He taught us about true activism...

FRED HAMPTON was a high school student and a promising leader when he joined the Black Panther Party at the age of 19. His status as a leader grew very quickly. By the age of 20 he became the leader for the Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was in involved in a lot of activities to improve the black community in Chicago. He maintained regular speaking engagements and organized weekly rallies at the Chicago federal building on behalf of the BPP. He worked with a free People's Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6am, and launched a community control of police project. Hampton was also instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program. Hampton had the charisma to excite crowds during rallies, he was suppose to be appointed to the Party's Central Committee. His position would have been Chief of Staff if he did not have an untimely death on the evening of December 4, 1969.

Fred's powerful speaking and organizing skills, made Fred Hampton a wanted man. The Federal Bureau of Investigation saw Fred Hampton as a threat to society that needed to be eliminated. They conspired with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and William O'Neal to spy on Fred to give them information about his daily itinerary in order to have O'Neal's felony charges dropped. His job was to serve as a bodyguard of Fred and director of the Chapter's security. He was suppose to notify the FBI of the Panther's apartment floor plan and how many residents lived in the apartment. When the FBI got its information a raid was authorized by the state attorney Hanrahan. FBI special agents sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover stating that "a positive course of action (was) being effected under the counterintelligence program." That evening Fred Hampton and several Party members including William O'Neal came home to the BPP Headquarters after a political education class. O'Neal volunteered to make the group dinner. He slipped a large dose of secobarbital in Fred's kool-aid and left the apartment around 1:30am, a little while later, Fred fell asleep. Around 4:30am on December 4, 1969 the heavily armed Chicago Police attacked the Panthers' apartment. They entered the apartment by kicking the front door down and then shooting Mark Clark pointblank in the chest. Clark was sleeping in the living room with a shotgun in his hand. His reflexes responded by firing one shot at the police before he died. That bullet was then discovered to be the only shot fired at the police by the Panthers. Their automatic gunfire entered through the walls of Fred and his pregnant girlfriend's room. Fred was shot in the shoulder. Then two officers entered the bedroom and shot Fred at pointblank in his head to make sure that he was dead, and no longer a so-called menace to society. It has been said that one officer stated, "he's good and dead now." The officers then dragged Fred's body out of his bedroom and again open fired on the members in the apartment.

Fred Hampton’s legacy of courage and activism is still alive. He once said, "You can kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill a revolution!"