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† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Kay Whitlock, co-author of Queer (In)Justice, is contributing editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm.

For Fred Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969)
by nancy a heitzeg

“Nothing but a Northern Lynching”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwXiEyHz8Qs

Eyes on the Prize – 12 – A Nation of Law?, 1967-1968
“By the late 1960s, the anger in poorer urban areas over charges of police brutality was smoldering. In Chicago, Fred Hampton formed a Black Panther Party chapter. As the chapter grew, so did police surveillance. In a pre-dawn assault by the police, Panthers Hampton and Mark Clark were killed. The deaths came at a time when movement activists were increasingly becoming targets of police harassment at both the local and federal levels through COUNTELPRO, the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program. During this same period, inmates at New York’s Attica prison took over the prison in an effort to publicize intolerable conditions. During the police assault which ended the takeover, several inmates and guards were killed. For some, Attica came to symbolize the brutality of a hardened political regime.”

“The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther”

History Is A Weapon: “Power Anywhere Where There’s People”

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