On this day, 4 December 1969, Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered while asleep in his bed during a raid on his apartment by Chicago Police in conjunction with the FBI. Hampton had been drugged earlier in the evening by an FBI informant, who also told agents the location of Hampton’s bed, where he slept alongside his nine-month pregnant fiancée. Fellow Panther activist Mark Clark was also killed in the attack, and several others injured. Aged just 21, Hampton was an active, charismatic and effective organiser, who had been making significant inroads into making links with working class whites and building a “Rainbow Coalition” including Puerto Rican, Native American, Chicane, white and Chinese-American radicals. Hampton and Clark were amongst the most prominent victims of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which amongst other things was directed by FBI director J Edgar Hoover to “prevent the rise of a Black Messiah”.
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Learn more about the Panthers in these books by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/black-panthers
Pictured: police moving Hampton’s body https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1599534750231669/?type=3