On Dec. 4, 1969, at the age of 21, Fred Hampton was assassinated by a unit of Cook County State’s Attorney’s office in coordination with CPD and the FBI. But who was Fred Hampton, and why was he assassinated?

Born Fredrick Allen Hampton, Hampton’s ties to Illinois start from birth in present day Summit, Illinois. At the age of 10, Hampton was already participating in community activism, hosting breakfasts for local children that he cooked himself. In high school Hampton led walkouts to protest exclusion of Black students from the homecoming queen race and calling on the school to hire more Black teachers and administrators. Hampton would eventually join the NAACP as a youth organizer and grew the youth group to 500 members in the Village of Maywood. In Maywood, Hampton worked to improve recreational facilities and improve educational resources for the impoverished Black community.

Hampton would leave the NAACP in 1968 to join the Black Panther Party in Chicago, and become one of the founding members of the Illinois chapter. The 10 point program of the Black Panther Party included still popular tenets from ending police brutality toward the Black community and teaching the truth about Black history in America, to exempting Black people from the draft. One of the more controversial aspects of the BPP, which caught media attention, was patrolling the streets with rifles following the killing of unarmed black Americans. Upon their founding, the BPP was put under monitoring by the FBI. The surveillance program, known as COINTELPRO, had gone after Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and others using illegal, violent acts to suppress First Amendment Rights of activist groups. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at the time considered the Black Panthers to be the “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and was worried that Hampton, among others, would become a “messiah,” unifying minorities and poor people against the government.

During his tenure with the Black Panthers Illinois Chapter, Hampton would eventually become chair and created several community initiatives including; free breakfasts for children, a health clinic, courses on Black history and teaching self-sufficiency to the youth. On top of the community initiatives, Hampton worked to create the Rainbow Coalition, a community alliance of groups spanning race and ideology including a group of white working class southerners.

The Black Panthers and CPD clashed multiple times while Hampton was chairman, causing injuries and deaths on both sides. Hampton was the target of trumped up charges and coordination between law enforcement and the FBI. This conflict would culminate in Fred Hampton’s assassination on December 4, 1969 by Cook County officers in coordination with CPD and the FBI. The survivors of the raid and Hampton’s family received a settlement of $1.85 million dollars following a drawn out court battle, though none of the officers or agents involved were ever prosecuted. The COINTEL program, Hoover’s involvement in Hampton’s death and the government’s systemic attempts to repress black activist organizations has been revealed in court documents and FOIA requests over the last several decades.

Hampton’s legacy greatly impacted the civil rights movement in Chicago, Illinois and the country. His activism represents a contentious but empathetic and high minded time in Chicago’s civil rights era.