In late December 1969, two FBI Chicago field office informants—only identified as “CG T‑2” and “CG T‑7”—gave their FBI handlers a report on informal field hearings held by members of what the informants described as “the Committee of Black Congressmen” which was in fact the Democracy Select Committee, founded by then-Rep. Charles Diggs (D‑MI) and the forerunner of the modern-day Congressional Black Caucus. Other members included Representatives John Conyers (D‑MI), Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (D‑NY), William Clay (D‑MO), and Louis Stokes (D‑OH), among others.
Just over two weeks after the Chicago Police Department’s murder of Black Panther activists Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, Diggs and several of his DSC colleagues gathered at Chicago’s Colonial House Restaurant to hear from community leaders, local officials and the public about the Hampton/Clark murders and reports of widespread police violence and brutality. The FBI’s informants reported that James Murphy, First Assistant to the Cook County States’ Attorney’s office read a statement claiming it was “improper” for their office to participate in the hearing “since the panel had not been authorized by the Congress to hold the hearing.” Murphy was clearly weak in his understanding of both the Constitution and the rules of the House at the time. Diggs and his colleagues had all the Article I authority they needed to hold the hearing and take testimony.
There are many striking things about this 13-page FBI report, but perhaps the most striking is the continuity it reveals between the atmosphere in the country in 1969 and now: police brutality and the unjustified killings of young Black men; the collusion between federal, state and local authorities to suppress Black political activism; and the consistent list of demands for justice in multiple areas of American life as they affected the Black community.
The FBI report contains the Black Panther’s 10-point reform program, as read into the record by then-Illinois Black Panther Minister of Defense (and future Congressman) Bobby Rush, which included “…freedom…We want power to determine the destiny of our black community” and “…an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.” Over 50 years later, the simple demand to just not be arbitrarily killed by police is a central plank of the Movement for Black Lives.
Over 230 years after the promulgation of the Constitution, America is once again a nation engulfed in political chaos and moral schizophrenia over state-sponsored murders and political repression of Black, Arab, Muslim, Latino and Asian Americans, among others. That violence, racism and repression is fueled by the current occupant of the Oval Office and those carrying out his “law and order” program, which targets virtually any one or any group that challenges Trump’s twisted vision of what the United States should look like and stand for. But like Fredrick Douglass, I retain the hope—slender though it be—that we can still come through this crisis, that a better, more just American experience is possible for all our citizens.
For that to happen, those of us who have rarely if ever suffered violence or loss at the hands of the state must acknowledge the pain of those who have suffered and lost. We must help stop racially-motivated, state-sponsored violence, help ensure the perpetrators of it are punished, and support policies and programs that de-securitize the government’s approach to our domestic challenges. A better America is possible, but only if our professed empathy manifests itself through concrete action.