Why Fred Hampton Needs to Be on Your Kids’ American History Syllabus
Hampton’s story, even in the abbreviated form that ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ provides, is too important not to tell
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
My Blackness came to me while I was a student at Ohio State University.
To be clear, I always knew I was Black. My mother, who grew up silt-poor in the mud hills of Nelsonville, Ohio, made sure all of her sons knew we were Black. Not knowing was akin to signing your name to a suicide note. But I did not know its properties, the alchemy of its historical bonds in reaction to my daily life. I only knew its consequences. I was aware of the American problems that pursued my Blackness but could not see the joy that welled from it for what it was. I did not fully learn to wield my Blackness until I was skipping architecture classes, instead sitting in on showings of Black documentaries and heavy discussions in the newly minted Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center that imbued me with self-awareness.
The early 1990s was a beautiful time to become aware of one’s Blackness. It was the height of the Afrocentric movement, the covers of magazines like Newsweek…
