We also see Hampton educating community members, ranging from Black children to adults, to help them embrace an ethic of self-determination and cultural pride.īeyond his own community, however, part of what made Hampton so impactful was his ability to forge alliances with other groups. For example, the film offers a glimpse of the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program which they used to meet Black children’s basic needs. The Black Panthers, whose tactics encompassed armed self-defense, mutual aid, and community-based education, were an important part of this political landscape. as the most significant example of Black resistance in the 1960s, modes of response to antiblack racism in that time actually encompassed a wider array of tactics and ideas. Though we might remember the nonviolent resistance led by Dr. Soon, O’Neal becomes a trusted member of Hampton’s inner circle as he feeds information to the FBI that would lead to Hampton’s downfall.ĭespite the coordinated attempt to undermine their work, the political agency of Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party is on full display in this film. His options change, however, when the FBI offers him a chance to retain his freedom by infiltrating the Illinois Black Panther Party and getting close to Fred Hampton. It is in this political context that film viewers are introduced to William O’Neal, a Black man who is facing a prison sentence after stealing a car. This effort came as part of a long tradition of the FBI undertaking covert operations targeting domestic organizations, and took on the formal name COINTELPRO (or COunter INTELligence PROgram) around midcentury. Edgar Hoover that the FBI decides to target the young and charismatic Fred Hampton and the national Black Panther Party with which he is affiliated. As depicted in the film, it is under the leadership of J. when the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) sought to prevent the rise of a Black leader who could continue the cross-coalitional organizing that X and King had begun prior to their deaths. Judas and the Black Messiah is set in the late 1960s following the assassination of Malcolm X and Dr. In addition to providing a primer on a rich chapter in American history, the film raises a number of questions for the viewer surrounding the richness and limits of Black political agency in the United States. The film’s title is a reference to the biblical story in which the apostle Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus, leading to his execution. Director Shaka King’s new film Judas and the Black Messiah depicts the rise and fall of Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, and the role of Black FBI informant William O’Neal in those events. Before film director Ryan Coogler brought audiences the Black Panther film franchise, there was another Black Panther that loomed large in American culture.
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