Black Love. Black Power.
The love story between Fred Hampton and Deborah Johnson is the through-line of Judas and the Black Messiah: the love of two revolutionaries for each other, their unborn child and their people.
Everyone needs to watch Judas and the Black Messiah. It’s just one of those films.
You’ve heard of the Black Panther Party, the revolutionary organization Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded in Oakland in 1966 that spread nationally and internationally.
You’ve heard of COINTELPRO, the FBI’s mission to surveil and disrupt Black freedom organizations, from the Black Panther Party to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
And you’ve heard of Fred Hampton, the Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party who, at the age of 21, was assassinated in 1969 by the Chicago Police Department under the auspices of the FBI.
What you probably haven’t heard is the love story between Fred Hampton and Deborah Johnson (now Akua Njeri). It is clear producer and director Shaka King chose this love story as the through-line of Judas and the Black Messiah: the love of two revolutionaries for each other, their unborn child and their people.
Masterfully and subtly portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya and Dominique Fishback, this love story injects humanity into the film, deepening its central question and raising the stakes.
Black Love. Black Power.
Revolutionary—even in 2021.
Watch (or rewatch) the film and get all the books we recommend below.
Interviews
You have in Fred Hampton one of the bravest, most courageous people of all time. You have in William O’Neal one of the biggest cowards we can think of in history. You have in Fred Hampton someone who was interested in building coalitions. You have in William O’Neal a pure individualist. In Fred Hampton you have a Marxist, a socialist. In William O’Neal you have a capitalist. And you have this opportunity to explore these two different polls of humanity. In some ways, if we did our job correctly, you as a viewer can watch this movie and question ‘where do I fit along that spectrum?’ Everyone wants to believe that they would be Fred Hampton. But the truth of the matter is that there are a lot more Wiliam O’Neals in this world than there are Fred Hamptons.
Shaka King
Producer and Director, Judas and the Black Messiah
source: The Breakfast Club
The power of self love. The power of loving yourself unapologetically, in the face of fear dressed as hate. The fact that we’re sitting here nearly 52 years later speaking about Chairman Fred is the power of self love, the power of loving your own, the power of loving your community.
Daniel Kaluuya
Fred Hampton, Judas and the Black Messiah
source: The Breakfast Club
There is revolution and there is love. There are emotions, and there are feelings and there are attractions. So do you deny yourself attraction and love because you’re a revolutionary? In fact, that’s what Chairman Fred was all about: love—love of the people, love of right. So why wouldn’t he have love in that other aspect of his life. If we attract what we put out, and he is all love, then it’s beautiful that in his short life, in his short time, that they got to experience such a transformative love.
Dominique Fishback
Deborah Johnson, Judas and the Black Messiah
source: Collider
Books
Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers
“[P]hotographer Stephen Shames and Black Panther Party founder, Bobby Seale, team up to tell the unequivocal and complex history of The Black Panthers through the juxtaposition of words and images in the photographic book Power to the People: The World of The Black Panthers. In 1967 Shames met Seale, a year after the establishment of The Black Panther Party, at an anti-Vietnam war rally. Since that fateful meeting Seale entrusted Shames with access, and approval, to photographing The Black Panther Party… Shames’ photographs; 200 black and white and 40 color, serve to inherently highlight the revolutionary main ideas stressed by The Black Panther Party without dismissing their shortcomings. Bobby Seale’s narrative account as being a leader to the party, combined along with voices from other Black Panther comrades such as, but not limited to, Ericka Huggins, Elbert “Big Man” Howard, Kathleen Cleaver, Khalid Raheem, and Emory Douglas; dive into an incredible, and politically relevant, struggle against racism and injustice in America.” - Erica McGrath, Musée
Disclosure: The Dossier is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with the mission to support local, independent bookstores. The Dossier will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History
“When people consider the Black Panther Party, thoughts are often mixed, and often negative, no matter one’s race. Through The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History, David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson offer more than enough details to help a reader understand just who the Panthers were and, perhaps, reconsider their views of the party’s legacy. In the wake of a Black Lives Matter world, understanding the history of the group that came before is paramount to understanding where the fight for racial equality has been and how far it still needs to go.” - Wendy Browne, Women Write About Comics
Disclosure: The Dossier is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with the mission to support local, independent bookstores. The Dossier will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland
“The timing of Robyn C. Spencer’s The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland is pertinent to the political climate of the world today… Spencer takes us through a history of the BPP by discussing the most well-known members of the group, like Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Bobby Hutton, Eldridge Cleaver, and others. She also provides us with an alternative account of the BPP by including the stories of lesser known members, specifically women that ultimately ended up being defenders, revolutionaries, and preservers of the organization. Spencer criticizes the masculinist and patriarchal structure of the organization, attempting to add to the literature that seeks to render the women of the BPP visible.” - Raymok Ketema, Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men
Disclosure: The Dossier is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with the mission to support local, independent bookstores. The Dossier will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
The Black Panthers Speak
“The Black Panthers Speak is a bibliographic archive of correspondence, news, rules, speeches and poems – the documents that underpinned the fabric of the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) organisation… there have always been sources of information about the work of the BPP, but they had mainly been the misrepresentations of the media and it was difficult to find the BPP’s own outputs. This book, step by step, remedied the situation by reproducing a wide range of original documents and images… The volume is essential reading for anyone wishing to judge the BPP for themselves and anyone taking part in the struggle against racism.” - Jo Manby, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre at the University of Manchester Library
Disclosure: The Dossier is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with the mission to support local, independent bookstores. The Dossier will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
“On the morning of December 4, 1969, lawyer Jeffrey Haas received a call from his partner at the People’s Law Office, informing him that early that morning Chicago police had raided the apartment of Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton at 2337 West Monroe Street in Chicago… Haas went straight to the police station to speak with Hampton’s fiancée, Deborah Johnson, who was then eight months pregnant with Hampton’s son… Jeffrey Haas’ account of this conversation with Johnson jumps right out from the inside cover of his new book entitled The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, just released. In this excellent book, Haas gives his personal account of defending the Panther survivors of the December 4 police assault against the criminal charges that were later dropped, and of filing a civil rights lawsuit, Hampton v. Hanrahan, on behalf of the survivors and the families of Mark Clark and Fred Hampton. The civil rights lawsuit lasted for almost 13 years, but ended with a $1.85 million settlement paid equally by the city, county, and federal governments. This battle in the courtroom is a long and complex story, but the 375-page book packs a punch and clearly presents the legal complexities without watering down Haas’ outrage about Hampton’s assassination and the cover up that followed.” - Hans Bennett, Toward Freedom
Disclosure: The Dossier is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with the mission to support local, independent bookstores. The Dossier will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.