Frederick Allen Hampton Sr. was born on August 30, 1948 in Summit, Illinois, to proletarian Black migrants from Louisiana who worked at the Argo Starch Company. Raised in nearby Maywood, Hampton’s roots in revolutionary politics came early on in his life: at 10 years old, he was organizing local breakfasts for other kids in his neighborhood, cooking meals for the people on his own; and organized against racial discrimination of Black students while attending Proviso East High School. After graduation, at the age of 18, he became more exposed to and was greatly transformed by the World Proletarian Revolution, particularly the struggles of oppressed nations against imperialism and reaction. He began to study and apply the lessons of Great Comrades Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong, along with Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevera, displaying solidarity with the Vietnamese people against U.S. and French imperialism.

Hampton became active in the NAACP and struggled against segregation in Illinois, assuming leadership in the West Suburban Branch’s youth council. Having witnessed the brutality of reaction himself in this period, Hampton became disillusioned with the social-democratic and reformist activity of the NAACP and joined the Black Panther Party. He was an early member of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, of which he became the deputy chairman in 1968. Hampton’s outstanding example as a growing Black youth in the tide of class struggle was made known early on, when he was falsely arrested in May 1969 for “ambushing” an ice cream truck, under the initiatives of U.S. imperialism’s COINTELPRO. 1969 would be a year of great importance to Hampton and the revolutionary movement in the U.S. unseen in decades, even until today. Truly the embodiment of the spark that sprouted a prairie fire, Hampton, an outstanding Marxist-Leninist, arduously struggled against sexism and male chauvinism inside and outside his organization, built up a free clinic and a free breakfast program in Chicago, and unified street organizations including the Black P. Stones and Gangster Disciples.

Most importantly, Hampton spearheaded the formation of the Rainbow Coalition, a proletarian, anti-racist, socialist organization which brought together many sections of the working masses, from Black to Puerto Ricans to poor Appalachians. The unity of the masses in Chicago rose to a level not seen since the Browderite degradation of the CPUSA in the 1940s. Hampton joined forces with Young Lords Organization, the Young Patriots, the Brown Berets, the American Indian Movement, and other groups to build a genuine fighting force that threatened U.S. imperialism within its core, and organized against the attacks by the capitalist class on the workers and oppressed nations, both inside and outside the U.S. His commitment to the class struggle was immense: he organized demonstrations, taught political education, brokered treaties between gangs to orient them towards fighting capitalist imperialism, held weekly rallies, participated in labor actions, and built a neighborhood defense unit against the Chicago police. Recognizing capitalism as the root of racism, he fought against divide-and-conquer strategies among the people and strived for proletarian unity between White and nationally-oppressed workers. He struggled time and time again against male chauvinism, emphasizing that sexism was counterrevolutionary. He stood firm for proletarian internationalism and the reality of fascistization as a live threat of national oppression against Black Americans.

The FBI was terrified of the growing power of the Black Panther Party, and worked tirelessly to sabotage the mass movements that the party relied on. They sowed division between organizations and cut off the BPP from its base in the ghettos of Chicago. The FBI recruited a man named William O’Neal, a traitor and an informant, to infiltrate the party and destroy its ties with the masses. O’Neal quickly rose to become the Director of Chapter Security and Hampton’s bodyguard. Using the information he gave them about the layout of Fred Hampton’s house, In the predawn of December 4, 1969, the running dogs of reaction, with support from the FBI and the Chicago Police Department, drugged and martyred Hampton in his bedroom along with fellow Comrade Mark Clark of the Illinois Chapter’s Peoria branch, at age 21.

Fred Hampton, Sr. should be celebrated and upheld as one of the burning examples for all proletarian and oppressed youth in the U.S. It is our duty as revolutionary students to carry the banner of Hampton’s life and sacrifice for the people, to apply the concrete lessons of his work in this epoch of the fascistization of world imperialism, and to mobilize, politicize, and organize proletarian and oppressed youth toward Socialist revolution and the liberation of oppressed peoples under the yoke of U.S. imperialism. Let us heed the words of Soong Ching-ling on children and youth, honoring International Children’s Day in 1965:

“Through study and labor, they are becoming strong warriors—daring to make revolution, daring to struggle, and daring to win. They are not content to sit and enjoy the fruits of past victories. They earnestly long to shoulder their own responsibilities, to make selfless contributions to collective work and collective interests, and to carry the revolution through to the end.”