My primary sources for this book have been my own observations, experiences, and memory, which are admittedly subjective. However, when documented accounts of events are available, such as trial and deposition transcripts, I relied on these. This process required reading, or in many cases rereading after thirty years, the entire thirty-seven-thousand-page trial transcript, many of the deposition transcripts, hundreds of FBI documents, thousands of pages of motions and attachments, all the appellate briefs and Hampton court decisions, and transcripts of the tapes of the oral argument in the Seventh Circuit.
I base my accounts of events at which I was not present on personal interviews and written descriptions of those events by persons who were present. My descriptions of Hanrahan’s criminal trial, from which I was excluded because I was a potential witness, are based on Michael Arlen’s book An American Verdict. Courtroom testimony comes directly from the official transcript from that trial. My interviews include lengthy conversations with Fred’s parents, Iberia and Francis Hampton, in Maywood, Illinois, and in Haynesville, Louisiana, at a family reunion; with Fred’s brother Bill and sister Dee Dee; with numerous childhood and adult friends in Maywood and Chicago; with relatives and friends of Fred Hampton in Haynesville; with former Panthers from Chicago, Oakland, New York, New Haven, and Philadelphia; with Mark Clark’s mother, Fannie Clark, and his sister Eleanor Clark; and with the survivors of the raid.
Real names are used throughout this book, with the exception of jurors “Florence Smith” and “Judy Norgle,” which are pseudonyms used to protect the jurors’ identities.
I relied on numerous newspaper articles from the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, and the Defender to show what was being reported and the public reaction. Some of the more significant articles are listed below.
Abu-Jamal, Mumia. “Memories of Chicago, 1969.” Letter to author, 2007.
Arlen, Michael J. An American Verdict. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1974.
Ayers, William. Fugitive Days: A Memoir. New York: Beacon Press, 2001.
Berlet, Chip. “Perry Ex Parte Messages in Panther Case Revealed.” Chicago Lawyer, December 1979.
Branegan, Jay. “Taxpayer Panther Case Bill Put at $2.1 Million.” Chicago Tribune, August, 20, 1979.
Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Anchor Books, 1992.
Canton, Susan. “Fred Hampton: A Political Assassination.” First Principles National Security and Civil Liberties 2, no. 3 (1976).
Carmichael, Stokely. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner, 2003.
Churchill, Ward and Jim Vander Wall. Agents of Repression. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002.
Cunningham, Dennis, Flint Taylor, and Jeffrey Haas. Press release announcing settlement, February 28, 1983.
Davey, Monica. “Chicago Divided Over Proposal to Honor Slain Panther.” New York Times, March 5, 2006.
December 4th Committee. Fred Hampton: 20th Commemoration. Chicago: Salsedo Press, 1989.
December 4th Committee. “Wanted For Murder Not for Mayor.” (flyer, February 1977).
DeZutter, Hank. “The Death of Fred Hampton: A Special Report.” Chicago Journalism Review 2, no. 12 (December 1969).
Foner, Philip S. The Black Panthers Speak. New York: De Capo Press, 1995.
Frank, Leo and Lucille Frank. Letters to and from Herbert Haas, 1915. Leo Frank Exhibit and Archives, Bremen Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum, Atlanta.
Giovanni, Nikki. “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro.” Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1979.
Gray, Mike and Howard Alk, dirs. The Murder of Fred Hampton. VHS. The Film Group and Facets Multimedia, 1971.
Greenberg, Cheryl L, ed. A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Greene, Bob. “Laundered Box Score? No Hits, No Guns, No Terror.” Chicago Sun-Times, February 12, 1976.
Harr, Jonathan. A Civil Action. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Hampton, Henry, prod. Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads. Blackside, 1990.
Hampton, William, Delores and Paul Smith, Dorothy Smith, Tom and Doris Strieter, Joan and Ted Alpert, “The Essence of Fred Hampton.” Maywood, Illinois, 1994.
Hanrahan Press Conference. WBBM-TV Chicago, a CBS affiliate. December 4, 1969, 11:00 A.M.
Jones, Thai. A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family’s Century of Conscience. New York: Free Press, 2004.
Kifner, John. “White Paper on the ‘Police Murder’ of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.” May 9, 1970. Chicago.
Kunstler, William M. Deep in My Heart. New York: Morrow, 1966.
McClory, Robert. “Agent Provocateur.” Chicago Magazine, February 1979.
———. “Judge Walks out in Panther Trial.” Chicago Defender, August 11, 1976. ———. “Why Don’t Jeff Haas and Flint Taylor Just Give Up?” Chicago
Reader 7, no. 42 (August 4, 1978).
Lindell, Rebecca. “After Raid, Blacks Leave Democrats’ Machine.” The Monitor, Fall 1989.
Oney, Steve. And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.
Orwell, George. “Why I Write.” Gangrel (London), Summer 1946.
“Panther Case Revisited.” Chicago Sun-Times, August 25, 1975.
“Panther Chief, Aide Killed in Gun Battle.” Chicago Daily News, December 4, 1969.
Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. New York: Scribner, 1948.
People’s Law Office, Lawyers and Staff. “People’s Law Office—20 Years Working with People and Their Movements for Justice and Liberation.” Chicago: Chicago Chapter National Lawyers Guild, November 18, 1989.
———. “People’s Law Office—30th Anniversary Working with People and Their Movements for Justice and Liberation.” Chicago Chapter, National Lawyers Guild, November 13, 1999.
“Reenactment.” WBBM-TV Chicago, a CBS affiliate. December 11, 1969.
Sayles, James. “Fred Hampton: August 30, 1948—December 4, 1969.” Vita Wa Watu, A New Afrikan Theoretical Journal, Bk. Eleven (August 1987).
Sheppard, Nathaniel. “Slain Black Panther’s Family Pressed Legal Fight Because ‘We Were Right.’” New York Times, November 14, 1982.
Taylor, Flint, Margaret Van Houten, and Chip Berlet, “Counterintelligence.” Chicago, National Lawyer’s Guild. Task Force on Counterintelligence and the Secret Police. Vol. 1, 1978.
Till-Mobley, Mamie and Christopher Benson. Death of Innocence: The Hate Crime That Changed America. New York: Random House, 2003.
United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois. “Report of the January 1970 Grand Jury.” Chicago, May 1970.
U.S. Congress. “The FBI’s Efforts to Disrupt and Neutralize the Black Panther Party.” Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports of Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans: Book III: Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities United States Senate, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 23, 1976. Report no. 94-755, vol. 3, pp.185–222.
Warden, Rob. “The Panther Lawyers.” Chicago Lawyer 5, no. 12 (December 1982): 4–7.
———. “A ‘Nonperson’ at Panther Trial.” Chicago Daily News, December 2, 1976.
Wiedrich, Robert. “Exclusive.” Chicago Tribune, December 11, 1969.
Wilkens, Roy and Ramsey Clark. Search and Destroy: A Report by the Commission on Inquiry into the Black Panthers and the Police. New York: Metropolitan Applied Research Center, 1973.
City of Chicago et al. v. Hampton, 415 U.S. 917 (1974).
Hampton v. Hanrahan, 339 F. Supp. 695 (N.D. Ill. 1972).
Hampton v. Hanrahan, 484 F. 2d 602 (7th Cir. 1973).
Hampton v. Hanrahan, 600 F. 2d 600 (7th Cir. 1979).
Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.S. 754 (1980).
Hampton v. Hanrahan, 499 F. Supp. 640 (1980).
Hampton v. Hanrahan, 522 F. Supp. 140 (1981).