 Dec. 4,1969 - A police raid that killed two Black Panthers, shook Chicago and changed the nation){kind=link}
The police moved in before dawn.
Their target was a first-floor apartment on Chicago’s West Side. Among those inside were two top leaders of the Illinois Black Panther Party — chairman Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
Officers assigned to Cook County State’s Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan approached the dwelling with a warrant authorizing a search for illegal weapons. Gunfire — police claimed they faced a barrage from inside the apartment — erupted shortly after the raid began at 4:45 a.m.
When the shooting stopped, Hampton, 21, and Clark, 22, were dead. Four other Panthers and two police officers were wounded. Seven Panthers in the residence were charged with attempted murder.
The Dec. 4, 1969, confrontation at 2337 W. Monroe St. ended quickly, but the controversy over what exactly happened — fought over in the pages of the city’s newspapers, on local TV and in the courts — reverberated for years to come.
