Los Angeles Times (Sunday)

LEGACY KEEPERS

WIDOW AKUA NJERI, FRED HAMPTON JR. STEERED PATRIARCH’S ‘MESSIAH’ TO SCREEN

- BY SONAIYA KELLEY

IN JANUARY 1990, Akua Njeri attended the funeral of William O’Neal, the man responsibl­e for leaking informatio­n to Chicago police that aided their 1969 assassinat­ion of her fiancée, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

“I had planned to spit in the casket and then turn it over,” she says by phone from Chicago. “But when I got there, it didn’t look like O’Neal in the casket and I froze. I kept saying, ‘That’s not him.’ One of the brothers there said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s him.’ But it was a different O’Neal that was in the casket. So I didn’t get to do what I had planned for days to do.”

A career criminal turned FBI informant, O’Neal infiltrate­d the Black Panther Party at 17 and quickly climbed the ranks to become one of the heads of Hampton’s security. He gave the FBI the layout of the apartment Hampton shared with Njeri and slipped the sedative secobarbit­al in Hampton’s drink so he wouldn’t wake up during the police raid and assassinat­ion. Hampton was just 21 when he was murdered.

O’Neal’s betrayal is the subject of Warner Bros.’ “Judas and the Black Messiah,” which is a key player in the current awards season and is now in general release where movie theaters are open and streaming on HBO Max. The film stars LaKeith Stanfield as O’Neal and Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, the deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Dominique Fishback plays Njeri (formerly known as Deborah Johnson).

“She really allowed me to develop the character how I saw fit,” says Fishback of Njeri. “There were only two things she mentioned: One, that she did not cry when they assassinat­ed Chairman Fred. And she talked about how the Panthers were a discipline­d people and they didn’t speak out of turn, so there were just certain things that she wouldn’t have ever said to Chairman Fred.”

Director Shaka King makes his studio feature debut with the film, which he co-wrote with Will Berson (an early version was written by Keith and Kenny Lucas). With producers including Charles D. King and “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, the film was originally envisioned as “The Departed” inside the world of the FBI’s counterint­elligence program (COINTELPRO).

“I thought that was a brilliant idea. It’s the only way you can get a movie about Fred Hampton or the Black Panther Party through the studio pipeline,” King says. “Studios don’t make mid-budget films anymore and if you make a period piece, you’re probably going to have to spend upwards of $20 million. The few biopics that remain are traditiona­lly going to be about a white person. We haven’t even had biopics on wildly famous historical Black figures — the first Harriet Tubman biopic came out [two years ago].”

“In the Black community, Fred Hampton has name recognitio­n,” he adds. “But many people who grew up hearing the name don’t necessaril­y know how they know. Others just know that he was killed by the police. A lot of people don’t know that the

FBI was the architect of the conspiracy. Not to mention his politics are incredibly radical and anti-capitalist, in a studio system whose lifeblood is capitalism.”

That’s why, rather than a straightfo­rward Hampton biopic, the story is told from O’Neal’s perspectiv­e. “Initially it was just folded into the pitch,” says King, who adds that the movie is more about Hampton’s ideas than his life story. “The best way to highlight his ideology is to contrast it. It’s a strong choice to make O’Neal a central character because you can indict capitalism in real time. You don’t have to talk about it objectivel­y, you can show it.”

The decision to give O’Neal equal weight in the story was a major point of contention for Hampton’s family. “But there are pros and cons,” says Fred Hampton Jr., the current Black Panther Party Cubs chairman, who was not yet born when his father was killed. “There’s a quote by Minister Huey P. Newton which says, ‘Contradict­ions are the ruling principle of the universe.’ To [depict] the Black Panther Party, you must acknowledg­e the good, the bad and the ugly. This is an organizati­on targeted and infiltrate­d [by the FBI]. So whose narrative it was coming from was and still remains a tender spot.”

THE FILM’S TITLE was inspired by a memo about Hampton written by former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover about preventing “the rise of a Black messiah” from within the Black Panthers’ ranks.

“Our position was that it be acknowledg­ed not [to be] a metaphysic­al [comparison], but within the context in which Hoover had [spoken] with regards to the COINTEL program,” Hampton says. “Chairman Fred [Sr.] and the Black Panther Party were servants of the people. They made it a point that they were not above the people. So that narrative had to be included.”

“There were other titles, other stories that were floated. It was a battle back and forth,” Njeri says. “Down to the clothes, the music, who smoked cigarettes and who didn’t. Every battle wasn’t won, but many of them were.”

Finding a version that satisfied King, the producers, the studio and the family was the biggest challenge of the production, the director says.

“You have a lot of different opinions and you had to really consider that this story matters more to [Njeri and Hampton] than to anybody in the world,” King says. “But they were able to help us avoid so many pitfalls. There’s no substitute for the real person. We would’ve made a lot of mistakes and offended a lot of people. They helped us avoid that.”

“We had to do a lot of damage control. There was so much misinforma­tion,” Hampton says. “It’s been recently revealed that over 73% of the informatio­n about the Black Panther Party was authored by the FBI. So there were many days of saying, ‘We have actual individual­s who were there and who are still here who are open to not only talk about it but put it into its correct political context.’ ”

One thing that came easy was casting the three leads. King says the process was intuitive. “Daniel has that mix of youthful charisma and gravitas that people say Chairman Fred had. LaKeith is always surprising and charming and sometimes impish [which was fitting for O’Neal]. Dominique is an incredibly naturalist­ic actor. Since we’re talking about a living icon in Akua Njeri, I wanted somebody who felt like a real person. Dominique has the craft that allows her acting to be as seamless as a non-actor and so she was perfect.”

Getting the family on board was another story. After running into the chairman at an Oakland flea market, Coogler invited Hampton Jr. and Njeri to discuss the film.

“We’ve been approached about different movies,” Njeri says. “There have been attempts throughout our lives [for] books, movies, you name it,” says Hampton. “And we’ve taken a principled stance towards maintainin­g the legacy under contested conditions. It’s been a long battle to maintain that legacy.”

Before signing on, they invited the producers, King, Kaluuya and Fishback to the Hampton House in Chicago to discuss the vision for the story. “We have so many war wounds that we didn’t give it too much light initially,” Hampton says.

“We had a really good conversati­on,” Njeri says. “The meeting went on for about seven hours. When I was watching Daniel talk, I could see his brain turning. I could see him taking it all in. You couldn’t read what he was thinking, but you could tell that he was intensely listening and processing. And then when he spoke about some of his past experience­s, I said ‘OK, this will work.’ He didn’t come to the table as the authority, he came as somebody who was willing to listen to the two people in the room who knew what they were talking about.”

Although she wasn’t familiar with the “Get Out” Oscar nominee’s work prior to their meeting, “I began watching him after that,” she says. “He’s a hell of an actor. But he’s a principled person too.”

Of his performanc­e as Hampton, Njeri says, “He lit it up!

“The chemistry between him and Dominique made me realize for the first time in I don’t know how many years how much I missed the camaraderi­e and the political discussion­s with Chairman Fred Sr. and the stuff that I learned. I teared up because it took me back to a really good period. It also reminded me of how fortunate [I was] to be able to participat­e in the struggle in this period.

“It brought back so many memories and I was really emotional. A lot of things came back to me that you bury deep in the back of your head.”

She says the other actors were “magnificen­t” as well. “To LaKeith Stanfield I said, ‘You did great, but I can not hug you.’ They had a tremendous cadre of people acting in the movie.”

Although Hampton acknowledg­es the creative battles of the film are “an ongoing struggle,” he says it earned his endorsemen­t. “There’s another saying, ‘A revolution­ary is never satisfied,’ ” he says with a laugh.

In the wake of last summer’s social unrest against systemic racism and the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, this moment seems ripe to bring Hampton’s story to the screen.

“People are just walking down the street and getting attacked and murdered by police and they’re getting off scot-free,” Njeri says. “Breonna Taylor was at home minding her own business and wasn’t a freedom fighter or a revolution­ary and was murdered in her home. I think that the lesson that we have to take from [the ’60s] is that we have a responsibi­lity to fight back, whether that means sending donations or making copies of fliers.”

“We see terms such as police brutality as a euphemism, but our position is it’s police terrorism,” Hampton says. “The Black community are the original victims of terrorism. We’ve been terrorized under such euphemisms as slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, gentrifica­tion. We attempt to heighten the contradict­ions and put it in its correct political context.

“One of the mantras of Alcoholics Anonymous is ‘to address the problem, you must first recognize the problem,’ ” he adds. “As opposed to gentrifica­tion, it must be recognized as land grabs. As opposed to correction­al centers, these are concentrat­ion camps. As opposed to police brutality, this is police terrorism.”

Coincident­ally, Hampton’s story is also briefly touched on in Aaron Sorkin’s 2020 film “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” in which the young revolution­ary was portrayed by Kelvin Harrison Jr. in a relatively small role. Until the COVID-19 pandemic turned the film release schedule upside down, “Judas” planned to open first — in August 2020 — before “Chicago 7” would have hit theaters in September.

“I think the reason that you’re seeing movies about that time period made now probably has something to do with Donald Trump’s rise to power and the shift in culture that he brought,” King says. “Just as you saw the rise of QAnon and rightwing media, I think you’ve seen a stronger interest on the part of the studios to put forth content that satisfies left-wing viewers. Not necessaril­y out of some moral obligation, but just because there’s an appetite for it.”

“This is a climate where people’s political pores are open,” says Hampton. “Where there are certain discussion­s that people can relate to. We can’t detach the era of the Black Power movement of the ’60s from Watergate, the tenure of former U.S. President Richard Nixon and U.S. aggression against Vietnam. We have a [comparable] climate now with the coronaviru­s and internal struggles between partisan politics. So there is a climate where people are forced to relate to certain dynamics, and it’s prime time for the Black Panther Party Cubs who serve in the interest of the people and fight for self-determinat­ion.”

Today, Hampton carries on his father’s legacy through his work with the Black Panther Party Cubs, the literal and ideologica­l descendant­s of the Black Panthers who fight for political prisoners and continue in the ongoing protracted struggle for self-determinat­ion. “It’s a tough act to follow,” says Hampton. “We attempt not to walk in his footsteps but in their Panther paw steps. We draw correlatio­ns [between the Panthers and the Cubs] with our free breakfast program; one of our major informatio­n vehicles, Free Em All Radio, which is hosted by myself and Robin Allen, a.k.a. Lady of Rage, and the Black Panther Party intercommu­nal newspaper.”

“The Black Panther Party and the Black Panther Party Cubs go wherever there is people,” Njeri says. “They’re not afraid to talk to the people or to see what’s going on in the community.

“It’s really an honor for me to be able to still participat­e in this fight,” she adds. “It keeps me energized. It keeps my brain and heart working to be able to be on the advisory board of the Black Panther Party Cubs and to be able to participat­e in the programs that they do. The struggle is noble. We haven’t achieved selfdeterm­ination [yet] so I have a responsibi­lity, a duty, to continue fighting. I’m very glad that I’m able to do that.”

 ?? Glen Wilson Warner Bros. ?? A K UA NJERI, top, and Fred Hampton Jr., her son with Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton, weighed in on “Judas and the Black Messiah.” The film stars, from left, Darrell Britt-Gibson as Bobby Rush, Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, Algee Smith as Jake Winters, Ashton Sanders as Jimmy Palmer and Dominique Thorne as Judy Harmon.
Glen Wilson Warner Bros. A K UA NJERI, top, and Fred Hampton Jr., her son with Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton, weighed in on “Judas and the Black Messiah.” The film stars, from left, Darrell Britt-Gibson as Bobby Rush, Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, Algee Smith as Jake Winters, Ashton Sanders as Jimmy Palmer and Dominique Thorne as Judy Harmon.
 ?? Chris Walker For The Times ??
Chris Walker For The Times

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