Fred Hampton was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. Hampton was known as one of the most inspiring, articulate, and effective leaders in Chicago. However, to civic leaders in Chicago, the FBI, and others in the system, he was considered a dangerous revolutionary leader. Hampton was murdered at 21, during an early morning police raid of the BPP headquarters at 2337 W. Monroe Street on December 4, 1969.
Here are 10 quotes by Hampton:
1. “We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity.”
2. “You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. You dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then goddammit you don’t deserve to win.”
3. “I was born in a bourgeois community and had some of the better things in life, but I found that there were more people starving than there were people eating, more people that didn’t have clothes than did have clothes, and I just happened to be one of the few. So I decided that I wouldn’t stop doing what I’m doing until all those people are free.”
4. “I believe I’m going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I’m going to die high off the people. I believe I’m going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.”
5. “We ain’t gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we’re gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we’re gonna fight reactionary pigs with international proletarian revolution. That’s what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.”
6. “We understood that politics is nothing but war without bloodshed and war is nothing but politics with bloodshed.”
7. “You can kill a revolutionary but you can’t kill revolution…you can jail a liberator but you can’t jail liberation.”
8. “Without education, people will accept anything. Without education, what you’ll have is neo-colonialism instead of colonialism like you have now. Without education, people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, you know what I mean? You might get people caught up in an emotionalist movement, might get them because they’re poor and they want something and then if they’re not educated, they’ll want more and before you know it, we’ll have Negro imperialism.”
9. “Let me just say: Peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.”
10. “We’re gonna have to do more than talk. We’re gonna have to do more than listen. We’re gonna have to do more than learn. We’re gonna have to start practicing and that’s very hard. We’re gonna have to start getting out there with the people and that’s difficult. Sometimes we think we’re better than the people so it’s gonna take a lot of hard work”
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