Fred Hampton, deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, was born on August 30, 1948 and raised in the Chicago suburb of Maywood, Illinois. In high school he excelled in academics and athletics. After Hampton graduated from high school, he enrolled in a pre-law program at Triton Junior College in River Grove, Illinois. Hampton also became involved in the civil rights movement, joining his local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His dynamic leadership and organizational skills in the branch enabled him to rise to the position of Youth Council President. Hampton mobilized a racially integrated group of five hundred young people who successfully lobbied city officials to create better academic services and recreational facilities for African American children.
In 1968, Hampton joined the Black Panther Party (BPP), headquartered in Oakland, California. Using his NAACP experience, he soon headed the Chicago chapter. During his brief BPP tenure, Hampton formed a “Rainbow Coalition” which included Students for a Democratic Society, the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang and the National Young Lords, a Puerto Rican organization. Hampton was also successful in negotiating a gang truce on local television.
In an effort to neutralize the Chicago BPP, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Chicago Police Department placed the chapter under heavy surveillance and conducted several harassment campaigns. In 1969, several BPP members and police officers were either injured or killed in shootouts, and over one hundred local members of the BPP were arrested.
During an early morning police raid of the BPP headquarters at 2337 W. Monroe Street on December 4, 1969, twelve officers opened fire, killing the 21-year-old Hampton and Peoria, Illinois Panther leader Mark Clark. Police also seriously wounded four other Panther members. Many in the Chicago African American community were outraged over the raid and what they saw as the unnecessary deaths of Hampton and Clark. Over 5,000 people attended Hampton’s funeral where Reverends Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference eulogized the slain activist. Years later, law enforcement officials admitted wrongdoing in the killing of Hampton and Clark. In 1990, and later in 2004, the Chicago City Council passed resolutions commemorating December 4 as Fred Hampton Day.
Why the US government murdered Fred Hampton
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Apparently they used to exclusively buy gourmet beans, but then got so big there literally weren’t enough gourmet beans on Earth to even theoretically buy so they started buying cheap beans and roasting the shit out of them. When they were established they basically only had to taste better than cheap diner/gas station coffee, but now lots of actually good coffee shops have opened that have good coffee so their coffee is now just clearly bad.
You’re not supposed to drink the regular coffee, you have to get the coffee milkshakes or lattes that are like equal parts coffee/sugar/heavy cream. Starbucks can be great as long as you concede that it’s a coffee-flavored dessert shop.
I believe they used monopoly tactics to force most competing coffee shops out of business, and then used advertising to go to the rest of the way. Allegedly they had good coffee at some point in the past. They may have enshittified it to increase profits. They also, fromwhat I’m told, add enormous amounts of sugar and flavoring until the resulting beverage is only vaguely coffeeish.
From my coffee snob perspective, also a close relative worked there so I’ve tried most things on the menu for free:
Coffee is getting more expensive in general, due in part to global warming. This is particularly true of the Arabica variety which is basically synonymous with “specialty” coffee, whereas Robusta is more bitter and too reminiscent of the old-school Folgers that your grandparents make, but it can be delicious if sourced from the right farm and roasted well.
We may, in the next 20 years, see Arabica pricing out the average consumer. There will be new varieties like Liberica that could take up the mantle. I haven’t tried it, but I heard it’s kind of … grassy tasting, so we may just end up having to live with smaller doses of coffee in less milk for the same price as what buys a quadruple-shot 32oz latte today.
There’s another aspect to this: the public in general is acquiring a more discerning taste for coffee, so expectations are increasing, and mindsets have already accepted coffee as a significant expense of one’s personal budget.
Starbucks is variously overpriced or fairly priced depending on the menu item. The food tends to be overpriced but also above average quality. The Frappuccinos are overpriced by quite a bit. But the traditional espresso drinks and cold brew are all comparably priced to mid tier specialty coffee shops. While the quality of the drink won’t be as high as a specialty shop, usually convenience and reliability make up for it. You can get more value out of it by charging your phone for free, using their Wi-Fi if needed, using a usually-clean bathroom, and maybe cooling off in the A/C. Those latter intangibles vary by location but can be more consistent than specialty shops which these days often have policies of no laptops and timed seating (in big cities anyway).
All that said … I always prefer a specialty shop if one is available.
