COINTELPRO and Black Panther Assassinations
Police at Indianapolis BPP Headquarters, 1969, Courtesy of Indiana Historical Society
Historian Pierre Clavel argues that the orchestrated assassination of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969 by COINTELPRO with the assistance of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley-controlled police department signaled a new and violent phase of federal and state repression of the Black Panther Party (BPP). By 1970 state officials had been infiltrating the BPP and used undercover agents to carrying out the systematic arrest and assassination of party members across. In February 1970, activist and comedian Dick Gregory said that state and federal officials are assassinating members of the BPP under COINTELPRO not because they are black, but because they are organizing programs that feed hungry people. In an address at Oakland Community College, he went on to say, the government wants to stop them from gaining influence in the communities that they are helping. Gregory called the US farm’s bill policy of warehousing food and paying farmers not to grow food while people are hungry as morally bankrupt. He asked, how can democratically elected representatives pass public policy that ignores the needs of hungry people?