On December 4, 1969 Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated by Chicago cops while they slept. The murders were part of the FBI’s COINTELPRO. Fred was deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and a rising charismatic leader. He was only 21; Mark was 22. There are potential Freds and Marks walking our streets today that need to know their history and who their enemy is. The spirit of the Black Panther lives on!
The Discovery Flight program is free and introduces young people from 8-18 years old to flying and the history of famed Black Airmen.
CORE’s just demand was to hire four employees to address the racist hiring practices in St. Louis banking institutions. When the bank’s response was that there were not “four Blacks in the city” fit for such jobs, CORE launched a protest that became the longest and most contentious in St. Louis civil rights history.
When the matter of wrongful convictions is discussed, you may hear the frequently cited theory by Sir William Blackstone: it is better that ten guilty people go free than one innocent person suffer. The English legal scholar formulated the theory in 1765 and it became the basis for the noble idea that one is innocent until proven guilty.
