40th Anniversary of Fred Hampton's Murder

Dec. 4, 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Illinois Black Panther Party [BPP] leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago. The 1993 book Still Black, Still Strong noted that Hampton and Clark were "murdered in Chicago by police raiders from State Attorney's Office, in cooperation with the FBI," "Hampton, 21, was drugged beforehand by an agent provocateur who had infiltrated the BPP," and "Clark, 22, was killed as he answered a knock on the apartment door." In the same book, an interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad appeared, in which the former New York Black Panther Party leader recalled:

"At first it was reported that it was a shoot-out between the Black Panthers and the police, and the police were just defending themselves. But subsequently it was found out that there was only one shot fired by the Black Panther Party members who were in the house...So Fred Hampton's murder became the clearest example of the escalation of the repression of the Black Panther Party."

In an April 27, 1969 speech, Hampton had reminded his audience that "you can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail the revolution" and "you can murder a liberator, but you can't murder liberation."

(Downtown 11/23/94)