Join Dr. Chris Stacey for a presentation on the creation of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, Fred Hampton’s Role in the BPP, and the events leading to his death on December 4, 1969 at the age of twenty-one. In Part One, we’ll seek to gain an understanding of the factors involved behind the Black Panther Party’s emergence in the political and community life of Chicagoans in the late 1960s. We’ll start by looking at the wave of white mob violence against African Americans at Airport Homes, Fernwood Park, Park Manor, Englewood, and Trumbull Park in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Central to this narrative is the role the Chicago Police Department played in policing these large scale riots and the 1952 anti-police brutality campaign. Then, we’ll examine the changes in CPD policies under Mayor Daley in the 1950s and 60s. We’ll discuss the historically traditional role armed self-defense played in Chicago’s African-American community prior to the founding of Chicago’s Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in late 1968. We’ll explore why the Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed self-defense group and political force in the South, did not succeed when they formed a revolutionary Chicago chapter in 1966 and how this influenced the Chicago BPP.

Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Time: 6:30 p.m. Central Standard Time

Cost: Free