Chapter 3: I Am A Revolutionary

June 9, 2022·48 min·4 clips

Fred Hampton was drugged by an FBI informant and assassinated by Chicago police while asleep in his bed.

The episode opens with a recap of the Weathermen's Days of Rage protests and their relationship with the Black Panther Party. Host Zayd Ayers-Dorn shifts focus to Jamal Joseph, who grew up in the Bronx with his grandmother, whom he calls Noonie. On the night of Martin Luther King's assassination in April 1968, 15-year-old Jamal gets caught in Harlem riots. Running from police, he encounters a community patrol of Black Panthers who force the cops to back down — the moment that sets his path. Months later, Jamal shows up at the Brooklyn Panther office and at his first political education class demands a weapon; instead he is handed a stack of revolutionary books. His grandmother discovers his involvement and nearly pulls him out, but his section leader Ye Wah visits the house in a tie, promises to keep Jamal in line academically, and wins her blessing. Jamal rises quickly, becoming leader of the Panther youth group at 15. In April 1969, police raid his grandmother's apartment at 4 a.m. and he is swept up in the mass arrest of the Panther 21, charged with 156 counts including conspiracy to murder officers. At 16, he is sent to Rikers Island, where he cannot make bail set at up to $100,000 per defendant. It emerges that Ye Wah — the man who gave Jamal his first gun and vouched for him to his grandmother — was an undercover police officer the entire time. Simultaneously, the episode traces the Weathermen's growing alignment with the Panthers through the figure of Fred Hampton, the Illinois Panther leader whose speeches were distributed on cassette tapes. Hampton is shown as a unifying force for both Black and white radicals. On December 3, 1969, Hampton hosts a political education class, returns to his apartment with comrades, and is served Kool-Aid by security chief William O'Neill. Hampton falls asleep mid-call with his mother around midnight. At 4:30 a.m., Chicago police storm the apartment and fire at least 90 rounds. Mark Clark is killed immediately; Hampton, never waking up, is shot multiple times. His pregnant fiancée Deborah Johnson survives, calling out that there is a pregnant woman inside. Police claim the Panthers fired first; physical evidence later shows only one round was fired from the Panthers' side, from Clark's falling shotgun. The autopsy reveals a sedative in Hampton's system, and O'Neill is later identified as an FBI informant. Hampton's murder sends shockwaves through the movement. The Weathermen respond days later by bombing a police squad car in Chicago and then firebombing the New York home of Judge Murtaugh, who is overseeing the Panther 21 trial. The family, including nine-year-old John Murtaugh Jr., escapes unharmed, but the sidewalk is painted with 'Kill the pigs. Free the Panther 21.' Weatherman Kathy Wilkerson, who had been on the verge of leaving the group, describes Hampton's death as the moment her 'world turned 180 degrees.' The host's parents both say goodbye to their families, sensing they may not return. Jamal, still on Rikers, hears about Hampton's death and concludes he will be dead before 21. The episode closes with Hampton's own recorded voice predicting he would die in a post-war revolutionary struggle.

As heard by us

A tense chapter where revolutionary politics meet police power and the cost becomes personal.

The chapter tracks the clash between revolutionary idealism and state force, moving from solidarity with the Black Panther Party to raids, indictments, and jailhouse fear.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want revolution under pressure, not museum-piece history.

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