Fred Hampton

Early life

Fred Hampton was born on August 30, 1948, and grew up in Maywood, a suburb west of Chicago. He excelled in school and sports, then studied pre-law at Triton Junior College. According to the National Archives, part of his interest in law was the hope of using it as a defense against police brutality.

As a teenager he led the Youth Council of the NAACP's West Suburban Branch, building it to more than 500 members who pressed local officials for better schooling and recreation facilities for Black children.

The Illinois Black Panther Party

Drawn by the Black Panther Party's Ten-Point Program, Hampton joined in 1968 and soon became chairman of the newly formed Illinois chapter on Chicago's West Side. He organized rallies and oversaw the chapter's community programs, including a free breakfast program for children and the People's Clinic.

Hampton was best known for building alliances. He helped broker a nonaggression pact among powerful Chicago street gangs and assembled what became known as the Rainbow Coalition. WTTW describes it as an alliance of the Panthers, the Puerto Rican Young Lords and the Young Patriots, a group of poor white Appalachian migrants; BlackPast also lists Students for a Democratic Society and the Blackstone Rangers among Hampton's partners.

The December 1969 raid

Hampton's growing influence drew close surveillance from the FBI and the Chicago Police Department, and more than a hundred chapter members were arrested during 1969. William O'Neal, a Panther who was secretly an FBI informant, supplied a floor plan of the apartment at 2337 West Monroe Street, which reached the Cook County State's Attorney's office.

Before dawn on December 4, 1969, Chicago police officers carrying a warrant to search for illegal weapons raided the apartment and opened fire. Hampton, 21, and Mark Clark, a Panther leader from Peoria, were killed and others were wounded. Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan's official account said the Panthers had fired first. A federal investigation later found that police had fired about ninety-nine shots and the Panthers one or two. Surviving Panthers were charged, but the charges were dropped, and a federal grand jury did not indict anyone involved in the raid.

Aftermath and legacy

Over 5,000 people attended his funeral. Survivors and families pursued a civil suit, and in 1983 the city, Cook County and the federal government paid $1.85 million in a settlement. No participant in the raid was ever convicted of a crime. BlackPast notes that law enforcement officials later admitted wrongdoing. WTTW reports that later investigations suggested the FBI, the State's Attorney's office and the police conspired to kill Hampton. That conclusion was never tested in a criminal trial, so the full extent of the FBI's role is still debated.

Hampton's son, Fred Hampton Jr., was born weeks after the raid. Chicago's City Council commemorated December 4 as Fred Hampton Day in resolutions passed in 1990 and 2004. His story reached a wide audience again with the 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah.