Fred Hampton, the great American activist, and revolutionary socialist was a leader in the BPP (Black Panther Party). The local law enforcement and the FBI harassed and targeted Fred Hampton, resulting in his killing during a police attack on his apartment on December 4th, 1969.
More About Fred Hampton Murder
Frederick Allen Hampton, the great American activist, and revolutionary socialist came to prominence in Chicago as chairman of the Illinois chapter of the BPP and deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party. He established the Rainbow Coalition, a multi-cultural political association that initially included the Young Patriots, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work social transformation or change.
In 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified Fred Hampton as a radical threat. The Federal Bureau of Investigation attempted to sabotage his works in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black groups and positioning a counter-intelligence operative in the native Panthers. A tactical unit of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in juxtaposition with the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shot and killed Fred Hampton in his bed during a pre-dawn raid at his Chicago apartment in 1969, as mentioned above. During the attack, they also killed Panther Mark Clark and seriously wounded others. In January of the next year (1970), a coroner’s jury held an investigation and ruled Clark and Fred Hampton’s demises to be justifiable homicide.
Later, people filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the survivors and Fred Hampton and Mark Clark’s relatives. A settlement of over $1 million resolved the civil lawsuit in 1982, and Cook County, the City of Chicago, and the federal authority each paid one-3rd to a group of over six plaintiffs. Given revelations about the prohibited or illegal COINTELPRO program and files associated with the murders, several scholars consider Fred Hampton’s demise an assassination under the Federal Bureau Investigation’s initiative.
The Early Life and Youth of Fred Hampton
On August 30th, 1948, Fred Hampton was born in modern-day Summit (Illinois) and grew up in Maywood, both suburbs of Chicago. His guardians or parents had migrated to the north from Louisiana, as part of the Great Migration of black Americans in the 20th century out of the South. They worked at the Argo Starch Company. As a youth, God had gifted Fred Hampton in the classroom and athletically. He hoped to play center field for the New York Yankees.
Fred Hampton graduated from Proviso East High School with honors and varsity letters and a Junior Achievement Award in 1966. He enrolled at Triton Junior College in nearby River Grove (Illinois), where he majored in pre-law. Fred Hampton planned to become familiar with the legal system to defend against the police.
When he and other Black Panthers later followed the police in his community supervision program, watching out for police cruelty, they used his knowledge of the law to defend.
Fred Hampton, the great American activist and revolutionary socialist, became active in the NAACP and assumed control or leadership of its West Suburban Branch’s Youth Council. NAACP stands for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In Fred’s capacity as an NAACP youth organizer, he started to show natural leadership capabilities; from a community of over 25000, he could muster a youth group of 500 strong members. He worked to get more and better recreational facilities in the neighborhoods and to enhance or improve educational resources for Maywood’s underprivileged or impoverished black society. Through his active involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Fred Hampton hoped to achieve change through community organizing and peaceful activism.
Fred Hampton in Chicago
About the same time that Fred was organizing young black Americans for the NAACP, the BPP rose to national prominence. Fred Hampton got attracted to the Black Panther’s approach. Fred Hampton joined the Party and shifted to Chicago. In November 1968, Fred joined the Party’s nascent Illinois chapter. Over the next year, Fred Hampton, his ally, and associates made several significant Chicago achievements. Emphasizing that ethnic and racial conflict among gangs would keep its members entrenched in poverty, Fred Hampton strove to forge a class-conscious, multiracial alliance among the Black Panther Party.
Fred Hampton, the great American activist, and revolutionary socialist met the Young Lords in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood the day after they were in the news for subjugating a police-community workshop at the Chicago 18th District Police Station. The police arrested him twice together with Jimenez at the Wicker Park Welfare Office, and both had mob action charges at a non-violent picket of the office. The Red Guard Party, AIM, the Brown Berets, and the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) later joined the Rainbow Coalition.
Fred Hampton, the great American activist, rose in the Black Panthers based on his remarkable organizing skills, personal charisma, and substantial oratorical gifts. Once he became the chairman or leader of the Chicago chapter, as mentioned earlier, he planned weekly rallies, participated in strikes, worked closely with the Black Panther Party’s local People’s Clinic, and taught political education classes every morning at 6:00 am. Fred Hampton was also instrumental in the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program.
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The FBI Investigation
Fred Hampton’s effective leadership skills and communication ability marked him as a significant threat to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI started to keep close tabs on his activities. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, believed the Young Patriots, the Panthers, the Young Lords, and similar radical coalitions Fred Hampton forged in Chicago were a way to the rise of a revolution that could threaten the society and the United States authority.
In 1967, the FBI opened a file on the great American activist. It also tapped Hampton’s mum’s phone in February 1968, and by May, the FBI had placed Fred Hampton on the Bureau’s Agitator Index as a militant leader. In late 1968, the Racial Matters team of the FBI’S Chicago field office hired William O’Neal to work with it. The authorities had arrested him more than once for impersonating a federal officer and for interstate car theft. In exchange for having his felony charges becoming non-existent, William O’Neal agreed to infiltrate the Black Panther Party as a counter-intelligence operative (later committing suicide on January 25th, 1990).
William O’Neal joined the Party and rose in the association or organization, becoming Director of Chapter security and Fred Hampton’s bodyguard.
Through anonymous letters, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sowed distrust and eventually instigated a split between the Rangers and the Panthers. William provoked an armed clash between them on April 2nd, 1969. The Panthers became isolated from their power base in Chicago, and so the FBI worked to disrupt or undermine its ties with other radical associations. William O’Neal had the orders of creating a rift between the Students for a Democratic Society and the Party. The Bureau released a disinformation program to forestall the establishment of the Rainbow Coalition. Documents Senate investigators secured in the 1970s showed that the FBI encouraged chaos between the Panthers.
In October, Fred Hampton and Deborah Johnson, his girlfriend and pregnant with their 1st child called Fred Hampton Jr, rented an apartment. William O’Neal reported to his bosses that much of the Panthers’ stockpile of arms was there and drew them a map of the four-and-a-half room apartment.
About the Death of Fred Hampton
The FBI, determined to stop any enhancement of the BPP leadership’s effectiveness, decided to organize an armed raid on Fred’s apartment. William O’Neal, an FBI informant, had already provided his superiors with detailed info about Fred’s apartment.
On December 3rd, Fred Hampton taught a political education class at a local church, which most members attended. Afterward, many Panthers went to his Monroe Street apartment to spend the night there, including Fred, his girlfriend, and Mark Clark. They met O’Neal, who had prepared late dinner, which the group ate at around 12:00 am. The FBI informant had slipped barbiturate sleep agent secobarbital into a drink that Fred Hampton took during the dinner to sedate Fred so that he wouldn’t awaken during the raid. William O’Neal left at this point, and after one and a half hours (1:30 am), Hampton fell deep asleep.
At around 4 am, the heavily armed police group arrived at the site, divided into several teams, eight for the front of the building and more than 5 for the rear. Forty-five minutes later (4:45 am), they invaded the apartment. Mark Clark was the one on security duty that fateful day. The police shot him in the chest and killed him on the spot.
High on barbiturates, Fred Hampton was still sleeping on a mattress in the bedroom with his girlfriend (Deborah).
The police officers forcibly removed her from the room while Fred Hampton was still lying unconscious in bed. The raiding team shot at the head of the south bedroom. The shooting wounded Fred Hampton in the shoulder. According to the reports of some injured Panthers, they heard two shots, and the two shots might have been the ones that the police fired point-blank at Fred Hampton’s head.
Deborah Johnson says that one of the officers said:
“He is good and dead now.”
The Legacy of Fred Hampton (Media and Popular Culture)
‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ is an upcoming movie about Fred Hampton. Daniel Kaluuya plays Fred Hampton. Shaka King is its producer and director. It is due to be out this year (2021).
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