Fred Hampton

By: Carlito Rovira

Despite a life cut short, young Black Panther left behind an enduring
legacy of struggle

The wave of repression unleashed on the Black liberation movement in
the 1960s and 1970s by the FBI's "Operation COINTELPRO" reached its
height with a series of murderous attacks on the Black Panther Party.
One of the most horrendous episodes of this onslaught took place 40
years ago. On Dec. 4, 1969, Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton
and Mark Clark were assassinated by police.

In a coordinated effort between the Illinois State Attorney's Office,
Cook County Police Department, the Chicago Police Department and the
FBI, a heavily armed assault was launched in the early morning hours
on Fred Hampton's residence. With a vicious sense of racist hatred
and no regard for human life, the police fired their weapons at will
at the wall separating the hallway from the apartment. The two
revolutionaries were killed.

In the days that followed, law enforcement officials were quick to
reinvent the facts. They claimed that the occupants of the apartment
fired guns at police. Their story never held water. Evidence gathered
from the forensic investigation and other inquiries pointed
exclusively to police savagery in the attack.

The shaping of a leader

Hampton's life was brief, but was rich in struggle.

As a student at Proviso East High School, he noticed that most of the
students who failed were Black. Hampton began to speak out against
the school administration for not providing tutoring and remedial
programs for students. He was also critical of the fact that the
faculty and administration were all white when one-fourth of the
student body was Black.

Hampton challenged the school's exclusive racist practice of
nominating only white girls to compete for "Miss Homecoming Queen."
He organized a protest, walk-out and school boycott. As a result, the
following year Black female students were included in this contest.
Fred Hampton was respected by white and Black students alike. The
year after he graduated from Proviso East, a school administrator
requested his help to calm racial tensions among students.
While Hampton was in the NAACP, the Black Panther Party was opening
chapters across the country and becoming a prominent force in the
Black liberation struggle. Hampton began to absorb and understand the
revolutionary content of the Panthers' political perspective, and
joined. He soon demonstrated his leadership abilities and became
deputy chairman of the party's Illinois chapter.
Hampton and the Black Panthers believed all would benefit if the
banner of the struggle against racism and national oppression was
taken up by the white masses as their own. Hampton knew that it was
possible to smash the racial barriers created by capitalism to divide
and conquer the working class. His confidence was based on the strong
belief that this system provides a motive for all to unite and engage
in revolutionary struggle.