Where is Fred Hampton Jr now?
BLACK Panther activist Fred Hampton Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps and dedicated his life to fighting social injustice.
His father, Fred Hampton was the Panther Party’s Illinois Chairman and was killed by police during a raid in 1969.
Who is Fred Hampton Jr?
Fred Hampton Jr, 51, is an activist and the president and chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee and the Black Panther Party Cubs.
Hampton Jr. worked as a consultant in the movie Judas and the Black Messiah as it is loosely based in his family’s life and the activist movement.
He was initially named Alfred Johnson but his mother changed his name when he was 10-years-old.
The activist was convicted of aggravated arson in 1993 and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Hampton Jr allegedly threw a molotov cocktail into a local Korean business during the protests connected to the Rodney King verdict.
He maintained his innocence and claimed he was being targeted due to his work in the Black Panther party.
An appeal for clemency was filed in 2001 and Hampton Jr. was paroled later that year.
Where is Fred Hampton Jr now?
Hampton Jr. continues to fight for social justice while using the Black Panther movement as his platform.
He often appears at Chicago events with his mother Akua Njeri and speaks on social justice.
He is the only child of Hampton and Njeri.
The activist boasts about his parents on social media and shared a video on December 4 about his family, saying: “I feel fortunate to fall from the tree of two freedom fighters: Chairman Fred Hampton and also Akua Njeri, formerly known as Deborah Johnson.”
Hampton Jr. is also working to purchase and restore his father’s old home in Chicago.
He started a GoFundMe to gather funds from the public and plans to turn the home into a landmark museum about his father’s life and his work in the Black Panther group.
What happened to Fred Hampton?
Fred Hampton was brutally murdered by police in his home back in 1969.
He had been targeted by the FBI for his work in activism and was considered a “radical threat” to Chicago.
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Black Panther member Mark Clark was also killed that night.
A civil lawsuit was filed and reached a settlement of $1.85million which forced the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government to pay out the plaintiffs.
In 1991, Njeri published an autobiography called My Life With the Black Panther Party and spoke about Hampton’s killing on the 50th anniversary, saying: “When I was handcuffed the police said, ‘You better not run, you better not try to escape’ and he kept pressing that gun to my belly. So my child felt that cold steel.”