Black Panther to Black Panther To Now: Rest in Paradise, Chadwick Bozeman and Happy Birthday, Fred Hampton

© Dr. Rhonda Sherrod

For Black people, there is so much to make of this moment, with our backs to the wall and our heads ever to the sky. An elegant fictional Black Panther, Chadwick Bozeman, who made so many people burst with pride — and who advanced the culture by making many Blacks see themselves, devoid of racist lies and myths, perhaps for the first time — dies on August 28, at a time when we are celebrating the genius of a real Black Panther, Fred Hampton, who was born on August 30, 1948. Hampton died, a savage death, at the hands of the police because he had always seen the beauty and brilliance of Black people and because he worked tirelessly in his efforts to see us continue to advance toward real freedom.

Perhaps, symmetrically, this is also a time when Coach Doc Rivers of the Los Angeles Clippers (“We’re the ones getting killed”), and young budding intellectual, Sterling Brown, of the Milwaukee Bucks, both of whom are from the same hometown as Fred Hampton (Maywood, Illinois) recognize the importance of having the courage to speak the complete truth. Brown meets this defining moment in our culture as one who has been on the receiving end of police brutality, despite his status and wealth — which speaks loudly to what so many Black people have been screaming. That is, that wealth does not insulate Black people from the effects of systemic racism. Fred Hampton fought against police brutality in the Black community more than 50 years ago, and we have yet to address this societal poison honestly, let alone eradicate it.

Ryan Coogler is the dynamic movie auteur who directed the regal and gifted Chadwick Bozeman in Black Panther. Coogler hails from Oakland, California — where the Black Panthers began, under the cogent leadership of Huey Newton and Bobby Seale; and he is right now making a movie about Fred Hampton. We are mourning Bozeman and celebrating the short life of Hampton in what some call “Black August,” a month that celebrates Black freedom fighters and commemorates so many things that have, historically, impacted the lives of Black people, including the Watts (Los Angeles) rebellion in 1965, the 1963 March on Washington, and the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri uprising, out of which the Black Lives Matter movement began. Watts and Ferguson, of course, involved police behaving in ways that irreparably harmed Black people.

What are we to make of all this? So many things, but I would briefly offer the following observations:

1. Like the beautiful black panther, who moves boldly and gracefully, with intelligence, poise, power, and speed — so many of our people have had to move likewise. Chadwick was 43, Malcolm and Martin were 39, Medgar was 37, and Fred was a mere 21 when their lives came to an end, yet, their work — meaningful and powerful — endures.
2. This battle to be free has been long, hard, and painful, but the struggle continues. People in the dominant culture enjoy pretending it all ended with slavery, but many historians assert that the period right after slavery was just as brutal for Black people; and that period, of course, morphed into the seemingly endless period of subjugation, violence, and humiliation called Jim Crow. Imagine the grief of Black people, who believed that they were finally free, who had only just begun their lives as freedmen and women, and who built schools, churches, businesses, communities, and towns, only to discover that there was no equal justice — that they were, once again, in a fight to be compensated for their own labor, their dignity, their humanity, and their very lives. Yet, we must continue in our tenacious and brilliant struggle to resist inhumanity.
3. We have been courageous and steadfast as we have tried to move this country toward a more “perfect union” — demanding that this nation, in the words of Dr. King, “live up to its creed.” The ideas that all men are created equal, and that all are endowed with unalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” are foundational to the founding of this nation. So, we march, until justice and liberation come, with the courage and steadfastness of our ancestors.

Will this country ever learn? Or is it destined to keep repeating its most brutal and tragic moments over and over? Will the White people in this country who irrationally believe that they are somehow superior ever reject that fantasy and respect the brilliance, talent, and lives of Black people — without whom there would be no United States as we know it?

The book is yet to be written. We can only hope and fight for the best, as we keep turning out excellence even in the face of horror. To paraphrase the great Zora Neale Hurston, our eyes are watching God.