Fred Hampton. |
Forty years ago today, two bullets ripped through the body of a young black man in Chicago’s West Loop. Fred Hampton was just 21 when he and another man were killed by authorities in an early morning raid on his apartment. He was the leader of the Illinois chapter of a militant civil-rights group called the Black Panthers. Hampton and his cadre promoted socialism, created their own social programs, and forged coalitions with radical Latinos and whites. They also took up arms in what they described as self-defense against police. Jeffrey Haas represented the Panthers with his group, the People's Law Office. He’s now written about it in his new book, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther.
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