Dr. Patricia Clark Brown and her sister Rose Morris will never forget Dec. 4 1969.
That was the day Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark — their brother — were gunned down in a Chicago police raid on their West Side apartment. “I’ll never get it out of my mind,” said Brown, who was 23 at the time.
Now, the sisters said, future generations will be able to learn about that dark day as well as the humanitarian legacy of the Panthers — and their brother.
“Much of this history is buried, and many of the youth do not know this story of the Black Panther Party,” Morris said. “So by sharing that information, knowledge is power, and knowledge is strength.”
On Sunday, the Historical Preservation Society of the party’s Illinois chapter kicked off its Black Panther Heritage Trail project with a private celebration at the Better Boys Center for the Arts, 1512 S. Pulaski. The project aims to document and tell the stories of important sites in the history of the Illinois party in its own words.
Last week the organization received 13 historical markers that will be placed at sites of important structures throughout the Chicago area. The 13 markers were on display Sunday, surrounded by black-and-white photographs of important people and events in the chapter’s story.
The plaques include a QR code that visitors will be able to scan that will eventually lead to a webpage telling the history of the location. Leila Wills, executive director of the preservation society, says her team is working on building those webpages.
The center for the arts is one of the places that will be marked. It was the site of the chapter’s first Free Breakfast for Children program in 1969. Clark was instrumental in the program.
Billy Brooks, a party member who started the breakfast program in North Lawndale, said it was an important initiative because many children were going to school hungry. He said many people don’t know the party held these types of programs because of misinformation spread by law enforcement.
“What’s important is to get actual information out, because there are so many misconceptions, so many untruths,” he said. “So hopefully by having these markers out here … we can create a space that will allow people to do research to get a true understanding.”
The Black Panther Party, founded in the 1960s, grew out of the Black Power movement and provided other services as well, such as healthcare. The FBI, however, considered it a violent, gang-like organization and launched a counterintelligence program against it.
The leaders of the landmark effort pushed to add its history to the National Register of Historic Places to tell their own story. The thematic listing, which notes several locations crucial to the group’s history, was approved last December. Since then, the preservation society has raised more than $40,000 for the markers.
Not everyone associated with the party was on board with the move.
Fred Hampton Jr., chairman of the Black Panther Party Cubs and son of the former Black Panther leader, led a coalition opposed to the efforts. He has said that giving these sites historic recognition would further spread misinformation as the party was still working to undo the harms it had already sustained.
Other locations that will feature plaques include the site of the police raid in which Hampton and Clark were killed, at 2337 W. Monroe St., and the location of the chapter’s free medical center, at 3850 W. 16th St., that has been demolished.
Cheryl Peterson, a physician, said she learned valuable skills while providing healthcare services as a member of the party when she was a teenager. She also worked in the chapter’s breakfast and housing programs.
Peterson said she hopes the markers also spur a conversation about which histories are taught and which aren’t.
“That’s the purpose of having markers and being able to speak your own history, because it appears that no one wants to speak it for us with truth,” she said.