Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1969 assassination of Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old leader of the Chicago Black Panther Party. Fifty-four years ago, when I first saw the next morning’s Washington Post headline, I was instantly convinced that the Chicago police had done it, that they were lying about it and that they would get away with it. I once again felt the fear and rage that had entered my life in Chicago when I had started dating a guy from across the color line two years earlier. I learned quickly, by example, never to show the rage. Anger was pointless, wasted energy, and could possibly be dangerous.
We’d planned our move to DC to escape the cops and all those who didn’t want to know what the cops were up to. But the July night before we left, a plain clothes detective telling me he was an insurance salesman — and two patrolmen hiding in the alley in a squad car — staked out our apartment so they could arrest my by-then husband for unpaid parking tickets. Which they did: screeching tires, revolving blue lights, handcuffs. Me screaming from the steps.
My mother, who thought my marriage was my doom, nonetheless paid his bail. We left Chicago immediately, forever, in the middle of the night.
I was right that the Chicago police would lie about Fred Hampton’s murder, but, ultimately, they didn’t succeed in burying it. In 1982, three years after my marriage ended, a civil rights lawsuit led to the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government agreeing to jointly pay nearly $2M to the families of Fred Hampton and fellow Panther and murder victim Mark Clark.
Documents show that J. Edgar Hoover had directed his men to annihilate the Black Panthers, and not to worry if their cover story didn’t match the facts.
As more and more white people, including me, look inward to find racism lightly hiding in our hearts, it’s good to be prepared for sad news.
Photo from Unseen Histories on Unsplash.com.
WhiteWifeChicago1968.blog 