Does Hollywood Owe the Black Panther Party Anything?
Movie studios and actors profit from the pain and names of political prisoners but rarely lend a hand in their fight
In 2018, the house in which Fred Hampton was assassinated went into foreclosure. Since then, his son, Fred Hampton Jr., who was still weeks away from being born when his father was killed in 1969, started a GoFundMe campaign to save his family’s Illinois home. By early February, “Save the Hampton House” had yet to reach its goal of $350,000. Promotion for the movie Judas and the Black Messiah, which chronicles the events leading up to the Black Panther chairman’s death was in full bloom. Chicago locals and others close to the Hampton family criticized the film’s cast and crew for their lack of support in preserving the home — a focal point in their motion picture.
It wasn’t until Judas’ opening weekend that the campaign nearly doubled its monetary goal. Viewers, inspired by Hampton’s story, donated in the thousands. The reaction begged the question: Why aren’t the benefactors of these life-to-art commodities the biggest financial supporters in their subject’s struggle?
The fact that these multimillion-dollar productions profit from the imprisonment and death of American freedom fighters without aiding their fight…
