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.

Fred Hampton (Documentary) fred-hampton

Why the US government murdered Fred Hampton

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  • Poogona [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Man the internet is so fucking dark sometimes

    Just wounded people baring their sores at each other and jeering at sympathy

      • Poogona [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        It does feel that way sometimes and I don't even post here often. But I guess an actually systematic ideology that can identify where your suffering comes from allows people to accept that they are victims sometimes without that realization destroying their ego I dunno

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        We can be pretty vicious towards people outside our overton window. It's worth remembering that a lot of those people are only like this because they grew up subjected to one of the most pervasive and effective propaganda systems in human history. Most of them had to be hammered in to the shape of Americans and would probably be normal people had they not been born in this place at this time. That doesn't mean we should be nice to them, but we should remember that they didn't get this way without a lot of often quite violent "help."

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      What did I do this time?

      Yeah no you're right though. Away from judging eyes people truly unleash the fanged and clawed creature inside them.

      • Poogona [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Don't worry I'm just processing my findings from a sort of internet-safari thing I've been doing

        People are in a lot of emotional pain out there and they just sit around torturing themselves further and egg each other on while they do it. Just a compassionless desert with people in it who don't even know they don't have to live this way