"Eyes on the Prize": "A Nation of Law?" Quiz

Answer: 21

Fred Hampton was on track to become the black community's next great leader and teacher of men. He first rose to prominence at the age of 16 as the leader of the youth council of the NAACP of Maywood, IL, improving community recreational facilities and the educational materials for poor blacks in the area, but when he heard of the Black Panthers, their ten point program, thier policy of self determination and thier Malcolm X like belief in direct action, he was irresistibly drawn to them, and by 21 was poised to become the Central Committee's chief of staff, a national post that would have put him on a level with Stokley Carmicheal, Bobby Seale, and Huey P. Newton.

Answer: The December 4th, 1969 shootout at Fred Hampton's apartment

Under Fred Hampton's leadership, the Panthers organized weekly rallies, taught classes on law, politics, and civil roles and responsibity, they created free health clinics, gave free breakfasts to children, and launched a project for community supervision of the police.

They were also responsible for brokering a non-aggression pact between Chicago's most powerful street gangs, the Blackstone Rangers, the National Young Lords in Chicago, and the Young Patriots. Jesse Jackson used the Hampton term, "Rainbow Coalition" that originally meant the coalition between these black, white and hispanic gangs.

Answer: An FBI informant

O'Neal was a black man who was arrested for stealing a car and was promptly recruited by the FBI to cause chaos in the BPP. He was the man who gave the exact location of Fred Hampton to the FBI before the shootout.

Answer: He shot Fred Hampton

In 1971 the Weather Underground broke into FBI headquarters in PA and uncovered documents proving the existence of COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterintelligence program. J. Edgar Hoover's men given the assignment of crushing all "militant black nationalist organizations." They gave secret messages to black leaders causing them to mistrust colleagues, they placed informants in high places, and assisted the police in the annihilation of any black leader of substance.

They didn't pull the triggers, but they made things happen.

Answer: They invited the neighborhood into the home where the murder took place

After the murder of Hampton, the Black Panthers, guided by the NAACP's executive secretary, Roy Wilkins and former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, opened the apartment where he was shot to the people in the neighborhood. They showed the people the places where the police claimed the Panther bullets were coming from, and showed them the destination of all of the bullets that entered the apartment.

They showed the people where Hampton had died, and proved that at 3:00AM, Hampton was asleep in his bed with the pregnant mother of his first born child, and that the police had snatched Fred Hampton away like a thief in the night.

Answer: George Jackson

George Jackson was an incredible man. He was originally arrested at the age of 18 for stealing 70 dollars, and was given a one year to life sentence. He formed the Black Guerrilla Family and attempted to change prison life from the inside. He demanded the better education of prisoners, fair pay for the work performed in prison, proper legal representation, and many other reforms. For his trouble, he was put into solitary confinement for all but a few days of the rest of his life.

He stood unbroken, wrote two bestselling books, Blood in My Eye and Soledad Brother, was elected Minister of Information by the Black Panther Party, fell in love with Angela Davis, worked out in a fashion so disciplined his body became stone, and read as no other human being has read.

When his brother was killed in a desperate attempt to free him, Jackson made a run at the fence and was shot down and killed. His death caused nationwide prison riots

Answer: We demand private cells for each inmate

In 1971, Attica inmates were allotted one roll of toilet paper per man per month. They were allowed one shower per week. Black Muslims were not permitted to hold religious services, and any assembly in the prison yard of more than three Muslims was punishable by solitary confinement. Pork was in the main dish in most noon and evening meals even though it is against some religions to eat it. The prison library did not subscribe to newspapers, but some prisoners subscribed to periodicals with their own money, and guards routinely scissored out anything having to do with prisons or prisoners' rights.
Here is the list of demands released to the media at the time of the riot:
"THE FIVE DEMANDS
To the people of America
The incident that has erupted here at Attica is not a result of the dastardly bushwhacking of the two prisoners [on] Sept. 8, 1971 but of the unmitigated oppression wrought by the racist administration network of the prison throughout the year.
WE are MEN! We are not beasts and do not intend to be beaten or driven as such. The entire prison populace has set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury, of those who are oppressed.
We will not compromise on any terms except those that are agreeable to us. We call upon all the conscientious citizens of America to assist us in putting an end to this situation that threatens the lives of not only us, but each and every one of us as well.
We have set forth demands that will bring closer to reality the demise of these prisons, institutions that serve no useful purpose to the People of America but to those who would enslave and exploit the people of America.
Our Demands Are Such:
1. We want complete amnesty, meaning freedom from any physical, mental and legal reprisals.
2. We want now, speedy and safe transportation out of confinement, to a non-imperialistic country.
3. We demand that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT intervene, so that we will be under
direct FEDERAL JURISDICTION.
4. WE demand the reconstruction of ATTICA PRISON to be done by inmates and/or
inmate supervision.
5. We invite all the people to come here and witness this degradation, so that they can better know how to bring this degradation to an end.
THE INMATES OF ATTICA PRISON"
-a transcription of the actual list released to the media as noted on WWW.facinghistory.org

Answer: True

The brutal treatment of the prisoners after the riot is unmentionable. They were kept away from medical treatment, humiliated and de-humanized until any lingering thoughts of the riot (and the temporary freedom it brought) were painful memories. The barbarism shown to the inmates was a testimony to the fury under the surface of America at the time.

Answer: Big Black

After the revolt, Smith formed a group of former inmates known as the Attica Brothers. They filed a lawsuit against the state of New York for the abuses committed during the retaking of the prison, and in 2000, after a twenty-six-year legal battle, the Federal District Court awarded a twelve-million-dollar settlement to the plaintiffs.

Answer: Police gunfire

The police approached the prison yard by helicopter. Gas was dropped and chaos ensued. When the shooting stopped, 39 lay dead, ten of the 42 hostages were killed, all by police gunfire against unarmed men, but the world media had been alerted to the conditions of American prisons.

The world had seen inmates create a functioning government with tiered leadership. They witnessed a list of grievances that were reasonable by any statute of our justice system, and they had witnessed the slaughter and humiliation of men who were simply asking to be treated as men.