Why Don't You Die For The People?
Like we always said, if you’re asked to make a commitment at the age of 20 and you say, I don’t want to make a commitment only because of the simple reason that I’m too young to die, I want to live a little bit longer. What you did is... you’re dead already.
You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle then goddamnit you don’t deserve to win. Let me say peace to you if you’re willing to fight for it.
Let me say in the spirit of liberation—I’ve been gone for a little while, at least my body’s been gone for a little while. But I’m back now and I believe that I’m back to stay.
I believe that I’m going to do my job and I believe that I was born not to die in a car wreck; I don’t believe that I’m going to die in a car wreck. I don’t believe I’m going to die slipping on a piece of ice; I don’t believe I’m going to die because I got a bad heart; I don’t believe I’m going to die because of lung cancer.
I believe that I’m going to be able to die doing the things I was born for. I believe that I’m going be able to die high off the people. I believe that I will be able to die as a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle. And I hope that each one of you will be able to die in the international proletarian revolutionary struggle or you’ll be able to live in it. And I think that struggle’s going to come.
Why don’t you live for the people?
Why don’t you struggle for the people?
Why don’t you die for the people?
- LEGION 3
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In 1969 Hampton was working on the Rainbow Coalition, an alliance among gangs and minority groups in Chicago, and the FBI and police became increasingly concerned about his activities and growing political power. That summer, the police raided Panther offices, arrested several members, and burned the building down. The FBI required O'Neal to give them a drawing to show the layout of Hampton's apartment on Monroe Street in the West Side, where the Panthers often gathered, so they could prepare a raid.
On the evening of December 3, 1969, Hampton taught a political education class at a local church, attended by most Panther members. Afterward, he and several Panthers went to his apartment, and around midnight they ate a dinner prepared by O'Neal( FBI informant). O'Neal slipped secobarbitol into Hampton's drink so he would not wake up during the police raid. O'Neal left, and at about 1:30 a.m. Hampton fell asleep while talking to his mother on the telephone.
At 4:00 a.m., a 14-man armed Chicago police team arrived at the apartment, and at 4:45 a.m. stormed inside. They first shot and killed Mark Clark, sitting in the front room of the apartment. The police cleared out the people from the rest of the apartment, wounding several others, and went to Hampton's bedroom. Witnesses said that they heard two bangs, presumably the close-range shots to the back of Hampton's head that killed him. In January 1970, a coroner's jury held an inquest. They ruled that the deaths of Hampton and Clark were justifiable homicide by the police. The ballistics investigation of the raid found that the Chicago police fired as many as 99 shots, but only one shot was fired by the Panthers, and it hit the ceiling
Fred Hampton, drugged by barbiturates, was sleeping on a mattress in the bedroom with Deborah Johnson (18) who was eight and a half months pregnant with their child. Police officers removed her from the room while Hampton lay unconscious in bed. The injured Panthers said they heard two shots. According to Hampton's supporters, the shots were fired point-blank at Hampton's head. According to Johnson, an officer then said: "He's good and dead now." He was twenty one years old.
