Name: Caitlin's review of The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas
Item: The Assassination of Fred Hampton
Rating: 5
Author: Caitlin

Jeffrey Haas

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.

How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther

The Assassination of Fred Hampton

Milo Jean

On December 4, 1969, attorney Jeff Haas was in a police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton's fiancée. She described how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed. She heard one officer say, "He's still alive." She then heard two shots. A second officer said, "He's good and dead now." She looked at Jeff and asked, "What can you do?" Fifty years later, Haas finds that there is still an urgent need for the revolutionary systemic changes Hampton was organizing to accomplish. With a new prologue discussing what has changed—and what has not—The Assassination of Fred Hampton remains Haas's personal account of how he and People's Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Hampton's assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Not only a story of justice delivered, the book puts Hampton in the spotlight as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration for those in the ongoing fight against injustice and police brutality.

Caitlin

I regret that I knew little of Fred Hampton’s story before reading this. I’m angered that history books glossed over his story, and that the truthful picture of the Black Panthers is not what I was taught in school. Haas presents the entire story, trial, and climate at the time in a way that, though the courts had trouble, anyone reading this (or the news at the time) can clearly decide the guilt of the police and FBI. While the trial’s eventual end wasn’t an unhappy ending, neither did it make up for what had happened or hold Fred and Mark’s murderers accountable. It’s a hard pill to swallow that so little has changed, despite the passionate and persistent efforts of the people for so very, very long.

Milo Jean &
The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas

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Milo Jean &The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas

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Milo Jean &
The Assassination of Fred Hampton by Jeffrey Haas