Hoover memos are "compelling proof" lead congressman to seek department of justice files

by Suzanne Hanney

The discovery of memos from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, himself, regarding the assassination of Fred Hampton prompted U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) and six of his colleagues to ask Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland on March 31 to release unredacted and unclassified Department of Justice files related to Hampton’s death.

The 21-year-old Hampton was killed in his sleep Dec. 4, 1969, in a predawn raid by agents of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, Chicago Police Department and the FBI.

“A wrongful death civil suit and FBI whistleblower later exposed Hoover’s nefarious COINTELPRO operation, a series of covert and illegal projects aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic political organizations including the Black Panther Party," Rush’s office noted in prepared material.

“Such violations of legal and constitutional protections are not only unacceptable, they pose a direct threat to our notion of justice and to our standing as a nation of laws,” Rush and the members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL), wrote in their letter to Atty. Gen. Garland. William O’Neal was captain of security for the Panthers and an FBI informant, the subject of the movie, “Judas and the Black Messiah.” O’Neal’s FBI personnel file contained two documents that requested and obtained a $300 bonus for furnishing a “detailed floor plan of the [Hampton] apartment” that “subsequently proved to be of tremendous value” and “was not available from any other source,” attorneys Flint Taylor and Jeff Haas of the People’s Law Office wrote in Truthout.

The documents were among 200 suppressed FBI files the two attorneys eventually received in their federal civil rights case brought on behalf of the families of Hampton, slain Panther Mark Clark and seven survivors. In order to avoid judicial condemnation for the suppression, the government joined with Cook County and the City of Chicago to settle for what was at the time the largest police violence settlement in federal court history, Taylor and Haas wrote.

However, the FBI never produced the personnel file for Roy Martin Mitchell, O’Neal’s control agent in the Chicago office. Nor were the two attorneys ever permitted to recall Mitchell to question him about O’Neal’s bonus document.

Fifty-one years after the raid, on Dec. 4, 2020, writer/historian Aaron Leonard received a redacted copy of Mitchell’s personnel file in response to a Freedom of Information request filed five years earlier.

Among the several hundred pages of documents was a Dec. 10, 1969 memo from Hoover praising Mitchell’s handling of O’Neal and recommending him for a $200 incentive award. On Nov. 6, 1970, Hoover provided Mitchell with another $200 incentive, and wrote, “The manner in which you have developed and handled a source of information of great importance to the Bureau in the racial field is certainly commendable.”

The two memos provided “compelling proof,” Taylor and Haas wrote, “that the highest level of Bureau officials, including Hoover, were partners in the conspiracies.”

The attorneys wrote that they wish to assist Leonard in his quest for FBI files because he has chronicled other 20th century leftists who have been victims of surveillance and harassment. They cited more recent government attacks on racial movements, such as TigerSwan at Standing Rock, and sophisticated military technology such as drones, sound cannons and concussion grenades in Ferguson, Mo.

Not only are the government’s suppression mechanisms continuing, Taylor and Haas wrote, “but law enforcement continues to be closely aligned with emboldened forces of the violent and racist far right.”

Also 51 years to the day after the raid, on Dec. 4, 2020, U.S. Rep. Rush quoted Hampton: “You can kill the revolutionary, but you cannot kill the revolution.”

The occasion was Rush’s introduction to Congress of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, named after the 14-yearold Chicagoan who was violently killed in Mississippi in 1955. The legislation would make lynching a hate crime that would apply to cases like the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, and the death of Ahmaud Arbery, which it would compel the FBI to investigate, Rush said.

The bill passed the House by a 410-4 vote on Feb. 26 and was sent to the Senate Feb. 27.

Hampton was Rush’s best friend, chairman and co-founder with Rush of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party.

“Chairman Fred was both a visionary and a revolutionary, who fought for a more just world for everyone,” Rush said on the House floor. “I had the distinct privilege of recruiting and working alongside Fred during our righteous struggle for the liberation and emancipation of the people who had been ignored by those in power for far too long.” The Panthers’ work included community development through community health clinics, free breakfast for children and other critical social services.

The Panther Party also helped broker a peace agreement between Chicago street gangs – the Latino Young Lords and the Young Patriots, an organization of poor whites living in Uptown -- that reduced violence in the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods, Rush said.

“We banded together to fight many of the issues that still plague us to this very day, including police brutality, substandard housing, mediocre education, and low-quality health care.”

What would have Hampton done with his life if he had lived?

“It is hard for me to put into words how great Fred Hampton was because every day I live in the spirit of Fred Hampton,” Rush told The Grio at the February opening of “Judas and the Black Messiah.” “I have no doubt that had he lived to become more of an adult, Fred would have been one of the greatest lawyers, and maybe even politicians, that we ever had. He had a desire to be a lawyer, he wanted to go to law school.”

Rush continued, “Fred was such a dedicated, talented, courageous leader and had an amazing love for the people. Fred would raise his voice when he saw even members of the party taking advantage of their leadership position and being cruel or being antagonistic toward regular party members.”

Rush is alive today because the Hampton apartment had been crowded with visitors, so Rush went to his own apartment at 2030 S. State St. But after learning of the murders, he went underground. He stayed with Father George Clements of Holy Angels Church, among others, he told Chinta Strausberg of the Chicago Crusader newspaper in 2016. His attorney and members of the Afro American Police League arranged to have him turn himself in to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and then the 2nd Chicago Police District Commander.

“I’ll never forget, Rev. Jackson said, ‘We’re turning him over to you, Commander,’ ” Rush told the Crusader. “I want you to look at him. He does not have a scratch on his face, on his body, no broken bones. He’s in fine health and that is how we want to see him again, in the same condition.’”

Rush served on the Chicago City Council from 1983-1993 and has been Illinois 1st district congressman for the South Side and southwest suburbs for over two decades.