[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 4, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H9251]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
           COMMEMORATING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF FRED HAMPTON

  (Ms. OMAR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. OMAR. Madam Speaker, I want to first thank Congressmen Rush and 
Davis for allowing us to be here to honor the legacy of Fred Hampton.
  Fifty years ago today, a 21-year-old American revolutionary was 
murdered in his own home by 14 Chicago police officers who were found 
to be colluding with the FBI as part of the COINTELPRO initiative.
  Scholars now widely believe that the Hampton death was under the 
FBI's initiative. This initiative was a series of covert and often 
illegal projects aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, and disrupting 
civil rights organizations, feminist organizations, peace activists, 
the environmentalist movement, and native groups.
  Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness intimidation, 
and withholding evidence to falsely imprison and assassinate leaders of 
the Panther Party. Among those on the list was the young Fred Hampton.
  Fred actively fought against the corruption and injustice Black and 
Brown people were being subjected to on a daily basis. He sought to 
build a multicultural movement, the Rainbow Coalition, seeking to end 
the violence among street gangs.
  Let us teach our children and the new generation of his legacy and 
fight against racial inequalities, police violence, and mass 
incarceration.
  Yes, the same problems Black and Brown men and women face today still 
continue as they did back then. Today, our criminal justice system and 
the failed war on drugs continue to disproportionately impact 
communities of color, and it is time we join together to fight 
continuously for a more just society.

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