Matt Kracht This documentary can be split into two parts. The first half is a biography of Fred Hampton, a civil rights pioneer, community organizer, and Black Panther member. The second half is a stunning work of investigative journalism that provides clear evidence that Hampton was assassinated by the Chicago police.Hampton was called a dangerous revolutionary, but his message was nothing more revolutionary than social justice and equality. While there is certainly a revolutionary aspect to that, it is not the angry and violent rhetoric with which the state wanted to tar him. So they simply assassinated him and concocted a story that portrayed him how they wanted him -- dangerously violent. The facts of the case just don't fit that narrative, however.Hampton's story is not well known. That makes this film even more important. It is extremely dangerous to think that state-sanctioned political assassinations could not happen or do not happen in the United States. Hampton's death is tragic enough without us learning nothing from it. Fascism can rise anywhere, and it can be as petty as racist cops working for a corrupt city government or as insidious as a federal agency that engages in black ops against its own citizens.

tedg If you lived through the 60s, or if you are a student of political movements and truth, you will find this fascinating.The facts are simple enough: The US had an overtly racist political system, working differently in big northern cities than backwards southern towns. Although the major sweep of protest was a noble, steady stand for simple justice, some hotheads took a violent stand. One of these was the Black Panthers, and a stronghold was Chicago.Chicago was famously corrupt in the sense of an inbred political establishment, including the police. Loyalty to the establishment was the game and the truth was expendable, malleable, inventable. Well, that is an old story.The interesting element is the Panthers. We have this film as consisting of footage from before and after the murder. The Panthers are possibly honest but probably not so. They surely are passionate, and committed to "the people." The striking thing is how utterly stupid the politics is: a combination of plain unrealistic Marxism, uneducated rhetoric and logic and earnest but goofy metaphors. These guys are basically well-meaning, frustrated nitwits with guns, who had a genuinely honest complaint and a lucked into an adversary that was incompetent at lying.The second half of this film was produced by the Panthers (and their white lawyers) as detectivework to show the lies of the Chicago police. There is no controversy about what happened and it is instructive to compare it to today's obsession with terrorists. There is a frustrated people who take up an armed struggle. They mix their aggressiveness with service programs for an underserved society on whom they depend for support. In this case, it was breakfast and "education" programs. This is the model for Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. A large establishment opposes them, fears about safety abound. There is a threat of overthrow, destruction. Each side vilifies the other. But one side has governmental stability and organized forces. So they do what they believe is necessary, constitution be damned.No one listening to the news actually believed the police story, neither white nor black. Whites fabulated a story to explain away the discrepancies from the truth. This differs from today where torture is openly supported rather than lied about. But otherwise this film does what the best of history can do: give us insight into ourselves.Yes, the filmmakers, presenters and detectives are not admirable. Yes, you would not want to sign up for their childish politics. Unless you are grasping for a manufactured ethnic identity, the language and means of expression grate, embarrass. But they were fighting a great lie, a great lie in front of a great injustice.And the footage is real. So this matters.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Nanhut60 I was 10 years old when this happened and I was taken to the apartment with my mother (a Chicago school teacher) and several of her co-workers. The black community was so up in arms about this that the schools pretty much closed down that day. We toured the apartment with the Panthers (not a police in sight). They had marked how all the shots in the walls were coming from outside to the inside. We saw the blood soaked mattress and how the apartment drawers and closets were all over turned like they were looking for something. Chicago PD was and still is crooked as hell. Fred Hampton was only 21 years old. Those young brothers (Mark Clark also) were about something great for the community and they were murdered!! Rest in Peace.

diana-45 I saw this movie when i was a journalism student at NYU in the '70's. the organization that I belonged to-The Revolutionary Student Brigade-took the movie around to different collages and also showed it in Newark at a Project where a young boy-Charles Sutton-had been shot. The movie is an eye opener. There is no doubt in your mind as to why Fred Hampton was killed. It's a great job of investigative reporting. If your stomach is not already turned by what is currently called "news" this will do it for you. It will also make you mad to see what we were once, what we could have done-what we did do and how our potential was destroyed by the powers that be. We can all get along-we can doanything as long as we recognize who the enemy really is. The people united will never be defeated.