“45 years ago today, the Chicago Police Department and the FBI murdered Chicago Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton while he slept in bed. The assassination was both the goal and endpoint of an illegal nighttime raid that saw agents and officers spray more than ninety bullets into the apartment where he, his pregnant fiance, and others slept. Prior to his death, Hampton had been the leader of a citywide interracial organizing effort, laboring to bring blacks, Puerto Ricans, and poor whites into a functioning alliance – what he called a “Rainbow Coalition.” Among his other core initiatives were the negotiation of a truce between Chicago’s gangs to curb street violence, establishment of a free health care clinic for the urban poor, and implementation of one of the most successful Free Breakfast for Children programs that the Panthers ever ran. He was 21 years old when they murdered him. No one was ever convicted in his death. The City of Chicago later settled a civil case for nearly two million dollars.“
-via Simon Balto
