NYC tribute to Fred Hampton

New York — Workers World Party and Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) held a public forum Dec. 11 at the Solidarity Center here in a tribute to martyred Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton. Hampton, along with BPP member Mark Clark, was brutally assassinated on Dec. 4, 1969, by Chicago police in collaboration with the FBI’s counter intelligence program, known as COINTELPRO.

At the time Hampton was killed in his bed in a hail of police bullets, he was only 21 while Clark was 22. Hampton personified the heroism of the BPP, which defended the right of all oppressed peoples to armed self-defense against capitalist state repression at home and abroad.

The meeting also raised the cases of political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Lynne Stewart. The speakers included Nana Soul from Artists and Activists United for Peace and Black Waxx Recordings; Larry Hales from FIST and also a WW contributing editor; and long-time WWP member Naomi Cohen. Excerpts were shown from “The Murder of Fred Hampton” documentary.

Larry Holmes, a WWP Secretariat member, spoke on the police arrests Dec. 9 of Baltimore WWP members Sharon Black-Ceci and Steven Ceci and the growing movement to get the state to drop the bogus drug charges against these well-known community activists.