri (formerly Deborah Johnson), a Chicago Black Panther and the fiancé of slain Panther leader Fred Hampton.
The Committee was formed to expose the truth of the December 4, 1969 killing orchestrated by Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan, who was assisted by Chicago police and the FBI, and to keep Fred Hampton’s political contributions alive.
Vol. 1 No. 1 of the newsletter recounts Fred Hampton’s history, the events of the raid and a timeline of developments up until August 1975. It also contains an advertisement for a commemoration of the Attica prison uprising, urging amnesty for prisoners.
The Committee was still in existence as of 2021.
Hampton came to prominence in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party, and chair of the Illinois chapter.
Hampton was a Marxist-Leninist who formed first Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots (which organized poor whites), and the Young Lords (which organized primarily among people of Puerto Rican descent), and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change.
In 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Hampton as a radical threat. It tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers organization.
In December 1969, Hampton was drugged, shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, who received aid from the Chicago Police Department and the FBI leading up to the attack.
Law enforcement sprayed more than 90 gunshots throughout the apartment; the occupants possibly fired once. During the raid, Panther Mark Clark was also killed and several others were seriously wounded.
MEA Worldwide interviewed Njeri in 2021 after the release of the film Judas and the Black Messiah and wrote about the night of the raid:
“Shedding light on Fred's last few moments, Deborah said they called his mother to tell her they wouldn't come that night. Fred fell asleep while talking to her and she couldn't wake him up. The first thing she remembered about the next morning was being awakened by somebody shaking Fred saying, “Chairman, Chairman, wake up, the pigs are vamping, the pigs are vamping!”
“Armed with a map, cops burst through the doors and showered a series of bullets. The events of the horrific night remained fresh in Deborah's mind for a long time. “I remember it like it was yesterday. The police knocked on the door (around 4.35 am) and Defense Captain Mark Clark (who headed up the Black Panther’s Peoria chapter) answered the door by saying, ‘Who is it?’ The police said, ‘Tommy.” And Mark responded, ‘Tommy who?’ Then the police responded back, ‘Tommy gun.’ After that, the police kicked in the front door and started shooting. And Mark was killed instantly.”
“Fred was shot dead in the next few moments and 25 days later, she [Njeri] gave birth to their son. The night turned out to be the biggest catastrophe in her life.
“Describing how the cops manhandled her, she said, “The policeman grabbed me by the hair and pretty much just shoved me — I had more hair then — pretty much just shoved me into the kitchen area.” She asked for a policeman to pin up her robe because it was open and heard someone say, “He's barely alive, he'll barely make it,” adding, “He's good and dead now.”
In January 1970, the Cook County Coroner held an inquest; the jury concluded that Hampton's and Clark's deaths were justifiable homicides.
A civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark. It was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million (equivalent to $4.96 million in 2020); the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government each paid one-third to a group of nine plaintiffs. Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, many scholars now consider Hampton's death an assassination at the FBI's initiative.
--description partially excerpted from Wikipedia
For more information and images related to the Washington, D.C. Black Panther Party, see flic.kr/s/aHsjBUuu3J
For issues of the Black Panther Party newspaper, see washingtonareaspark.com/contributors/periodicals/
For a PDF of the 8 ½ x 11, The Beat Goes On, see
Vol. 1 No. 1 – Aug. 1975 - washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1975-f...
Donated by Robert “Bob” Simpson