Forty-two years ago, the Illinois Black Panther Party lost its chairman and another member in an apparent one-way gun battle with Chicago police on the West Side.
Forty-two years ago, the Illinois Black Panther Party lost its chairman and another member in an apparent one-way gun battle with Chicago police on the West Side.
Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. and Mark Clark were ambushed in a raid by Chicago police on Dec. 4, 1969. Police entered his apartment in the 2300 block of West Monroe Street and fired at least 99 shots, versus one shot fired by the opposing side. Hampton was 21 years old at the time of his death. The location has been dubbed “Ground Zero” by his son, Fred Hampton Jr.
The chairman was honored in September 2007 with an honorary street name and statue in his honor in Maywood, where he grew up. The former Oak Street is now known as Fred Hampton Way and the statue sits in front of the Fred Hampton Family Aquatic Center.
The book, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther by Jeffrey Haas, touches on Hampton’s early years that helped mold him as a freedom fighter. Haas represented the chairman and the Panther Party in the 1960s.
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