Ilhan Omar: “I want to first thank Congressmen Rush and Davis for allowing us to be here to honor the legacy of Fred Hampton. Fifty…”

“I want to first thank Congressmen Rush and Davis for allowing us to be here to honor the legacy of Fred Hampton. Fifty years ago today, a 21-year-old American revolutionary was murdered in his own home by 14 Chicago police officers who were found to be colluding with the FBI as part of the COINTELPRO initiative. Scholars now widely believe that the Hampton death was under the FBI's initiative. This initiative was a series of covert and often illegal projects aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, and disrupting civil rights organizations, feminist organizations, peace activists, the environmentalist movement, and native groups. Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness intimidation, and withholding evidence to falsely imprison and assassinate leaders of the Panther Party. Among those on the list was the young Fred Hampton. Fred actively fought against the corruption and injustice Black and Brown people were being subjected to on a daily basis. He sought to build a multicultural movement, the Rainbow Coalition, seeking to end the violence among street gangs. Let us teach our children and the new generation of his legacy and fight against racial inequalities, police violence, and mass incarceration. Yes, the same problems Black and Brown men and women face today still continue as they did back then.…”