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Fred Hampton

Fredrick Allen "Fred" Hampton (30 August 1948-4 December 1969) was an African-American black nationalist leader and chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party during the 1960s. He was killed in an FBI-directed police raid on his Chicago apartment in 1969 in a major victory for COINTELPRO.

Biography[]

Fred Hampton in 1968

Fred Hampton in 1969

Fredrick Allen Hampton was born in Summit, Illinois on 30 August 1948, and he was raised in another Chicago suburb, Maywood, from the age of ten. He became a law student at Triton Junior College in 1966, and, after reading the works of communist authors such as Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Zedong, he came to support North Vietnam's victory in the Vietnam War. Hampton first worked as an NAACP youth organizer and then joined the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in November 1968. That same year, he was accused of stealing $71 worth of ice cream bars and giving them to children in the street, and he was convicted in May 1969 and sentenced to 2-5 years in prison. Meanwhile, he brokered peace agreements among Chicago's street gangs, and he supervised the formation of the "Rainbow Coalition" between the Black Panthers, the Hispanic Young Lords, and the white Young Patriots Organization. Hampton soon became chairman of the party's Illinois chapter and helped with Bobby Seale's legal defense during the trial of the "Chicago Eight", but, at the same time, FBI informant William O'Neal had infiltrated Hampton's inner circle and created a rift between the Black Panthers and Students for a Democratic Society, as well as ultimately giving the Chicago Police Department the layout of Hampton's apartment shortly after an unrelated Black Panther shootout left both Panthers and police dead. On the night of 4 December 1969, police stormed Hampton's apartment, killing his guard Mark Clark and shooting Hampton in the shoulder. Hampton was unable to resist, as he was shot int he shoulder and had earlier been drugged by O'Neal, and he also ordered his men not to shoot back, as his fiancee Deborah Johnson was pregnant and sleeping next to him. However, Hampton was then shot in the head in what was later described as an assassination.

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