Fred Hampton’s Home, 2337 W Monroe Street

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In December of 1969, 21 year old leader of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, was shot by a raid conducted jointly by the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. Hampton was raised in suburban Maywood and attended Proviso East High School and Triton Junior College. He was active in the NAACP Youth Council before being attracted to the direct approach of the Black Panther Party (BPP).

“Hampton's organizing skills, substantial oratorical gifts, and personal charisma allowed him to rise quickly in the Black Panthers. Once he became the leader of the Chicago chapter, he organized weekly rallies, worked closely with the BPP's local People's Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6 am, and launched a project for community supervision of the police. Hampton was also instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program.”

“While Hampton impressed many of the people with whom he came into contact as an effective leader and talented communicator, those very qualities marked him as a major threat in the eyes of the FBI. Hence, the bureau began keeping close tabs on his activities. Subsequent investigations have shown that FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover was determined to prevent the formation of a cohesive black movement in the United States. Hoover saw the Panthers, Young Patriots, Young Lords, and similar radical coalitions forged by Hampton in Chicago as a frightening steppingstone toward the creation of such a revolutionary body that could, in its strength, cause a radical change in the U.S. government.”

The FBI hired an accused car thief named William O’Neal to infiltrate the BPP organization and give information leading to the raid in which Hampton was killed. O’Neal went so far as to drug Hampton so that he slept throughout the raid. While the police described the raid as a “shoot-out”, the BPPs countered that it was a “shoot-in” because only 1 of the 90-100 bullets fired came from a non-police gun.

sources:

1. Black Panther Party. Accessed April 23, 2018. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/142.html.

2. "Fred Hampton." Wikipedia. April 26, 2018. Accessed April 29, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton.