going to because reich. we are told it's going to make us rich and so paul krugman he who shall not be named, paul krugman says we need more stimulus and notice the problem is never the first crazy idea was a crazy idea that we haven't done enough of the crazy ideas. it is never let's reverse course. no, no. we need to do more to read we can do exactly what japan did exactly what they did for the 90's and continue to do and now they just contracted their economy contracted an annualized rate of 15% which you might expect to hear from haiti but that's japan after following the advice of these geniuses who try to claim no, no they didn't follow our advice precisely they were off by three tenths of a percent. they did everything the team seems wanted them to do and this is what they have to show for it is basically a big zero. but in terms of the fiscal stimulus it diverts resources

because we are there resources coming for these projects. it takes them away from the private sector. now the sophisticated kinsey ins will come back with these resources are idle, they are not doing anything any way so it is okay if we yank them back into production. well, yeah, that would be the case perhaps if you could devise stimulus packages that would make use only of precisely the resources currently idle but of course they are not doing that. they are coming up with our pachauri projects all of which are going to involve diverting steel or labor from places they are currently employed as of this vital resource argument doesn't work on those grounds. second again the argument from the idle resources we need to spend money, the government to borrow money and blow it to get all the resources idle back into the productive activity. they never ask the question why are these resources idle in the first place?

why do we have idle capacity in the first place? what is going on? and the austrian explanation would be this is a remnant of the artificial boom that we have had production of areas that cannot be sustained. so we don't want to stimulate these back in to reduce or a current price. we need to see what the market decides where they should be deployed right now. it's like for example a restaurant owner in vancouver who when the olympics come he thinks great apparently everybody loves life food. he doesn't realize the reason everybody is coming to the restaurant as the olympics are in town and there are a lot of spectators and athletes and they all have the olympic circles on their t-shirts and he is and noticing this and he thinks suddenly everybody knows my food i knew this was bound to happen so he builds a second location and then the olympics go away and a second location of the waiters and waitresses are standing around, there's nobody

in their. should we want to stimulate his resources back interactivity? no. that would divert resources away from wealthy areas of the economy where the market needs to be given the chance to redeploy them. it would be a total waste to do this. stimulus packages are like drinking a red bull instead of sleeping. because if you have had red bull before, which i haven't by the way. i'd like this naturally without red bull. but if you have rebel you know what it's doing there is no perpetual motion machine. you drink red bull you keep going. it is the better part of your body is not totally exhausted the red bull will totally exhausted and then it's not like you know, no crashes coming, no, the crash is coming. well, likewise the fiscal stimulus in affect seeks out like the parasite that is the profitable sliver of the economy and it sucks the resources out of it and therefore it exhausts the economy further.

now the monetary stimulus for its print more money and blow it. again we've already seen that intensifies the problem. that puts it off a few more years and makes it more intense when it gets here. interestingly enough in american history we have an episode in which that is exactly what was done and that's 1920 to 1921. some of you have heard me talk about this over and over again and i have a youtube on this topic called why you've never heard of the great depression of 1920 and it has got like 33,000 use. it amazes me people at this point are so desperate to figure out what's going on they will sit in front of their computers and watch tv for 45 minutes about the great prison. that's wonderful people listening. what happened in 1920 we had a depression in which we had double-digit on an employment, unemployment skyrocket out for 12%, production dropped off dramatically and what was done?

what was done? between 1920 to 1922 the federal government budget was cut in half. so instead of the fiscal stimulus so-called we have the opposite of that. today we are being told the worst thing you can do is cut government spending during the depression because that will cut into aggregate demand of the simplistic nonsense. you can do that. it's important for the congressman to get their offices renovated. this is for the good of the country. nothing to do with what we want i've got eight minutes? how much have i got? okay. according to my watch we started 11:35 -- [inaudible] okay. all right. well, i will try to finish in a couple of minutes. in any event, 1921 they did the opposite. the fed basically stayed out and by the mid 1921 the crisis was basically over so they did the opposite and you never hear about this episode ever. i talk about this in that little

youtube. i looked up how economic historians dealt with it. here's the opposite of stimulus. it works fantastic. i'm not kidding there is books where there is one or two sentences about this whole episode. there wasn't even a wikipedia entry on this until this year and wikipedia has in trees on the drummer for journey in the 1980's and was the second wife did for a living. there's nothing about this what so ever so given apparently i am a long time than i realized i will simply say the people we are told to look to for advice, the people we are told to listen to, the so-called experts have no idea what you're talking about. in 2001 paul krugman writes for "the new york times" said what we need more of anything are low interest rates to spur housing. that should finish it for paul krugman but working for "the new york times" means never having to say that you're sorry when you're wrong because you were always wrong or you wouldn't be working for the new york times. [applause] [laughter] we have not been listening to

people who know what they are talking about are the economists of the austrian school we've been neglecting them because they refuse to look to establishments boots but that is a virtue, not a demerit and it's about time we start listening to them. i would urge you to check out "meltdown," visit me at tomwoods.com where i have articles going after these people. but ladies and gentlemen, we have been listening to the quacks long enough. let's listen to people who have a clue what they're talking about. thank you very much. [applause] >> this event was part of the freedom fest a libertarian conference held annually in las vegas. for more information, visit freedomfest.com.

>> if we are here with the author of the prohibition hang over alcohol in america, from demon rum and cult to cabaret. >> it was an amendment that took place come into effect in 1920 and last almost 14 years until 1933. the country realized prohibition didn't work out well because we band of the manufacturers sell and transportation of alcohol. and a tremendous amount of lawbreaking. once the great depression took place we realized this is becoming a law and order issue and we need the jobs back. so we never repealed prohibition. >> kershaw cow we got to the provision in the political finding that led to the constitutional amendment? >> there was a century on social reform movement, called the timber is movement which was designed to get country --

altogether. the use the excuse to change the constitution. the brewers at the time for germans, so that whole lobby was marginalized and at that point the national rifle association took the occasion of the war and about the constitution changed at that point. i don't think the country realized what had happened or the consequences would be but the result was prohibition. >> the consequences what was the fallout provision business wise, socially? >> the theme of the book is we have a hangover from provision itself and it looks at what happened in the last 76 years since prohibition ended 35 got one chapter that deals with prohibition and the rest of the book looks at where the social what about alcohol today, the social stigma is largely borne off and existed in a few places

especially the deep south and some places of the midwest. why we have a stigma against children drinking alcohol the age being 21 is a part of the debate going on right now so a whole chapter dealing with the drinking age and at the same time of course we also look at how alcohol has become a major craft movement and it goes along with the julia child's movement, but we liked craft beer and wine that comes from single vineyards and bourbon that is made in small batches and so once americans change the attitudes about alcohol and it's shipped over from something to get drunk on toward something that we appreciate and can't socialize with. >> looking at the social aspect of alcohol in america, was it a moral choice at the beginning and now we are moving away from that? >> can you rephrase that? >> at the beginning when we look at the beginning of the temperance movement we see this as a moral crusade if you will.

are we becoming -- is a moral choice to drink or not to drink? >> for most americans today and two-thirds of adults drink alcohol today, alcohol has long since lost its sin. we don't call it demon rum buckholtz cadre de degette as i call it in the subtitle. the idea of the alcohol being wrong is feet away from society like i said most of the street now and most of us don't want to be told anymore like you shouldn't drink. it's wrong, that was in the genesis moment of my book where i felt i have to write about this. i was thinking how my grandmother responded at christmas to be bringing it all will fly in the. she got a little bit snooty. i come from a methodist family, and the methodists were the ones that gave -- the first to embrace a temperance, that is abstinence overall. so, fast forward to my generation of a generation x and most of us drank and this isn't an issue or a sin so that took

place that was behind the book. >> in california the push of legalization of marijuana we are seeing other parts of the united states. is this today's current antiprohibition? [laughter] >> that is certainly a key issue and it's fascinating my book by we doesn't cover at all the illegal drugs or anything but at every talk i give the question always comes up and it is fascinating. there's interesting parallel between the drug war of today and provision so that we have been fighting the drug borat for 40 years and are we winning the drug war? not so much. one of the interesting perils or on parallels to the drug edition even during the drug provision, personal possession was never all called. the amendment made the manufacturer's sale and transportation of alcohol each illegal but you could still possess it and make wine at home. fast forward here to the drug war we have made personal

position and to a felony and filled the prisons for people largely low-level drug offenders. >> we are the national press club author lightning d.c.. you live here and lead temperance tours. fiber to go on one where would be the first place we would go? >> the very first location starts off at the cause well temperaments foundation which is up 70 and pennsylvania avenue and was put there in 1882 by henry as a reminder to drink water instead of whiskey and we also visited the baptist church in chinatown which is where they had the first national convention of 1895, and then we finish off the blogger willson house, he was the president when prohibition took place and he has a fascinating wine cellar which was during provision transported out of the white house to his new house over in cowal drama. >> the author is garrett peck and the book is the provision hangover. thanks. >> thank you for having me here

today. jeffrey haas whose clients included the black panthers and students for democratic society, recounts the death of fred hampton head of the college after of the black panther party on december 4th, 1969. northwestern university school all in chicago hosts this to our event -- two-hour event >> chairman of the black panther party. if i am a revolutionary. ♪ black people need peace and white people need peace. ♪ they want to get rid of me

because i'm saying something that matters. ♪ ..

as soon as arjun daniel and officer james davis who were leading our men and announce their office i gave-- shotgun fire. >> sir, you say you are men were fired upon. witnesses to have seen the apartment say there is no evidence of bullets from the direction where the panthers supposedly were to be. if. >> is played an active legitimatized murder strips all credibility from law-enforcement. in the context of other acts against blacks in recent months it's a gest official policy of systematic oppression. >> anyone who went to that apartment and examine the evidence that was remaining there could come to will be one conclusion and that is that fred

hampton, 21 years old and a member of the militant well-known militant group was murdered in his bed probably as he lay asleep. speak you need to decide for yourself what happened to that apartment. you will decide whether fred hampton murder. >> thank you and welcome everyone. i am very honored to be here. and i also want to recognize of the area hampton, who is fred hampton's mother, who is here tonight. [applause]

[applause] and also bill hampton, fred's brother and d.d. hampton, fred's sister. [applause] and the person who was in the apartment that night in the book she has referred to as china doll, brenda harris and she is here tonight also. [applause] i wanted thank northwestern and

bernadine for bringing together such a prestigious and accomplished panel. i feel a little bit like now to sit down and hear what they have to say. i am really in all of the people who are here tonight in their accomplishments in their writing. and i want to thank bernadine for putting it together and for being one of the inspirations for why i wrote this book. it was bernadine the mention fred hampton spoke at northwestern university law school almost exactly 40 years ago to the day. and the person who introduced him was a young law student by the name of flint taylor who is sitting in the front row. [applause] and apparently, i wasn't there but flint stammered through an introduction of fred, selwyn fred got uppy jadick flynn then

said well flint, you had better get it together but he also knew that fled had get them out on appeal bun nsc no fuentes got it together. [laughter] i don't want to spend the rest of the night talking about his accomplishments but anyway another person who was very much touched and moved by fred hampton. if you had told me a few years ago that i would be standing here talking about a book that i had written not to mention a personal narrative, i really would not have believed you. i was a lawyer. i didn't even particularly love writing. somebody i saw from years ago recently in seattle said, but you didn't even like to write and it is true i must say. ilec most of the brief writing go to my partners but somehow when i got stopped doing the day-to-day work of civil-rights law, of fighting the government in court every day i had a little time to reflect. and when i hit on was i have a

story to tell here, a story that really needs to be told. and i wanted to tell the story of fred hampton because even though it was 35 years later it was a story in the person who had most affected me in my life. we probably all have people, when we look back or come into a tough situation and we say what would so-and-so do tonight? what would this person do in this situation? one of those persons for me was the head of the homeless coalition. the other person was fred hampton hill i knew 35 years ago. so i often think when i am in a tough situation, what is right to do and what would fred hampton do? so i decided this story needs to be told because the affected me so much, maybe i can tell it in a way that will affect other people. and so i had an advantage i guess over some people who write and is one of my writing teachers at bennington said he

will let you had a front row seat on history and i did have a front row seat on history and the fact that i got to meet fred hampton. i lived to the '60s and i was a lawyer for much of the movement but another friend also said you don't get any credit for living it, which means you have got to ride it in right in the way that hopefully people like it and want to read about it. again nevertheless i had such a wonderful story to tell. actually tour three stories to tell. the first story is a story of fred hampton, which many of us know much more about his death than about his life and i had the pleasure of being with al very and being with francis, his father who passed away a year ago and getting a feel for the family and getting a feel for the cousins' and the people who knew fred early on. i heard stories about when he was ten years old, fred organized the neighborhood kids and brought them over for breakfast on saturday morning

because he knew some of them were hungry and he could for all the neighborhood kids. he had his own breakfast for children program when he was ten years old. when fred was done he also had a big head and people used to call him peanut head, so fred decided that he wasn't going to be called peanut head so he learned to be very good that repartee and by the time he was 14 and 15 he was known as the king of the nines. nobody took on his mouth. similarly he had a lisp, and in order to overcome his list the practice oratory and he particularly modeled himself after preachers and when to church to listen to preachers and the also memorized all the speeches of dr. king and malcolm x. so it was no accident. he took what could have been a deficit and overcame them and became a powerful speaker. and he could speak to welfare mothers and he could speak to gain kids and he could speak to law students.

when fred got older and was in high school, he was a good football player. he was very likable. he was known for being a very sociable guy but he wasn't content just to be popular. fred, when he saw injustice had to react to it. one of the first things he did, he noticed black girls were considered-- so he the to walk out on the school over that. the next year he is leading a walkout because they are not enough black administrators and very few black administrators there and his work is so compelling the principle calls the men when there is racial strife because he has so much respect of both the black and the white students. fred goes from there because he was such a good organizer, they recognize it and he becomes the chair of this suburban naacp, representing the west suburbs of

chicago and spoke up for workers' rights and heed spoke up for the rights of, to have principles. one of the earliest, actually he worked for was higher pay for police in may would and then eventually for more control and the ability to discipline police who abuse people, so fred was always a community person. one of the things that they did early on even though he was not a swimmer, there was no place for black kids in may would to slim. the white kids could go to a veterans part in the nearby suburb so fred organize the kids and actually leads a march to the may would city council and there he impress a number of people including tom streeter who was on the city council but he also have the opposition of some people and so when fred led a large crowd there, half of them got in so fred argue to the city council, let's go to a different place are let people

said on the floor but the police instead when they saw a lot of people outside to could not get then fired tear gas and in the people ran away from that place, they broke windows and they were angry. the police came and the rest of fred even though he was inside the village when all this happened. he was early on a scapegoat. lindh fred when from head of the naacp he marched with dr. king on the west side. he also worked with the black power movement. he got together a very impressive library of black history books and then, when sncc and the panthers came together in '68 when bobby rush came back from the west coast to form a panther chapter, the first person he asked to join with fred hampton. so in november 191568 fred became the chairman of the black panther party which immediately grew under his sort of electric

energy, and fred imprest people so much that they did the work that he said but not only the work that he said but the work he did. he went to the breakfast for children club at 6:00 in the morning. he fed the kids. he didn't just talk about it and fred have the ability to inspire people and i think his rhetoric certainly was very strong. it was revolutionary rhetoric, and sometimes it was-- which to the panthers meant get police to abuse the side of the community. the police obviously didn't necessarily see it that way but there was a conflict growing and a month before fred was killed there were too young black men killed in the housing project near him who were organizing to get a street light so that the kids to get to the clinic without getting run over, as two of them had 30 occurred. there was no recourse than any

thunell against ludicrous behavior. even though one of the young man was shot in the back of the head, the police claimed he had pulled the gun on them. the other person similarly was shot when the police claim they have a gun and a bystander said he didn't. this was the type of thing that fred hampton was dealing with on december 4th. i went, and i went to the office today. on december 2nd i went to the office and i saw fradkin heard fradkin he was like telling people, you've got to be at the breakfast for children program on time. you have that to get your petitions signed for the community controlled police. this young man just vibrated the energy and people around him were like driven by his energy. and on december 4th of 1969, 2 days later after i had just been with fred, my partner skip ander

who you saw the movie, lift up the street, and knocked on my door and said he is dead. he said chairman fred was shot this morning in a police raid. i thought this guy elijah seen today's before, so vibrant, so like, somebody who made his believe we could do anything and everything was dead. i couldn't believe that. i went to the wit street station mockup which is where the survivors were, and their hassad deborah johnson, fred's fiance who had been lying in bed next to him and deborah azadeh nineveh months pregnant, turns out to be fred jr. and she is sobbing and she tells me what happened, it tells me about the police coming in firing, telling me about we have a pregnant sister in here, it tells me about lying there in bed trying

to cover up because the bullets are coming into the room, getting on top of fred and then she says that poehler out of the room and she hears these two police officers go into the room. one of them says, is he dead yet and another one hears two shots and then she hears, he is good been dead now. she looks at me and says what can you do about it? i could not bring fred back to life, and i didn't know what to do about it but i couldn't forget her plea and i couldn't forget knowing this viper man, who had so affected me. in the days that followed, hanrahan goes on tv, the please give their version which is they opened fire upon. they didn't know they were in a panther apartment. barrage as of shots at them, and then of course shanahan says fred hampton had this 45 and shot at the police, coming in the backdoor and a few days

later he says here is my approved. here's the picture of the backdoor in here the two bullet holes that come from fred hampton's gun and of course we now know those bullets polls were nail heads, that there were 99 shots fired by the police, and that in fact what happened was there was one shot fired by mark clark, who was dying. it was his shot that went up in the air. and is that was exposed, hanrahan never backed off, never did anything but say these honorable police. we should be praising them for what they did. of course that ended hanrahan's political career. the black community did not by the fact that this and man was killed in his bed at 4:30 in the morning in a police raid. there was evidence that he was drugged which explained why he never woke up. you would think once we expose

that, that would be end of the story, brutal case of police murder. they went in there with shotguns, a machine gun, rifles and hand them. that is almost the beginning of the story because as we pursued this lawsuit and there was flint in may and the law office and jim montgomery and herbert read from howard in help from a lawyer's guild and help from the center for constitutional rights. there was not just a few of us. we got help from the whole progressive legal community. we pursued this and a couple of years later a guy named william o'neill turned up as a witness in a federal case and o'neal it turned out was hampton-- fred hampton's personal bodyguard and he was also head of security. o'daniel said were wonder from corneil has anything to do with their raid and we began asking questions and taking depositions. i know for people who aren't lawyers, what is such a big deal about documents but we uncovered

and the government kicked in screams and hit into night in light and had a judge to cover up for them and the book goes into the 18 months that it took and the second month of the trial 200 volumes of files which were produced that had been hidden for the entire pretrial. but among these documents we discovered i think for that i just want to briefly mentioned. one was an fbi program called-- which targeted the entire left but focused on the black movement and in particular on the black panthers. one of the objectives of the cointelpro was to prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify in electrify the masses. we thought gosh, doesn't fred hampton fit that description? wasn't pulling people together? wasn't pulling people together to support their community? cointelpro had nothing to do with that we were told 100 times in court in 100 times a corporation the judge affirmed but nevertheless we get a

document that shows on this cointelpro program they sent a letter to the head of the rangers' saying dear brother jeff lie panther and i've been hanging around with fred hampton. just want you to know they got a hit on you. i know what i would do if i was you. this was approved by the head of the fbi who later became the head of the chicago police board. they send this letter to judge foy and specifically say it is expected this will give retaliatory action ended fact may be forced realized the language did not fit a black brother and marvin jackson was not too good on his sling but he did take retaliatory action and what happened was he was unable to get the blackstone rangers to do their bidding. they have zero neal going and get a floor plan that showed everything the entirely out of the apartment including the bed where fred hampton slept mnd marked on the diagram. why not please come in the

apartment his bedroom is in the back end when we look at the direction of the bullet holes, they converge were fred hampton's bed was. and it turns out that floor plan was given and shown to the raiders that night. afterwards what would the fbi publicly, they said we don't take a position on this. internally they give a bonus to william o'neill, $300 they say because information was invaluable so the fbi was taking credit for the raid in one of their agents turned it into excess-- success on the witness stand. this is the first story is fret in the second story is the rate in the third story is the fbi involvement. we even got a recent document that showed one fred hampton was leading marches to the city council of may was six months before there was a panther party hoover was sending memos to the white house, the cia, the department of the army talking about this young leader in may

would leading this demonstration to may would city council. this was before there was any revolutionary rhetoric. this was before there was a black panther party. this was the kind of people, this is what hoover had in mind, in a black independent group was a threat to him. and interestingly enough one of the advantages when we tried this case there was a movement of exposing the government because of watergate and the church committee was doing that. the two people in the ford administrations to fought hardest against the then actually had four vetoed a bill that would have expanded the eft boy-- foia of word donald rumsfeld in chief of staff for ford and his chief aide named dick cheney. so the battle continues to expose government illegalities, atrocities. those people certainly have their day. they deserve to stay in jail as it was a day running the country.

[applause] finally i just want to say when i went to the hampton's apartment years later and ask them, is there any thinker fred's that was personal to him that might be useful in my book? bill went down to fred's olbermann came up with this book. it was a book that fred had in it was called deep in my heart by william kunstler. fred wanted to be a lawyer, and fred believe in justice. he said, in 1969, i don't have time to be a lawyer. there is too much else going on, but fred has affected lawyers. he has been the inspiration for our office, people's law office and some of the things we did and i think what kept me going and it was the irony that here we were pursuing hukill fred hampton but it was fred hampton alive the kept us going who inspired us and we said maybe we should give up now.

we have had enough and one of us just said what would fred hampton do and be kept going. i think that is the lesson of fred hampton and if we can pass that on to law students, to lawyers, to the public then we have got the message of fred hampton across, and he hasn't died in vain. thank you. [applause] >> i am telling you all in advance and warning the panel that i'm planning to interrupt, as distinguished as you are.

i am going to do a really quick round the table. i'm not going to do formal introductions because they are so much to talk about and so much to convey but i will just briefly introduce you to professor adam green, from the university of chicago, he has written an incredible book called selling their race, the story of black chicago from-- i don't know the official subtitle, from posed for chicago. flint taylor, still with the people's law office, still fighting the fight there and one of the leaders of uncovering the burgess torture cases kennan, a caring it up today in fighting for people who have been on death row and are unjustly in prison. these are totally inadequate introductions but i'm just getting you in little heads up. martha beyonce, professor and historian at northwestern law school and author of to stand and fight, which has-- not the law school, i wish you were at

the law school. at the history department in evanston this year, the american bar foundation fellow and is written a wonderful book about called to stand and fight. david's cobol professor, assistant professor-- assistant professor? are you an associate professor? >> yeah. [laughter] >> at the university of illinois chicago in education, a teacher at the chicago freedom school and about to be the author of a book and we are really happy you are here. jeff you know. professor dorothy roberts from northwestern law school. also to distinguish to introduce of the author of two books, shattered bonds and killing the body. and a journalist in chicago,

long distinguished career, editor back in the day of mohammed speaks, currently a journalist with the mideast times and wbon. deborah rans, northwestern university school of chicago. african-american studies, just about everything. doing just about everything and author of a wonderful book called ella baker in the black freedom movement. again election in chicago, long time activist around labor rights come around human rights and civil rights and longtime representative of freedom movements of southern africa. somebody who represented the governments of mozambique, mungle and south africa in the apartheid era and remains one of the amazing people speaking for

internationalism and the relationship between the struggles there in the struggles here. so each of the u.s. you can see is capable of eliminating the complex three-hour lecture on multiple issues raised by jeff's book and the life and death of fred hampton and the story of his family. assuming our audience is with us for only a short period, i am going to try to engage this brian penaluna conversation. this will require keeping in moving so i'm apologizing in advance for my plan to interrupt all of you. at the end of this thomasian willis, a civil-rights lawyer that many of you know and i will take questions from the audience and then we will adjourn for organization. jeff's book is a memory project of remembrance of violence against african-americans, of pain and resistance and of

shocking is familiar brutality. and the different calculations. so we are today recovering and exercising the collective powers of memory. i'm going to go this way and ask you each to tell us briefly where you work 40 years ago on december 4, 19609. i know david is going to have the best answer. [laughter] and what you were doing then, from the moment of what you were doing then and if that doesn't apply, then when you first heard of fred hampton. >> i actually didn't know you were going to ask this then i'm really grateful that you did because i know exactly where i was on december 4th. i was the new york city. i was six years old. i was sitting in the living room with my mother and i saw the television. this was probably the december 4th after the killing

took place, and it stayed with me really throughout my life than those of you that know me well know that it means a great deal to me to say this. this was the first time that i really understood about the existence of racism in the united states, was getting news of the killing, the assassination of the murder of fred hampton and it stayed with me really throughout my life. that image of seeing that on the television and trying to cope at that age ended my situation with what i had to catch up with in order to process that, so i know exactly where was that nid blondo i was very, very young. >> i was at home. i got a call from skip andrew, like jeff did. i came here to northwestern. i got one of the other law students that worked at the office out of class that lincoln hall and we headed down to the department. for the next ten or 11 days we

stayed there pretty much around-the-clock, taking evidence, standing in fred hampton's blood watching while the panthers broad tours through there every day, showing the bloody mattress, this was where the chairman died. there was one particular quote which i think you put in the book just that really stuck with may beyond just the remarkable just being there and seeing first-hand and documenting this murder, was that this older black woman came through, looked as the bullet holes in the swiss walls by the machine gun bullets, shook her head and said ain't nothing but in northern lynching. >> martha. >> i was five so i don't have any recollection of the assassination but i do recall being a teenager and encountering his slogan, that you could kill a revolutionary but to cannot kill a revolution

and had that image on a poster for years because-- before i knew who he was really so his message influence me greatly before really knew who he was. >> well, i wasn't even a thought. [laughter] i was born in 1972. but, the first time i ever heard of fred hampton was watching eyes on the prize. and, i remember watching it on channel 11 with my parents, and my mom said, man, i remember fred hampton, mark clark, bobby brechin she just started going down with all of these names. she said do you know what? i don't think they ever understood in terms of what they were about because she always knew them as folks who work feeding young folks and that is how-- that was a recognition of the panther party. that was how she understood

their work so that was the first time is on the prize and that was called nation of laws. and i watched it with my high school students today. >> jeff, i'm going to skip you. just for this amendment. dorothy. >> i was 13 years old when fred hampton was assassinated. on the day of his assassination my family was living in africa, so i wasn't aware of it then, but we had just moved there from chicago that fall, and so during most of 1969 that was living in hyde park in chicago and i was aware of fred hampton and his work in the black panther party. in fact, i subscribe to the black panther newspaper, and i remember my mother being very upset not because i was interested in the black panthers but because the newspaper came

to our house and she said to me, don't you know that the police are following people who were on the list and she made me and the subscription. but, it made an impression on me that the black panthers were doing work that the government wanted to stop and i was aware early on that that kind of work was a threat, was seen as a threat to the fbi and the police, from when i was 13. >> well, i was actually a member of the party in jersey city, new jersey. i had been in the military during the vietnam era and head been rudely educated about what we were doing in southeast asia,

and in the military there was a lot of opposition to the imperialistic policies of this country and they panthers spoke to some of the passions that were being provoked at that time. i got out of the military and immediately joined the black panther party in 1969 so i was a member of the party in new jersey. many of us knew of fred hampton because he had forged a reputation of being a very conscientious and aggressive and energetic leader so many of us had idolized him and look to him for future inspiration. when he was murdered we all realized what was up. we knew then it was no joke. we knew in the beginning that it was no joke, but simply an exclamation point on that. so, that was where i was at that point to.

fred was an inspiration. we looked at his death as something that would further spur accomplishments. >> i was one year younger than dorothy. i was 12 years old and i was living in detroit, and i don't remember hearing about fred hampton at the time, but certainly did many years later but interestingly 1969 was the year that i encountered the panthers. there was a panther chapter of course in the panthers had a breakfast program in the basement of my school on the west side of detroit and was also the year that my eighth grade boyfriend's brother, older brother was in the panthers in died tragically, not at the hands of the police, but as a result of a drug overdose actually. i think that race for me the other specter, the other killer in black communities at that time because i don't think that

was accidental either. that was my first encounter with the panthers, this amazingly beautiful, smart, a kind men and women who were serving as breakfast every morning and talking to us about revolutionary ideas. i did not know really at the time but that was about but it was very appealing to me. >> i was asleep at my house, and my father came in the room and said there is boehner raid i just heard on the west side and it must be very bad because davis was in on it. people from the west side all knew how brutal he was. that was how he got his name in fact. i was working at the st. mary's center for learning. there was a high school on the west side and we had a lot of students in the school. i was the dean remembers the panther party. and so by the time i got to

school at 8:00, lots of these, mostly women school, catholic school, most of them were very upset so remember spending the morning working with these students, talking to them, taking some of them home, taking some over to monroe street building. by that time, i was putting that together with what had happened. my sister had worked on the west side, so the picture was getting pretty clear what was going on. >> fred was 21 when he was assassinated, just 21. bricks a dorothy flint, why was he so dangerous in the eyes of the fbi and the police department? >> very quickly, i was there at the people's church where fred

spoke, and i had heard by that time a number of very brilliant speakers, these brilliant revolutionaries and fred spoke at that people's church over on ashton that day. i remember very well he was introduced by a japanese sister. the two of them spoke and it was the most toka i have never heard, a total clary on about people coming together come of black, white, brown, yellow. he was so clear about that and i think that is one of the main reasons that the off him, because he was such a force for unification. he was young, a clear brother. >> dorothy. >> i had never heard him speak

in person, but i think in addition to his charisma of and his oratory skills, what impressed me about him were his principles and his commitments. his willingness to sacrifice his life for what he believed then, which was justice, and they think the fbi recognized early on that somebody who had that kind of commitment to justice at such an early age was destined to do great things, to bring people together, to be a leader of the movement. and, they were willing to brutally destroy the people like that, and continue to do it in the way they torture and kill and lock up hundreds of

thousands of people in this country who potentially could be fred hampton's today. [applause] >> flynt. >> yes i did introduce him here in northwest and yes i did stammer through it but in my defense that was the first time i had spoken publicly, but more seriously, watching him walk into that room, i expect that about 50 law students to be there and in fact the entire law school was there, predominately white, mostly conservative and they'll. he sat there and spoke to them and reach them in the same way he would reach people on the west side, in the same way he reach people at the church, and i was there and jeff was there as well as i am sure were many others in the audience were there. so come he could speak, he could organize, he could move people regardless of their race,

regardless of their class backgrounds, regardless of what kind of history they had personally and that i think was something that the government in their paranoia recognize, that the spoken word, that the ability to organize was much more dangerous than the guns that they might have carried it around. they were not a propaganda again it. they were armed, but not dangerous in the sense that you think of armed and dangerous. they were armed for one reason and they were dangerous for an entirely different reason in the eyes of the government. >> in the winter of 1969, this is an impossible question but because there is a number of young people in the audience, and i think this is a story telling defense, cicilline, barbara martha, who was in the black panther party in 1969? >> well, for us, you know we

were like children of malcolm, and we had tired of seeing so many african-americans being, being you know, being forced to endure the kinds of brutality at the face of southern-- the civil rights movement, that hold non-violent movement. we were not entirely with that movement. we did not believe in nonviolence. we didn't believe in this notion of some day. we wanted to overcome yesterday, and so, the black panthers were like a tony to us. it was this group of people who said we will no longer accept the kind of brutality that the

police were inflicting on our communities without any redress, without any sense of accountability. no one would respond to our pleas and the panther party came out from nowhere and said look, police, you can't do this anymore. cephalus that. you cannot do it any more. we will stop you from doing it. and that to us, it is really unimaginable the kind of the fact that hatton young people during that period or so under assault from this notion of racist oppression, and so the panthers energized us like nothing else could, and in fact one of the problems i think eventually that occurred was that it attracted so much attention, so much affection and

so much attraction from young people who were beleagured by the civil-rights oppression, that the panther party could not handle that kind of aggression. >> barb. >> i guess i would just built on selina's, ansel lien certainly has more of a first-hand account but certainly for me and many others, the panthers were a symbol of resistance in standing up but i think something that gets left out sometimes and as i read about fred hampton them in, the young man, but the man. i am reminded of the panthers that they knew in detroit and there was this notion of certain people, so there was defiance against the police in a push back against a level of unapologetic and unabated police violence in the cities but there also was this sense of humility

in, this sense of humanism, and the same young men who were with blackjack, with paray standing tall against the police were also serving eggs and pancakes in the free brett risk program. traditionally women's work, so i was impressed by the combination of service and struggle in for me that combination was powerful and dangerous, because it can transform us as well as transform the enemies of people, so-- >> by 1969 the panthers were three years old. they had 30 chapters around the country, one in every major city. there were thousands of members. they aimed their recruitment at urban youth but actually the membership was much more diverse than popular images convey. they included women, inmates,

students-- the panthers, as has been set, the panthers are best known for both advocating armed self-defense and their community service programs. they had a dual image of being armed revolutionaries who were preparing the masses for a coming revolution but at the same time were very, really committing themselves to commit to service and i think fred hampton really exemplifies this aspect of the panther party, being committed to serving the people for the breakfast programs and a whole host of other programs. it was striking to me in reading just's book how will they were to fred hampton to the and in so invested in rehabilitating his reputation in finding justice. i think that really speaks to how much they loved and admired him and how much they felt and what it to reciprocate his devotion to them. >> dave, did you learn-- you learned about the panthers before you learned about fred hampton.

when did you learn about the panthers? >> the first day i learned was the ten-point plan. i learned the ten-point plan when i was in fifth grade. and i got the ten-point plan by way of actually one of my classmates. and he brought it in and he was like yeah man, this is the whole thing and we were looking at it and i just kind of looked at it. next to the ten-point plan was the rules of meetings at the black panther party and i thought that was really interesting because i felt like it was written by somebody who was just a little bit older than me and the reason why i thought about that because one of the rule said you cannot come high or drunk to a meeting. and i looked at that and i said, man, they are probably older than us because they are trying to organize and make sure that somebody in the meeting is not messing it up.

alright, then we started to read some more. ifrs remember seeing the ten-point plan in fifth grade. >> adam, you have written unbelievably movingly about the lynching of emmet till and the response of the black community in chicago. is in it astonishing that the hampton family or neighbors to niemi till bradley, that alberia was a baby sitter for emmet till before you went to mississippi, before he was beaten, tortured and drowned in 1955 at the age of 15, when fred was six years old. can you offer us, i know you have written deeply about this but can you offer us a little framework about then impact of

the murder of emmet till? >> i can try. i didn't know this actually until i read jeff's book and it was one of the first things that comes up in the book and it was astounding thing both as a testament, a document if you will, to the sense of consciousness that young fred hampton must have had come about what society was capable of, what happens when one is matched against structures of power. it must have been something that reminded everyone i would imagine, at the hampton family, about what sorts of risks, what kinds of dangers, what profound injustices existed out in the world. it in the south but in a certain sense also everywhere. i think though that the thing

that must have come up, and the symmetry, which is awful let one level to think about and at the same time profoundly moving of having exactly the same-- the word that martha used a moment ago was rehabilitation. the state's for roche's desire to the same this yen man after they murdered him. the way in which people came together after that, to claim him back and not only in the way that the panthers did with their jackets and their guns in their berets and their pride, but everyday ordinary people did in terms of saying you will not take this young man away from loss. we will take him back. that was something that happened in 1955. very much in the same way in relation to mamie till bradley

took her son back and said, you will not speak of my son in the way that you have. you will not make the brutalization of him and his body the last word about the meaning of his existence and thousands, 50 to 100,000 people a sense that on that in terms of going and doing the body, visiting the church, maintaining the memory of the emmet till so there are so many things that could be said but i think this is the thing that's that's up most powerfully is the power of people to affirm life, even when those institutions that claim authority over them will deal. in both cases that is what comes up, and it is awesome to contemplate from where i am. [applause] >> it is still an issue, because recently when people tried to

name a street after fred, fred hampton away in chicago, the ultimate refuse to do it but ultimately the people themselves named it fred hampton. his fianc when he was murdered said you know, we don't care what they do. we are going to name this st. fred hampton way and that is what we will call it, so it is very simple. >> barbara you have written about the sudden freedom movement and ella baker in sncc, the student non-violent coordinating committee. kojeve drought a through-- between snicket the black panther party? >> someone lardy mentions by 1969 there was a certain sector of sneh, student on violating-- non-violent coordinating sector,

a third sector had joined forces with the sector and it moved over to the panthers. another sector of sncc went in another direction. is that was in some ways unraveling by this point, but i guess what i am struck by what i think of the panthers in sncc is the false dichotomies that sometimes we drop between the southern and northern movements. also the generational divide. when we think of panthers is being militant, norgren, young. nick of course were young people based in the south. we think of sncc as being non-violent. many snicks people will tell you that for them non-violence was a tactic. it wasn't a philosophy and many of them when they went south were actually protected by older sharecroppers it were not passive that all, who in fact had shotguns to protect

themselves from the klan while they are non-violent volunteers slept in their homes, so there was a tradition of self defense and a tradition of armed resistance in the south as well. robert williams and others represent that. belorus county black panther party which is where the name connects in alabama, so there were a lot of connections and when we began to look at those connections the binary, that sort of notion of militant youth in the north, and non-violent folks and the self began to break down. i also want to say about the question of command one thing that is often said about the panthers is the panthers tactic kind of urgency of youth and that is certainly true but i think it is also important for us to remember that there were also radical elders and bernadine bench and ella baker. from al baker tiered see allard

jones to lead number of other people in the '60s who were at that time not young but certainly were radical and there were reactionary young people so youth is not the magic pill, but rather the impetus once the ideas are there. >> martha cam month can you give us what the main issues were that sparked the beginning of the black student movement in colleges in the same period of 68 and 69? >> i am glad you asked that question because i think here the black student movement of the late the 1960's that swept campuses across the country from san francisco state to brooklyn college to cornell to howard, really nationwide, high schools as well. this is very much associated with the rise and affirmative action, the rise of black studies, hiring black faculty, black administrators, a big sweeping changes in american intellectual life. one cause and what connection

that isn't often talked about is the panthers, and i would remind you of what the portion of one of their planks in the 10.5 from said p1 education for people that exposes the true nature of the decadent society one education that teaches us our true history and the role in present-day society. the black panther party actually was very influential. they tried to recruit students said they had a lot of students in the party but i think there influence went beyond recruitment, and their vision, their style and their tactics influence really this whole generation of student activists who were very influential in the push for an open missions and african-american studies. just a couple of famous examples in san francisco state which was kind of ground zero for the whole black student movement black studies movement was the firing of george murray at the time the minister that set off

that four month strike the lead to the creation of the college of third ethnic studies in san francisco. brooklyn college, the black panther party was influential in organizing the black student union there. and that the leader of the black student leader, one of them with men to be addressed in the raid that produced the panther 21. he said that should've been the panther 22. he was out of town that day. they got him in another predawn raid in the case that became known as the brooklyn college 19. again he was the young man. cops came in for the windows come up with the door down early in the morning. these kids with no record were sent to rockers island and there were all trumped up charges, bsc lindh in fact another target like the panthers and another target of black student unions across the country. a lot of them had police

informants. some of this was a result of the panther connection but not all of that. this was seen as another source of charismatic leadership that could be very profitable and have a lot of potential so this was 69, 1968 and 1969 was the heyday for panthers and also the beginning of the blacks did movement in high schools and colleges around the country, not the beginning of another phase that was very influential and connected. >> prexy, of given two of the most powerful international influences on the panthers at this time. >> do you want to go first? [laughter] >> prexy, you go first. >> i think that was a very important one, and that was the vietnam war and the relationship

and clarity the panther party about resisting the vietnam war, and the other one just very briefly, i am very-- i don't think a lot of people know how deeply it really went, but since i was a bit involved in that it was a very close relationship between the panther party here and the mozambique liberation front. the current president of most lumbee, armando gib lucette talks to this day about meeting the leadership of the panther party over on the west side on medicine avenue and in fact he said to me not long ago, he said prexy, is there a monument to the panther party on the west side of chicago? and i said, no mr. president there is no monument. and i am just thinking, what is it that we have got to do to put up a serious monuments on the west side to the panther party.

[applause] >> i guess i think most prominent influence was probably-- because the panther party embraced the notion that violence is a kind of a catalyst to evolution come to kind of the certification your agency in the face of oppression, overwhelming oppression. he provided a way that the panthers could theorize that. also, to a certain extent mao tse-tung. the panthers made no, his red book was required reading for panthers. when we would go to meetings we had to read certain portions of the red book.

trying to equate this with the international ideas and ideas of how socialism, which-- and i guess we should not mince words about this, the panthers were strongly scientific socialist. that was their professed ideology and the required panther members to do some intellectual work as well as work in the community, so our intellectual abstractions would be grounded in community work, and so we would often be given these international theories to study and to apply their theories to our particular situation in this country.