Who are we?

The Hampton Institute (HI) is a proletarian (working class) think tank that was founded in 2013. In contrast to traditional think tanks, we are a virtual organization that does not have a physical location and does not seek to provide specific policy analysis for political parties. For organizational purposes, our official location is in Albany, New York with a mailing address in Clifton Park, New York. Our chairpersons are located throughout the United States (including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Colorado, Texas, Oregon, Hawaii, and California), as well as in Canada (Montreal) and Australia. Our contributors are located all over the world, including Korea, Japan, Palestine, Syria, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, UK, Spain, Germany, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Brazil, and Iceland, among other places.

The HI was founded by Colin Jenkins, a socialist, with the purpose of giving a platform to everyday, working-class people to theorize, comment, analyze, and discuss matters that exist outside the confines of our daily lives, yet greatly impact us on a daily basis. We are named as a tribute to former Black Panther Party member and revolutionary martyr, Fred Hampton, and also take inspiration from Italian Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, and educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire.

We exist to fill the historical void that Gramsci once termed, "Organic Intellectualism" – the collective politicization and critical analysis of and from the working class itself. We are indifferent to traditional structures dominated by the pedigreed and privileged intelligentsia. Our members are passionate and probing members of the commons who believe that intelligent analysis exists throughout the socioeconomic spectrum, and the only thing that separates those who own a public voice and those who do not is varying degrees of privilege. Thus, credentials earned and given through dominant society are often nothing more than products of privilege; and for that reason alone, perspectives and analyses coming from these credentials/privilege are often presented in a way that opposes the public-at-large (the working class). We seek to challenge this embedded, highly controlled, and top-down mode of inquiry by offering an alternative, organic, and bottom-up viewpoint.

We seek to build class consciousness. We seek to end oppressive systems like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. We seek the liberation of all through the construction of a people/community-centered society.

All power to the people.