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Fact Check: Fred Hampton’s Mother Really Did Baby Sit Emmett Till

Fact Check: Fred Hampton’s Mother Really Did Baby Sit Emmett Till

Fred Hampton’s Mother Really Did Baby Sit Emmett Till

Judas and the Black Messiah is finally available to be streamed on HBO Max.

The movie starred Lakeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya, who portrayed Fred Hampton, a young activist who was murdered by the FBI in his sleep for simply wanting better for his people.

There are so many highlights in the powerful film, but one of the most interesting moments was when Fred revealed that his mother used to babysit Emmett Till.

Naturally, I questioned the legitimacy of the statement and went into a deep dive. It turns out that Fred Hampton and Emmet Till were childhood neighbors.

Their fathers worked together at Corn Products and Fred’s mother became acquainted with Till’s regular babysitter, Fannie Wesley when she moved from Mississippi to Chicago. She helped Fannie watch Emmett Till because she stayed home with her three children until Fred turned 8.

“I couldn’t stand going to his funeral and seeing him like that,” Hampton’s mother, Iberia, says of the little boy she knew as “Bobo.” “I wanted to remember him as the active and saucy kid I babysat for.”

Fred Hampton began his activism career at the age of 16, three years after Emmett Till was lynched. Did Till’s historic lynching inspire him to be a revolutionist?

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