So all of a sudden I was working for the FBI, which, in my mind, at that point, I associated with being an FBI agent. He always said, 'You're working for me,' and I associated him as the FBI. And, so when he asked me to join the Black Panther Party, and he used terms, he never used the word informant. I mean, I think I grew up wanting to be a policeman, admiring and respecting policemen, although I always thought it was outside of my reach. Notably, the interviewer notes on the tape that O'Neal does not maintain eye contact with them, saying, "if you could look at me."Īsked about how he felt working for the FBI, O'Neal said, "Well, in my community, the policemen were, I mean, it was the quickest way to gain respect. I had no idea of anything about their politics." In fact, the day I joined I was pretty sure it was just another gang, unlike, not unlike the Blackstone Rangers, or, or the Cobras or something. Newton, I knew nothing of the Black Panther Party. LaKeith Stanfield as William O'Neal in 'Judas and the Black Messiah.' Warner BrosĪ transcript for this interview in its entirety, including much not featured on the show, has been published online by Washington University.Īsked what he thought about the Panthers before his FBI-enforced role there, O'Neal said, "Prior to the articles I had read about Huey P.
BLACK PANTHER INFORMANT FULL
Much of what we know about O'Neal's life comes from an interview he gave for the 1989 PBS civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985, the only full interview he gave on his time in the Panthers. However, he is believed to have returned in secret to Chicago in 1984, six years before his death. His role in the raid was revealed four years later in 1973, leading the Bureau to put him into witness protection in California. We only know bits and pieces about what happened to O'Neal in real life.
It also does not reveal much of what happened to O'Neal after the death of Hampton, save for a final set of title cards that revealed how he died. In fact, Kaluuya is 10 years older than Hampton was when he died, in a raid made possible by the information O'Neal gave to the FBI. For example, when the real O'Neal was caught stealing a car by FBI agent Roy Mitchell (played in the film by Jesse Plemons), he was 17 and Hampton was 18, whereas in Judas and the Black Messiah they are played by Stanfield, 29 and Kaluuya, 31. The film makes some notable changes to the true story. In the movie, Get Out's LaKeith Stanfield plays William O'Neal, a petty car thief turned FBI informant, who infiltrated the Chicago branch of the Panthers led by Fred Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya.) Judas and the Black Messiah is streaming now on HBO Max, and tells a fascinating story of the efforts the FBI made to infiltrate the Black Panthers in the 1960s.
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