The Black Panthers Context From Mary Williams, Jane Fonda's Daughter

If you watched Sunday evening's 2021 Oscars and learned of British actor, Daniel Kaluya's, stunning and accolade-winning performance and have not gone on to watch 'Judas And The Black Messiah', maybe you should ask yourself why? If you have, you will have learned that it is an American biographical drama about the betrayal of Fred Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya), chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in late-1960s Chicago, at the hands of William O'Neal (played by Lakeith Stanfield), an FBI informant. Watching it may have left you trying to find out more context and so in this podcast we revisit our #KGNU interview with Mary Williams. Mary Luana Williams, author of 'Lost Daughter', is Jane Fonda's adopted daughter. She speaks here for KGNU with Claudia Cragg. Williams grew up with the Black Panther movement in Oakland, CA. In her early teens, she was raped by a pseudo 'theatrical agent' and subsequently adopted by Fonda taking her out of Oakland and the Panther community. She now works extensively with foundations for 'Lost Boys' in Morocco, the Sudan and Tanzania, which she says is in many ways working the same principles she learned from her mother. This conversation does not focus at all on 'celebrity issues', but instead on politics, race and gender and also on her adopted mother's, Ms. Fonda's, gamut of political passions. Ms. Williams has also been making strenuous attempts to re-connect her life through time spent with her extended birth family most of whom have remained in Oakland.