Judas and the Black Messiah (2020)

This movie is part crime thriller, part civil-rights historical drama, and all about the wrongs perpetrated on blacks who tried to change the course of their lives in America. It tells the story of the rise of the Black Panther Party’s deputy chairman, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), and the informant who helped the FBI orchestrate his assassination, Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield). We learn the thinking behind the Black Panther Party, created in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to fight against state-sanctioned violence and provide real aid to black communities in need. They were referred to as a “Black-nationalist hate group” by the FBI and subject to the most aggressive targeting by the FBI. Although Hoover also surveilled Martin Luther King Jr. and other black civil rights groups, he saw the Black Panthers as a real threat to white supremacy--they attempted to organize all disenfranchised groups together, including poor working class whites, to form a coalition to make all their lives better. They attempted to dismantle the caste system, and for that they were hunted, bombed, and murdered. The casual racism is shocking and rings true. A painful but moving watch.