On the evening of 3 December, 1969, Fred Hampton – the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther party – led a political education class at a church on the Lower West Side of Chicago. Returning to his apartment after the lesson, he enjoyed a meal prepared by his friend, confidant and undercover FBI informant, William O’Neal, who had secretly slipped a powerful sedative into the chairman’s drink. Some hours later, after falling asleep beside his pregnant fiancé, 14 plain-clothed police officers shuffled out of a large truck, equipped with pistols, machine guns, and a detailed map of Hampton’s apartment. Before the sun rose again, Hampton lay dead.
Founded in 1966 by two college students, the Black Panther Party (BPP) embodied and harnessed the growing disillusionment among young African-Americans with the non-violent means previously adopted to attain progress on civil rights. The BPP sought to overturn the tradition of integrationist policies and looked for immediate, fundamental change. The Panthers used the banner of liberation and a raised-fist salute, coupled with the uniform of black berets, to publicly advocate the necessity of black empowerment – particularly in the face of police brutality. Despite their repudiation of non-violent progress and open possession of firearms, the Panthers became an essential organ of local black communities. In response to the growing poverty and hunger among these communities, the Panthers initiated the Free Breakfast for Children Programme in 1969. The success of these programmes spread to 36 cities, feeding 20,000 children nationally by the end of the year – more than the State government of California.
Meanwhile in Chicago, Fred Hampton, having served as president of his local NAACP youth council, was recruited to the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. The goals and ideals of the Panthers had resonated particularly with Chicago’s black population, in light of the city’s decades of discriminatory policies and residual segregation. Due to his charisma and oratory skill, Hampton rose quickly through the ranks of the Party, being appointed as deputy chairman at just 20 years old. Chicago’s mayor at the time, Richard Daley, staunchly opposed community and racial integration, instead opting for urban redevelopment plans that pushed out poorer residents from the heart of the city. This resulted in the ghettoising of black residents in the south and west side, and of Puerto Rican and working-class white communities in the north. In response, Hampton harnessed the discontent of these groups, who together bore the brunt of the worst schools and housing in the state while also facing the highest proportion of draftees, to form the Rainbow Coalition.
For the Young Lords, the Chicago-based Puerto Rican gang turned activism group, the city’s police brutality had grown intolerable. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Mayor Daley ordered the police to fire upon any suspected arsonists within the crowds of peaceful protesters, while the Puerto Rican independence demonstrations faced similar harassment. As such, Hampton’s alignment with leaders of the Young Lords and Young Patriots – an Appalachian, white activism group – created an interracial solidarity that allowed these organisations to spread greater awareness of poverty and discrimination in their local communities, coupled with the corruption of the city government. The Coalition allowed for joint participation in their respective social programmes and protests, forming a cohesive mechanism to affect substantial change in Chicago. News of the success of the Coalition soon spread nationwide, with members travelling across the country to establish chapters. However, the rapid spread and threat to both the local and national governments posed by the Rainbow Coalitions soon drew the attention of the FBI.
By 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had grown determined to prevent the rise of a black nationalist movement which he deemed to be the “greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” While the Panther’s rising influence had brought much angst to Hoover, it was the organisation’s promulgation of socialist values and repudiation of capitalist enterprise which aroused the greatest concern, particularly given their support for the anti-war movement. As a result, the FBI initiated the Counter Intelligence Programme (COINTELPRO) to covertly and illegally curtail the affairs of American political organisations, particularly the Black Panther Party.
Central to the danger of a unified black revolution was the emergence of what the FBI had termed a black ‘messiah’. This referred to a charismatic, energetic leader capable of uniting and electrifying the young African-American population into a nationwide movement. For many, neither Malcolm X nor Martin Luther King Jr. posed nearly as dangerous a threat to the FBI as Fred Hampton. As such, the Bureau began a campaign of surveillance, interference and harassment of Hampton, culminating in the infiltration of the Black Panther Party by an undercover operative, William O’Neal.
In 1967, at 18 years old, O’Neal was arrested by FBI agent Roy Martin Mitchell for car theft and impersonation of a federal officer. Facing over six years for his crimes, O’Neal accepted an offer to be fully absolved of his felony charges and receive a monthly stipend if he were to enter the Panthers as an undercover informant. Over the next year, O’Neal infiltrated the Party, soon working his way into the inner circle and being appointed Chief of Security and Hampton’s personal bodyguard by 1969. During this time, O’Neal provided information about Hampton and other high-ranking Panthers, as well as relations with other black nationalist groups, allowing the FBI to sow dissent between them and the BPP. O’Neal’s position enabled him to have direct access to the Party’s headquarters and safe houses, as well as to Hampton’s home.
On 13 November, 1969, while Hampton was in California meeting with other Party leaders, a gun battle broke out between a group of Panthers and the Chicago police, resulting in the death of three officers and one Panther. The FBI used this opportunity to further demonise the BPP in the media, with the Chicago Tribune publishing an editorial calling for the shooting on-sight of suspected Panthers, titled ‘No Quarter for Wild Beasts’. Soon after, Mitchell approached O’Neal to provide a detailed drawing of the floor-plan of Hampton’s apartment, which the informant had reported to be the location of the group’s more ‘provocative’ weapons.
Some weeks later, on the night of 3 December, Hampton passed out while on the phone with his mother, having been slipped a large dose of Secobarbital (a sedative) by O’Neal, who left shortly after. At 4:45am the following morning, the raid commenced; eight heavily armed officers entered through the front of the building while another six went through the rear. They fired nearly 100 rounds into the apartment, killing and critically wounding five Panthers. The officers then entered to find an unconscious Hampton in his bed, subsequently executing the 21-year-old by two, point-blank shots to the head. According to his fiancé, Deborah Johnson, one of the men then said: “He’s good and dead now.”
Following the raid, the State’s Attorney General Edward Hanrahan stated that the Chicago Police Department had been fired upon first; that Fred Hampton was killed in a bullet spray; and that the chairman himself had been shooting at the officers – all claims were later proved false. Hanrahan deemed it a shoot-out; the Panthers called it a ‘shoot-in’. However, the Party soon brought in a host of experts, lawyers and journalists to analyse the apartment in order to correct the narrative. What soon emerged was the uncovering of a Chicago Police Department cover-up; it was clear that not only had the officers fired unprovoked, but what they had claimed were bullet holes left by Panthers were really nail heads.
In 1970, with the Police Department and Attorney-General’s office continuing to refuse any wrongdoing, the seven surviving Panthers filed a suit seeking damages. While this proved to be the longest federal court case in American history at the time, even reaching the Supreme Court, the county, city and federal government eventually agreed to a settlement. However, it was not until March 1971, when a small group of anti-war protesters burgled the FBI offices in Pennsylvania and published a number of classified documents, that COINTELPRO was finally exposed. While these released documents included wiretaps of Martin Luther King’s personal phone calls, they also provided a clear link between the FBI and the Chicago Police Department’s cooperation in the murder of Fred Hampton. By 1989, O’Neal, who had lived in witness protection over the years following the raid, agreed to a comprehensive interview surrounding his involvement in the death of Hampton; he committed suicide soon after.
While the Black Panther Party diminished in membership and influence over the subsequent decades, officially ceasing in 1982, Hampton’s role in shaping both the Party within the state as well as the nation itself resulted in a larger shift toward community empowerment. However, his death at the hands of his government brought an end to the work of the Panthers, and for many was the death of the Party itself.
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Jeffrey, H., 2009. The Assassination of Fred Hampton: how the FBI and the Chicago Police murdered a Black Panther
Fujino, D., 2020. Black power afterlives The enduring significance of the black panther party.
Proyect, L. (2021). The FBI, Fred Hampton and the Mythology of the Panthers. Class, Race and Corporate Power. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48644429