The Black Revolutionary and the Black Betrayer

Abstract

The Black Revolutionary and the Black Betrayer Tacuma Peters (bio) Shaka King, dir. Judas and the Black Messiah. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2021. Judas and the Black Messiah follows a brief period in the political life of Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, from 1968–1969. It also follows William O'Neal, the security chief of the same Black Panther chapter and an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The dramatic film is at once a political documentary, a romance, and an undercover thriller. As a dramatic portrayal of political life, it shows the services that Chicago Black Panthers sought to provide communities (i.e., the free breakfast program, medical clinics, advocacy for individual families) and the solidarities the Panthers cultivated with the Young Lords Party, the Young Patriots, Students for Democratic Society, and Black street gangs. The drama centers on the attempts of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and the Black Panthers to educate communities resisting state-sponsored oppression, to foster solidarity, and to foment a socialist revolution, all while battling the agents of repression including the FBI, the States Attorney's office, local and Federal courts, and the Chicago Police Department. The film also follows William O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) in a set of increasingly thrilling scenes where he faces the threats of either being revealed as an FBI informant, or being rearrested and sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence if he does not act as an agent provocateur and informant. It also portrays the intimacy between Fred Hampton and fellow Panther Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), including many touching scenes that range from flirting to conversations about children and revolutionary love. As a film that documents the political life of Fred Hampton and the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s, Judas and the Black Messiah has an educational imperative and reason for being. However, for audiences searching for deeper understandings of concepts such as "the people," power, love, and revolution, Judas and the Black Messiah might not provide them with the education they seek. While the film often presents shallow dramatic content, character development, and political settings, as well as renders many characters forgettable, it does feature some significant lessons. First, the film documents how the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party was committed to solidarity within and across racial difference, which made the organization a threat to local and national power structures. Second, the film shifts the California-centric public imagination of the Black Panther Party by demonstrating how local concerns and organizing influenced the history of the United States' second city. Third, the film documents the inter-agency collaboration of the FBI, Illinois State Attorney, and Chicago Police Department in the assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, thereby illuminating the complex mechanisms of political repression of Black movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Fourth, the film displays Fred Hampton's powerful oratory skills and portrays him as a charismatic, committed, and effective organizer; it does so through archiving his speeches in documentary footage as well as [End Page 885] in Daniel Kaluuya's dramatic oratory performances as the titular "Messiah." Finally, it reveals how O'Neal, "Judas," was coerced into being an informant, was valuable to the FBI, and was a deeply conflicted man. In these ways, Judas and the Black Messiah represents a real achievement for a film with wide distribution. It does not shy away from the violence of agents of law enforcement or the effectiveness and brilliance of Black revolutionaries. Though it may not satisfy the desires of all of its audiences, it does effectively leave a taste of this complex history in the mouths of viewers. If we are lucky, this film becomes an appetizer for future explorations of the period, the Black Panther Party, and Black revolutionaries. The film explores two of the more complex figures in the history of Black thought and politics: the revolutionary and the betrayer. Unfortunately, it does not do justice to either of them through its emptying of political thought and context. It does not attend to the varieties and meanings of Black life in late-1960s Chicago. For example, the absence of portrayals...