the village free press DECEMBER 4, 2019
Vol. III No. 49
Triton honors Ruth Johnson, PAGE 8
theVillageFreePress.org
Census bus tour starts in Maywood, PAGE 7
Death of a native son
Fifty years ago, Fred Hampton’s assassination rocked Maywood to its core By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Fifty years ago — Dec. 4, 1969 — Black Panther leader and Maywood native Fred Hampton was assassinated during an early-morning police raid on his West Side apartment. He was 21 years old. Articles published in the Proviso Herald at the time give some indication of how Maywood reacted to the death of its most controversial resident. In a testament to the power of local journalism, Herald reporters Paul Sassone and Carol Swatos wrote about how getting to know the fiery young man (in Swatos’ case, even driving him home from a meeting once) tempered their perspective on Hampton personally and on the issues that he was so passionate about — no easy feat for white people at the time, considering the power of propaganda leveraged in service to the myth that the racism blacks were complaining about was not real, or at least not so bad that black people should be up in arms about it. That myth was held up by both the government and the press. For instance, less than a month before Hampton’s death, the Chicago Tribune penned an editorial, “No Quarter for Wild Beasts,” which lambasted the Black Panthers’ role in a shootout with law enforcement that left a policeman and a Panther dead, and seven other policemen wounded. “The Black Panthers, who were waiting for the police to come after them, fired from concealed positions, gunning down the first policemen on the scene before they could draw their weapons,” the Tribune editorial board stated in a piece published Nov. 15, 1969. The paper called the Panthers “murderous fanatics, who have been persuaded that they have a right to shoot and kill policemen” before making the reckless argument that the Panthers weren’t even worthy of due process. The Black Panthers “should be kept under constant surveillance,” the paper wrote. “They have declared
BOB BROWN/Herald
EXECUTED, THEN MOURNED: Thousands packed the First Baptist Church in west suburban Melrose Park on Dec. 9, 1969, for the funeral of slain Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, who was killed in an illegal police raid at his West Side apartment on Dec. 4, 1969. war on society. They therefore have forfeited the right to considerations ordinary violators of the law might claim.” In the Dec. 11, 1969 Proviso Herald, Sassone recalled his
only time meeting Hampton in the flesh (“my first, and last, look at the man whose name had become synonymous See FRED HAMPTON on page 3
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