Why Mother Akua Said Yes to the Making of "Judas and the Black Messiah"
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Since the 2015 #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has taken strides to ensure broader representation among nominees and Academy members. Like all of the entertainment industry, the Oscars still have work to do when it comes to diversity. But this year’s Academy Awards remain historic for diverse representation, and for the representation of Black Hollywood.
One film receiving attention from the Academy in particular is Judas and the Black Messiah the first-ever Best Picture nominee with an all-Black producing team. The film tells the story of Fred Hampton, the former chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther party, and the role that an FBI informant, William O’Neal, played in his assassination.
Judas and the Black Messiah stars Oscar-nominated actors Daniel Kaluuya (who plays Hampton), and LaKeith Stanfield (who plays O’Neal), and was written by writer/director Shaka King, in tandem with brothers Kenny and Keith Lucas. But there’s no one more deserving of credit for the movie's success than Akua Njeri. Formerly known as Deborah Johnson, Njeri was betrothed to and pregnant by Hampton on the fateful pre-dawn morning in 1969 when a phalanx of cops and agents besieged their apartment and shot Hampton dead in his sleep. She may not have greenlit the budget, but the blessing of Njeri aka "Mother Akua"—and her son, Fred Hampton, Jr.—were the most crucial yeses.
During the lethal raid, Mother Akua tried to shield Hampton with her pregnant body—and all these decades later, she is just as brave. We chatted about what, after all these years, persuaded her to let someone make a film about her beloved, the philosophies that were instrumental to the group’s impact, and the extant state of the long struggle for our people’s freedom and self determination.
Many people over the years have tried to get you to make a film or book or TV show. Your family was resistant—and then Shaka King, Daniel Kaluuya, and producer Ryan Coogler came to the Hampton House, and you ended up meeting for seven hours. You were impressed with them, particularly Daniel. What gave you comfort?
He was real. He wasn’t fake or giving me a script. Some things that happened in his life just drove me to him. I was trying to get some kind of expression from him—what he was thinking about what's going on. I couldn’t get it, but I could tell he was processing everything that was being said.
But Dominique Fishback [who plays Akua in the film] was there, too, don’t forget. She seemed to be picking up my little mannerisms really well. Particularly my side-eye—how I look at people like they're crazy.
The side-eye! That’s impressive. What else happened at the meeting?
What really, really impressed me to the utmost was when Chairman Jr. [Fred Hampton Jr., Akua’s son] told somebody to Google the worst community in Chicago—the baddest community. And it said K-Town. And the Chairman said that’s where we’re going. So Daniel and Dominique and some others drove over there. This is like 1 or 2 in the morning, and 10 or 11 people had just got killed over there.
They weren’t all scared—nothing. For somebody to go over there at about 2 o’clock in the morning after a seven-hour meeting, and 10 people had got shot and killed? I’m like, These some bad motherf*ckers.
These were the right kind of people to make a film about the Panthers.
In the past people came with their own preconceived notions—the story they want to tell. People that wanted to elevate the pigs in the story, or attorneys, and Chairman Fred and the Black Panther Party were just the sidebar. But after many struggles and discussions, we were able to get much of what we fought for. Chairman Fred Jr. and myself were the only cultural consultants in the making of Judas and the Black Messiah.
This past year I’ve watched Judas, One Night in Miami, the MLK/FBI documentary, and the Chicago Seven, among others. All of them are set during the’60s and in some way elucidate J. Edgar Hoover’s influence—a powerful white man who was hellbent on destroying Black liberation. Now, here we are in 2021 and the FBI building in D.C. is still named the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Remember last summer when people were toppling confederate statues? It feels like a building dedicated to the legacy of Hoover is not far off from, say, a confederate’s name on a bridge.
Well, what they always tell us? We’ll coddle you, we’ll lie to you, we’ll bullsh*t you, but business is as usual in this country. We continue to see that with so many Black people still getting murdered at the hands of pigs. As the FBI director, Hoover had vowed to destroy the party to prevent a Black Messiah, which is how we got the title of the movie. The Black Panther Party was deemed the greatest internal threat to the security of the country.
It’s well known that you were pregnant when Chairman Fred was assassinated. Was there ever a time when your son was not going to be a junior? Did you and his father float other names?
First of all, before I even had the idea of having children, I said, if I ever have children, they would never be named Fred or Willie. But because of what happened on December 4 of 1969, it had to be Fred.
Was there a moment when you didn’t want him to grow up and fight for liberation? Knowing the danger of that fight?
When he was a baby, he would see movie clips about his father, and I would talk to him. I don’t even know if he could understand, but I would talk to him about it, because I knew he would get a lot of negative information about the Black Panther Party. As he grew up, he’d go to school and he’d bring books home, and say, 'Look what I found,' and he’d sit down and he’d talk about what was in there. I’d say, 'Well, that’s some bullshit.' I made sure I told him all I could.
It’s in the film, and I’ve read that when you and the Chairman first met, you used to read your poetry, and he said your poetry should be in service of liberation. That idea echoes what Du Bois said about Black art: “All art is propaganda and ever must be.” But there was his contemporary Alain Locke, the steward of the Harlem Renaissance, who used to say that a Black artist should set aside propaganda in favor of art. Where do you stand now on those pronouncements? Do you believe that all Black art should be propaganda in service of Black liberation?
I haven’t changed, and let me tell you this: The Harlem Renaissance was introduced to combat Marcus Garvey. You know, art for the sake of art’s sake. It’s selfish. Writing about how you think or how you feel, without regard for the people.
I never read poetry to him. I thought I was all this and that in writing it, and I brought my little poetry book when I met him. And I asked him what did he think about poetry. And he said, 'Well, if they don’t serve the interest and the needs of the people or reflect that, we have no interest.' When he said that, I hid my little book behind my back, and I said, 'Me either, brother!' And I never read him my poetry. That’s the creative license, I guess, you call it, where they did poetry in the movie.
The poet A. Van Jordan has a poem, “Notes from a Southpaw.” In it, there’s a conflict between a young Black guy and a white guy who uses the n-word. They get into fisticuffs, and the speaker notes that he’ll likely win because the white guy is older than him and has more to lose. He says, “Note to self: The one who has more to lose always loses.” Do you think revolution is essentially a young person’s pursuit? Chairman Fred was 21 when he was assassinated, and we could argue the Black Lives Matter movement has been catalyzed by young people.
I think it’s all of our game, and our responsibility to fight in our own communities’ self-interest. Everybody is not a revolutionary. Everybody doesn’t want change. But the basic things that people have a right and a necessity for—we should be down with that. Chairman Fred would always talk about putting the interest of the people first. Ronald “Doc” Satchel, the minister of health, had a favorite quote: “We are like oxen to be ridden down the path of social revolution by the people.” That’s what we practiced.
What do you hope will come out of this film?
This movie was released in February and people are still talking about it. People are still having debates. And it’s sparking them to read more critically the information that’s out there. And that’s what the movie is doing: It’s moving the people to start thinking about fighting in their own interests and knowing when to draw the line of demarcation between the people and the state. I think it’s a myth that people can go and say they’re going to infiltrate the police and they’re going to fight for the community—it’s a whole culture behind it, do you understand? We’re steadily pounded with the rhetoric that the majority of the police are good. But Officer Friendly never existed in Black and oppressed communities.
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