Farewell to a Revolutionary

Thousands of people went to see Fred’s body lying in the Rayner Funeral Home on the South Side on the weekend after the raid. On the following Monday, five thousand more walked past the open casket at Reverend McNelty’s church in Melrose Park. After the procession, the church was filled to capacity for the memorial service. Mike Gray’s documentary film about Fred’s life had become a film about his murder. He filmed the service and I have watched his documented footage many times.

The pallbearers were Panther men in black leather jackets. William O’Neal had visited the Hamptons the night after the raid and begged them to allow him to serve as a pallbearer. They consented. He joined Rush and four other Panther men around the coffin. Together they wheeled the casket into the sanctuary to begin the service with the church chorus singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The flower bearers were eight Panther women, who were stalwarts in the party. They sat in the front row in dresses and joined in the singing.

The Honor Guard was composed of Hanrahan’s Most Wanted list. It included David Barksdale, the chief of the Black Disciples; Jeff Fort, the leader of the Black P. Stone Nation; Cha-Cha Jimenez, chairman of the Young Lords Organization; Obed Lopez of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO); and a representative from the Latin Kings. Father Clemens, the popular black priest from a South Side Catholic church, read the obituary prepared by Fred’s family.

In 1967, Fred became president of the Maywood NAACP Youth Chapter, leading, without fear for personal safety, protest marches for recreational activities for black youth of Maywood who had none, for open housing and improvement of school relationships at Proviso East High School. In November 1968, Fred became chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, working with superhuman strength and dedication to better the lot of black people. On Thursday morning, December 4, 1969, his life was ended, but his dedication and passion for freedom lives.

Father Clemens, known for his advocacy for black youth, ended with the refrain familiar to everyone who knew Fred:

You can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution. You can jail the liberator, but you can’t jail the liberation. You can run the freedom fighter all around the country, but you can’t stop freedom fighting. So believed Fred—so said Fred—so say we all.

Father Clemens was followed by eulogies from Reverend Ralph Abernathy, leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Russell Meek, a well-known Chicago journalist and media commentator. Skip spoke next. We had just received the informal report of the independent autopsy a few hours before his speech, which confirmed Deborah’s account that Fred died of two shots fired into his head when he was in a reclining position. With the self-righteousness and fire inherited from his Calvinist preacher father, Skip declared: “What Hanrahan and Jalovec don’t understand, and what those police officers who put those two bullet holes in his head don’t understand, and what Nixon and John Mitchell [the attorney general] don’t understand, is that you can’t kill the chairman, and anyone who tries is an enemy of the people and is a pig. Pigs die, but Chairman Fred lives.”

Jesse Jackson gave the main eulogy, proclaiming again that “the police attack on Fred and Mark was an attack on the entire black community.” He called for the community to work to get rid of racist politicians like Hanrahan.

Bobby Rush and Reverend McNelty delivered the last remarks and benediction. Rush reiterated Fred’s admonition to “Be strong” and to carry on his work. In spite of his entreaties, Rush had noticed a change in the party, which was to increase in the coming weeks and months. He described this to me years later: “Fred’s death played a tremendous role in destroying the party. After that night, the party slowly declined and members left one by one.”

In the pageantry of Fred’s death, this decline was not immediately discernible. We hid the devastating effects by repeating the slogan, “You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.” It’s what we wanted to believe, but that didn’t make it true.

Fred’s casket was taken from the sanctuary by the pallbearers and placed in a hearse, where it was driven to O’Hare airport. It was flown to Haynesville, Louisiana, for a final service before burial at the Bethel Baptist Church cemetery.