NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Fred Hampton

Fred Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). He was killed in his apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County, Illinois State's Attorney's Office (SAO), in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hampton's death was chronicled in the 1971 documentary film The Murder of Fred Hampton. Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 242nd day of the year (243rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 338th day of the year (339th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Official language(s) English[1] Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Largest metro area Chicago Metropolitan Area Area Ranked 25th - Total 57,918 sq mi (140,998 kmÂ²) - Width 210 miles (340 km) - Length 390 miles (629 km) - % water 4. ... The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African American organization founded to promote civil rights and self-defense. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, under the jurisdiction of the mayor of Chicago. ... F.B.I. and FBI redirect here. ...

Youth

Hampton was born on August 30, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Maywood, a suburb to the west of the city. His parents had moved north from Louisiana, and both worked at the Argo Starch Company. As a youth, Hampton was gifted both in the classroom and on the athletic field, graduating from high school with honors in 1966. Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area - City 234. ... Official language(s) English[1] Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Largest metro area Chicago Metropolitan Area Area Ranked 25th - Total 57,918 sq mi (140,998 kmÂ²) - Width 210 miles (340 km) - Length 390 miles (629 km) - % water 4. ... Maywood is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... Athletics, also known as track and field or track and field athletics, is a collection of sport events. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ...

Following his graduation, Hampton enrolled at Triton Junior College in nearby River Grove, Illinois, majoring in pre-law. He also became active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), assuming leadership of the Youth Council of the organization's West Suburban Branch. In his capacity as an NAACP youth organizer, Hampton began to show signs of his natural leadership abilities; from a community of 27,000, he was able to muster a youth group 500-members strong. He worked to get more and better recreational facilities established in the neighborhoods, and to improve educational resources for Maywood's impoverished black community. Through his involvement with the NAACP, Hampton hoped to achieve social change through nonviolent activism and community organizing. River Grove is a village located in Cook County, Illinois. ... The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, generally pronounced as EN Double AY SEE PEE) is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. ... Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. ...

Chicago

At about the same time that Hampton was successfully organizing young African Americans for the NAACP, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense started rising to national prominence. Hampton was quickly attracted to the Black Panthers' approach, which was based on a ten-point program of a mix of black self-determination and certain elements of Maoism. Hampton joined the Party and relocated to downtown Chicago, and in November of 1968 he joined the Party's nascent Illinois chapter — founded by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizer Bob Brown in late 1967. The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African American organization founded to promote civil rights and self-defense. ... The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African American organization founded to promote civil rights and self-defense. ... Self-determination is a principle in international law that a people ought to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structure free from outside influence. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC, pronounced snick) was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. ...

Over the next year, Hampton and his associates made a number of significant achievements in Chicago. Perhaps his most important accomplishment was his brokering of a nonaggression pact between Chicago's most powerful street gangs. Emphasizing that racial and ethnic conflict between gangs would only keep its members entrenched in poverty, Hampton strove to forge a class-conscious, multi-racial (albeit tenuous) alliance between the BPP, Students for a Democratic Society, the Blackstone Rangers, the National Young Lords in Chicago, and the Young Patriots. In May of 1969, Hampton called a press conference to announce that a truce had been declared among this "rainbow coalition," a phrase coined by Hampton and made popular over the years by Rev. Jesse Jackson, who eventually appropriated the name in forming his own unrelated coalition, Rainbow PUSH. A non-aggression pact is an international treaty between two or more states, agreeing to avoid war or armed conflict between them even if they find themselves fighting third countries, or even if one is fighting allies of the other. ... River City Ransom gameplay (U.S. NES Version) River City Ransom (ダウンタウン熱血物語 Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari Downtown Hotblood Story in Japan and Street Gangs in Europe) is a video game for the Nintendo Family Computer and the Nintendo Entertainment System from the... A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum in Jakarta, Indonesia shows what he found. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... SDS logo The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was, historically, a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the countrys New Left. ... The Almighty Black P. Stone Nation (often abbreviated BPSN) is a Chicago-based street gang estimated to have almost 25,000,000 gang members. ... The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and in New York (notably Spanish Harlem), Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican Hispanic nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. ... Look up Push in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Hampton's organizing skills, substantial oratorical gifts, and personal charisma allowed him to rise quickly in the Black Panthers. Once he became 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 6am, and launched a project for community supervision of the police. Hampton was also instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program. When Brown left the Party with Stokely Carmichael in the FBI-fomented SNCC/Panther split, Hampton assumed chairmanship of the Illinois state BPP, automatically making him a national BPP deputy chairman. As the Panther leadership across the country began to be decimated by the impact of the FBI's COINTELPRO, Hampton's prominence in the national hierarchy increased rapidly and dramatically. Eventually, Hampton was in line to be appointed to the Party's Central Committee's Chief of Staff. He would have achieved this position had it not been for his untimely death on the morning of December 4, 1969. Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael (June 29, 1941 â€“ November 15, 1998), also known as Kwame Ture, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC, pronounced snick) was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. ... COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. ...

FBI investigation

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. It 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 radical movement in the United States. Hoover saw the Panthers, and radical ethnic nationalist coalitions like that forged by Hampton in Chicago, as a frightening stepping stone toward the creation of just such a revolutionary body that could, in its strength, potentially overthrow the government of the United States. F.B.I. and FBI redirect here. ... John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 â€“ May 2, 1972) was an influential but controversial Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). ... Ethnic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives political legitimacy from historical cultural or hereditary groupings (ethnicities); the underlying assumption is that ethnicities should be politically distinct. ...

The FBI opened a file on Hampton in 1967 that over the next two years expanded to twelve volumes and over four thousand pages. A wire tap was placed on Hampton's mother's phone in February of 1968. By May of that year, Hampton's name was placed on the "Agitator Index" and he would be designated a "key militant leader for Bureau reporting purposes." Telephone tapping or Wire tapping/ Wiretapping (in US) describes the monitoring of telephone conversations by a third party, often by covert means. ... An agitator at a political demonstration in France. ...

In late 1968, the Racial Matters squad of the FBI's Chicago field office brought in an individual named William O'Neal, who had recently been arrested twice, for interstate car theft and impersonating a federal officer. In exchange for dropping the felony charges and a monthly stipend, O'Neal apparently agreed to infiltrate the BPP as a counterintelligence operative. He joined the Party and quickly rose in the organization, becoming Director of Chapter security and Hampton's bodyguard. Bodyguards of Viktor Yushchenko (far left) after leaving Gdansk city hall. ...

By means of anonymous letters, the FBI sowed distrust and eventually instigated a split between the Panthers and the Rangers, with O'Neal himself instigating an armed clash between the two on April 2, 1969. The Panthers became effectively isolated from their powerbase in the ghetto, so the FBI went to work to undermine its ties with other radical organizations. O'Neal was instructed to "create a rift" between the Party and SDS, whose Chicago headquarters was only blocks from that of the Panthers. The Bureau released a batch of racist cartoons in the Panthers' name, aimed at alienating white activists, and launched a disinformation program to forestall the realization of the "Rainbow Coalition." In repeated directives, J. Edgar Hoover demanded that the COINTELPRO personnel "destroy what the [BPP] stands for" and "eradicate its 'serve the people' programs". The Almighty Black P. Stone Nation (often abbreviated BPSN) is a Chicago-based street gang estimated to have almost 25,000,000 gang members. ... A ghetto is an area where people from a specific racial or ethnic background live as a group in seclusion, voluntarily or involuntarily. ... This box: Racism has many definitions, the most common and widely accepted is that members of one race are intrinsically superior or inferior to members of other races. ... Disinformation, in the context of espionage, military intelligence, and propaganda, is the spreading of deliberately false information to mislead an enemy as to ones position or course of action. ... COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. ...

The local Chicago police did not stand idly by. It helped the FBI by launching an all-out assault on the Black Panthers and their allies, characterizing the group as just a criminal gang. The CPD instigated an unprovoked armed confrontation with party members on July 16, which left one member mortally wounded and six others arrested on serious charges. On July 31, the CPD raided and ransacked the Monroe Street office, smashing typewriters, destroying food and medical supplies for the Panther health clinic and breakfast program, setting several small fires, and beating and arresting a number of Panthers for obstruction. A similar raid took place on October 31.

On May 26, 1969, Hampton was successfully prosecuted in a dubious case related to a theft in 1967 of US$72 worth of ice cream in Maywood. He was sentenced to two to five years, but he managed to obtain an appeal bond and was released in August.

In early October, Hampton and his girlfriend, Deborah Johnson, pregnant with their first child (Fred Hampton, Jr.), rented a four-and-a-half room apartment on 2337 West Monroe Street to be closer to BPP headquarters. O'Neal reported to his superiors that much of the Panthers' "provocative" stockpile of arms was being stored there. In early November, Hampton travelled to California on a speaking engagement to the UCLA Law Students Association. While there, he met with the remaining BPP national hierarchy, who appointed him to the Party's Central Committee. Shortly thereafter he was to assume the position of Chief of Staff and major spokesman. This, combined with the Chicago BPP chapter having become one of the strongest in the country, with one of the most successful Serve the People programs, motivated the FBI to look for a more permanent way of neutralizing Hampton. Fred Hampton, Jr. ...

Chicago police raid

On November 13, 1969, two Chicago police officers were ambushed and murdered. FBI officials asserted to the Chicago police that the Black Panthers had been responsible, and further claimed that the Panthers would not be taken alive in any attempt to arrest them, but rather would respond with deadly force.

In mid-November 1969 O'Neal provided the FBI with detailed information of Hampton's apartment, including the location of furniture and the bed in which Hampton and his then-pregnant girlfriend slept. An augmented, fourteen-man team of the SAO — Special Prosecutions Unit — was organized for a pre-dawn raid armed with an illegal weapons warrant.

On the evening of December 3, Hampton taught a political education course at a local church, which was attended by most members. Afterwards, as was typical, several Panthers retired to the Monroe Street apartment to spend the night, including Hampton and Deborah Johnson, Blair Anderson, Doc Satchell, Harold Bell, Verlina Brewer, Louis Truelock, Brenda Harris, and Mark Clark. Upon arrival, they were met by O'Neal, who had prepared a late dinner which was consumed by the group around midnight. O'Neal left at this point, and, at about 1:30 a.m., Hampton fell asleep in mid-sentence talking to his mother on the telephone. A drink consumed by Hampton during the earlier dinner was subsequently found to have been laced with the powerful barbiturate, secobarbitol, a sleep agent allegedly provided to O'Neal by the FBI ^{[citation needed]} to sedate Hampton so that he would not awaken during the subsequent raid. Mark Clark (Black Panther) (June 28, 1947 â€“ December 4, 1969) was a member of the Black Panther Party. ... Barbituric acid, the basic structure of all barbiturates Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and by virtue of this they produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to anesthesia. ...

At 4:00 a.m., the heavily armed police team arrived at the site, dividing into two teams, eight for the front of the building and six for the rear. At 4:45, they stormed in the apartment. Mark Clark, who had been in a front room with a shotgun in his lap, was killed instantly after firing off a single round; the only shot the Panthers fired. The automatic gunfire converged at the head of the bedroom where Hampton slept. Two officers found him wounded in the shoulder, and fellow Black Panther Harold Bell reported that he heard the following exchange:

Two shots were heard, which it was later discovered were fired point blank in Hampton's head. According to Deborah Johnson, one officer then said:

Hampton's body was dragged into the doorway of the bedroom and left in a pool of blood. The raiders then directed their gunfire towards the remaining Panthers, who were hiding in another bedroom. They were wounded, then beaten and dragged into the street, where they were arrested on charges of aggravated assault and the attempted murder of the officers. They were held on US$100,000 bail apiece

Aftermath

At a press conference the next day, the police announced the arrest team had been attacked by the "violent" and "extremely vicious" Panthers and had defended themselves accordingly. In a second press conference on December 8, the assault team was praised for their "remarkable restraint," "bravery," and "professional discipline" in not killing all the Panthers present. Photographic evidence was presented of bullet holes made by shots fired by the Panthers, but this was soon challenged by reporters. An internal investigation was undertaken; the assault team was exonerated of any wrongdoing. But investigators themselves later admitted it was a "whitewash". ^{[citation needed]} A day or two after the raid, the Chicago Police returned to the scene, and in a widely televised event, tore down the inside walls of the Black Panther home. Some believe this was done to destroy the ballistic evidence that could have incriminated the police. It took years of incessant public pressure to expose the truth; eventually it was proven that all but one of the 99 shots were fired by the police.^{[citation needed]}

Hampton's funeral was attended by 5,000 people, and he was eulogized by such black leaders as Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King's successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In his eulogy, Jackson noted that "when Fred was shot in Chicago, black people in particular, and decent people in general, bled everywhere." Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. ... Ralph Abernathy at National Press Club luncheon. ... â€œMartin Luther Kingâ€ redirects here. ... The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Logo. ...

Civil rights activists Roy Wilkins and Ramsey Clark (styled as "The Commission of Inquiry into the Black Panthers and the Police") subsequently alleged that the Chicago police had murdered the Black Panthers without justification or provocation,^{[citation needed]} and had violated the Panthers’ constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure. "The Commission" further alleged that the Chicago Police Department had imposed a summary punishment on the Panthers.^[2]

The federal grand jury did not return any indictment against anyone involved with the planning or execution of the raid. The officers involved in the raid were cleared by a grand jury of any crimes.

The families of Hampton and Clark filed a US$47.7 million civil suit against the city, state, and federal governments. More than a decade later, the suit was finally settled, and the two families each received an undisclosed sum. In 1990, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution declaring "Fred Hampton Day" in honor of the slain leader.

The Chicago City Council unanimously approved a resolution introduced by former Alderwoman Marlene C. Carter commemorating Dec. 4, 2004, as "Fred Hampton Day in Chicago." The resolution read in part: "Fred Hampton, who was only 21 years old, made his mark in Chicago history not so much by his death as by the heroic efforts of his life and by his goals of empowering the most oppressed sector of Chicago's Black community, bringing people into political life through participation in their own freedom fighting organization."

Quotes on Hampton

David Dellinger after his arrest for failing to report for his World War II draft physical David Dellinger (August 22, 1915 â€“ May 25, 2004) was a renowned pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change, and one of most influential American radicals in 20th century. ... For the similarly named Chicago album, see Chicago VII. The Chicago Seven The Chicago Seven were seven (originally eight, when they were known as the Chicago Eight) defendants charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot and other charges related to violent protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion... Oakland is the name of several places in the United States of America: Oakland, Alabama Oakland, California (The best-known city with this name) Oakland, Florida Oakland, Maine Oakland, Maryland Oakland, Michigan Oakland, Missouri Oakland, Nebraska Oakland, New Jersey Oakland, Oklahoma Oakland, Oregon Oakland, Pennsylvania Oakland, Rhode Island Oakland, Tennessee... Chicago is a monthly magazine published by the Tribune Company. ... Dr. Quentin Young honored at the 1992 Debs - Thomas - Harrington Dinner Quentin Young (born 1923) is Chicago-based physician who is recognized for his efforts in advocating for single-payer healthcare in the United States. ... Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 â€“ November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who became the first African American Mayor of Chicago, serving from 1983 until his death. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew: ××‘×¨× × ×•×¢× ×—×•×ž×¡×§×™ Yiddish: ××‘×¨× × ×•×¢× ×›××ž×¡×§×™) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. ... The (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei: â€œsecret state policeâ€) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew: ××‘×¨× × ×•×¢× ×—×•×ž×¡×§×™ Yiddish: ××‘×¨× × ×•×¢× ×›××ž×¡×§×™) (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. ... The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and in New York (notably Spanish Harlem), Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican Hispanic nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago. ...

Controversy

In March 2006, controversy arose when supporters of Hampton's charity work proposed the naming of a Chicago street in honor of the former Black Panther leader. Chicago's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police opposed this effort.[1] This was only the second time the city of Chicago has experienced controversy around the naming of one of its Honorary Streets; the other time concerned Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Fraternal Order of Police is a fraternal organization for sworn police officers. ... For other uses, see Playboy (disambiguation). ... Hugh Marston Hefner (born April 9, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois), also referred to colloquially as Hef, is the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine. ...

References

^ Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall (1988). Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, pp. 69-70. ISBN 0-89608-293-8. The primary source cited by Churchill and Vander Wall for the police raid were court transcripts of Iberia Hampton, et. al vs. Plaintiffs-Appellants, v Edward V. Hanrahan, et al., Defendants-Appellees (Nos.77-1968, 77-1210 and 77-1370). In particular, witnesses Harold Bell and Deborah Johnson testified to the police exchange.
^ Wilkins, Roy and Ramsey Clark, chairmen. Search and Destroy: A Report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Black Panthers and the Police. New York: Metropolitan Applied Research Center, 1973, 249.

External links

Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since September 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | 1948 births | 1969 deaths | Black Panther Party members | People from Chicago | Deaths by firearm in the United States | People from Cook County, Illinois | People shot dead by police | COINTELPRO targets The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ... Dead Prez is a critically acclaimed underground hip-hop duo of alternative rappers stic. ... Democracy Now! logo. ...

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