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= Free Breakfast Program =
== Chicago ==
[[File:FredHampton.jpeg||thumb|right|Fred Hampton talking to children during a free breakfast program feeding. Credit: Chicago Sun-Times collection, Chicago History Museum]]
[[File:FredHampton.jpeg||thumb|right|Fred Hampton talking to children during a free breakfast program feeding. Credit: Chicago Sun-Times collection, Chicago History Museum]]
[[Fred Hampton]], chairman of the Chicago Branch of the [[Black Panther Party]] gave a speech on April, 29th, 1969 explaining the connections between capitalism and young Black children not having food to eat. He explained the steps the Free Breakfast Program were taking to eradicate the hunger prevalent throughout their communities and across the country.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref> Hampton stated:<blockquote> Our Breakfast for Children program is feeding a lot of children and the people understand our Breakfast for Children program. We sayin’ something like this—we saying that theory’s cool, but theory with no practice ain’t shit. You got to have both of them—the two go together. We have a theory about feeding kids free. What’d we do? We put it into practice. That’s how people learn. A lot of people don’t know how serious the thing is. They think the children we feed ain’t really hungry. I don’t know five year old kids that can act well, but I know that if they not hungry we sure got some actors. We got five year old actors that could take the academy award. Last week they had a whole week dedicated to the hungry in Chicago. Talking ’bout the starvation rate here that went up 15%. Over here where everybody should be eating. Why? Because of capitalism. <Ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/hampton/1969/04/27.htm</Ref></blockquote> About a month after this speech a memo Signed by FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]], conveyed how the FBI viewed the free breakfast program as a threat to national security: <blockquote>You state that the bureau should not attack programs of community interest such as the BPP “Breakfast for Children Program.” . . . You have obviously missed the point. The BPP is not engaged in the program for humanitarian reasons. This program was formed by the BPP . . . to create an image of civility, assume community control of Negroes, and fill adolescent children with their insidious poison.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref></Blockquote> A former Black Panther Party member spoke on the Chicago police department attempting to disrupt the food program, <blockquote>It was a lot of organizing because of course we had to go out and find people to give us food for the program and all that. . . . Anyways, the night before it [the first breakfast program in Chicago] was supposed to open, the Chicago police broke into the church where we had the food and mashed up all the food and urinated on it. So we had to
[[Fred Hampton]], chairman of the Chicago Branch of the [[Black Panther Party]] gave a speech on April, 29th, 1969 explaining the connections between capitalism and young Black children not having food to eat. He explained the steps the Free Breakfast Program were taking to eradicate the hunger prevalent throughout their communities and across the country.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref> Hampton stated:<blockquote> Our Breakfast for Children program is feeding a lot of children and the people understand our Breakfast for Children program. We sayin’ something like this—we saying that theory’s cool, but theory with no practice ain’t shit. You got to have both of them—the two go together. We have a theory about feeding kids free. What’d we do? We put it into practice. That’s how people learn. A lot of people don’t know how serious the thing is. They think the children we feed ain’t really hungry. I don’t know five year old kids that can act well, but I know that if they not hungry we sure got some actors. We got five year old actors that could take the academy award. Last week they had a whole week dedicated to the hungry in Chicago. Talking ’bout the starvation rate here that went up 15%. Over here where everybody should be eating. Why? Because of capitalism. <Ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/hampton/1969/04/27.htm</Ref></blockquote> About a month after this speech a memo Signed by FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]], conveyed how the FBI viewed the free breakfast program as a threat to national security: <blockquote>You state that the bureau should not attack programs of community interest such as the BPP “Breakfast for Children Program.” . . . You have obviously missed the point. The BPP is not engaged in the program for humanitarian reasons. This program was formed by the BPP . . . to create an image of civility, assume community control of Negroes, and fill adolescent children with their insidious poison.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref></Blockquote> A former Black Panther Party member spoke on the Chicago police department attempting to disrupt the food program, <blockquote>It was a lot of organizing because of course we had to go out and find people to give us food for the program and all that. . . . Anyways, the night before it [the first breakfast program in Chicago] was supposed to open, the Chicago police broke into the church where we had the food and mashed up all the food and urinated on it. So we had to
delay the opening. But what that caused was just all kinds of attention, and people were just lining up to give us donations.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref></Blockquote>
delay the opening. But what that caused was just all kinds of attention, and people were just lining up to give us donations.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref></Blockquote>
On December 4th 1969 the Chicago police department in coordination with the FBI kicked down the doors of the apartment where Fred Hampton and his pregnant girlfriend were sleeping. They shot and killed Mark Clark, who was on guard at the time. As Mark Clark was dying he fired one shot at the police, and this was the only shot fired from the Black Panther Party, while police fired fully automatic weapons at the apartment. One of the bullets hit Fred Hampton in the shoulder, and he was then killed, while asleep, after officers entered his bedroom and shot him point blank in the head, assassinating him; Hampton's girlfriend survived. Hampton was asleep during the assassination, because an FBI informant drugged him with secobarbital.<Ref>↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref> <br> <br> <blockquote> The attention the murder of Hampton and Clark brought, especially because of Hampton’s visibility around the Breakfast Program, helped to marshal increased grassroots support among African American radicals but also liberal whites. The program became a vehicle, therefore, not only for providing sustenance to children but also as a cause around which to organize the space of the black community in particularly scaled ways.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767</Ref></blockquote>
On December 4th 1969 the Chicago police department in coordination with the FBI kicked down the doors of the apartment where Fred Hampton and his pregnant girlfriend were sleeping. They shot and killed Mark Clark, who was on guard at the time. As Mark Clark was dying he fired one shot at the police, and this was the only shot fired from the Black Panther Party, while police fired fully automatic weapons at the apartment. One of the bullets hit Fred Hampton in the shoulder, and he was then killed, while asleep, after officers entered his bedroom and shot him point blank in the head, assassinating him; Hampton's girlfriend survived. Hampton was asleep during the assassination, because an FBI informant drugged him with secobarbital.<Ref>↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767 </Ref> <br> <br> <blockquote> The attention the murder of Hampton and Clark brought, especially because of Hampton’s visibility around the Breakfast Program, helped to marshal increased grassroots support among African American radicals but also liberal whites. The program became a vehicle, therefore, not only for providing sustenance to children but also as a cause around which to organize the space of the black community in particularly scaled ways.<Ref> Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767</Ref></blockquote>


= Sources =
= Sources =

Revision as of 01:17, 19 June 2023

See: Free Breakfast For Children


Fred Hampton talking to children during a free breakfast program feeding. Credit: Chicago Sun-Times collection, Chicago History Museum

Fred Hampton, chairman of the Chicago Branch of the Black Panther Party gave a speech on April, 29th, 1969 explaining the connections between capitalism and young Black children not having food to eat. He explained the steps the Free Breakfast Program were taking to eradicate the hunger prevalent throughout their communities and across the country.[1] Hampton stated:

Our Breakfast for Children program is feeding a lot of children and the people understand our Breakfast for Children program. We sayin’ something like this—we saying that theory’s cool, but theory with no practice ain’t shit. You got to have both of them—the two go together. We have a theory about feeding kids free. What’d we do? We put it into practice. That’s how people learn. A lot of people don’t know how serious the thing is. They think the children we feed ain’t really hungry. I don’t know five year old kids that can act well, but I know that if they not hungry we sure got some actors. We got five year old actors that could take the academy award. Last week they had a whole week dedicated to the hungry in Chicago. Talking ’bout the starvation rate here that went up 15%. Over here where everybody should be eating. Why? Because of capitalism. [2]

About a month after this speech a memo Signed by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, conveyed how the FBI viewed the free breakfast program as a threat to national security:

You state that the bureau should not attack programs of community interest such as the BPP “Breakfast for Children Program.” . . . You have obviously missed the point. The BPP is not engaged in the program for humanitarian reasons. This program was formed by the BPP . . . to create an image of civility, assume community control of Negroes, and fill adolescent children with their insidious poison.[3]

A former Black Panther Party member spoke on the Chicago police department attempting to disrupt the food program,

It was a lot of organizing because of course we had to go out and find people to give us food for the program and all that. . . . Anyways, the night before it [the first breakfast program in Chicago] was supposed to open, the Chicago police broke into the church where we had the food and mashed up all the food and urinated on it. So we had to delay the opening. But what that caused was just all kinds of attention, and people were just lining up to give us donations.[4]

On December 4th 1969 the Chicago police department in coordination with the FBI kicked down the doors of the apartment where Fred Hampton and his pregnant girlfriend were sleeping. They shot and killed Mark Clark, who was on guard at the time. As Mark Clark was dying he fired one shot at the police, and this was the only shot fired from the Black Panther Party, while police fired fully automatic weapons at the apartment. One of the bullets hit Fred Hampton in the shoulder, and he was then killed, while asleep, after officers entered his bedroom and shot him point blank in the head, assassinating him; Hampton's girlfriend survived. Hampton was asleep during the assassination, because an FBI informant drugged him with secobarbital.[5]

The attention the murder of Hampton and Clark brought, especially because of Hampton’s visibility around the Breakfast Program, helped to marshal increased grassroots support among African American radicals but also liberal whites. The program became a vehicle, therefore, not only for providing sustenance to children but also as a cause around which to organize the space of the black community in particularly scaled ways.[6]

Sources

  1. ↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767
  2. ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/hampton/1969/04/27.htm
  3. ↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767
  4. ↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767
  5. ↑ ↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767
  6. ↑ Nik Heynen (2009) Bending the Bars of Empire from Every Ghetto for Survival: The Black Panther Party's Radical Antihunger Politics of Social Reproduction and Scale, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99:2, 406-422, DOI: 10.1080/00045600802683767
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