[4][5] He came to prominence in his late teens and early 20s in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of the Illinois chapter.

It tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers organization.

Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, many scholars now consider Hampton's death, at age 21, a deliberate assassination at the FBI's initiative.

[25] At that time, he started identifying with the Third World socialist struggles, as well as reading communist revolutionaries Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Zedong.

[25] Hampton became active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and assumed leadership of its West Suburban Branch's Youth Council.

[11] In a memoir, Frank B. Wilderson III places this incident in the context of COINTELPRO efforts to disrupt the Black Panthers of Chicago by the "leveling of trumped-up charges".

Later, the Rainbow Coalition was joined nationwide by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Brown Berets, AIM, and the Red Guard Party.

Once he became leader of the Chicago chapter, he organized weekly rallies, participated in strikes, worked closely with the BPP's local People's Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6 am, and launched a project for community supervision of the police.

When Bob Brown left the party with Kwame Ture, in the FBI-fomented SNCC/Panther split, Hampton assumed chairmanship of the Illinois state BPP.

As the FBI's COINTELPRO began to decimate the nationwide Panther leadership, Hampton's prominence in the national hierarchy increased rapidly and dramatically.

In repeated directives, Hoover demanded that COINTELPRO personnel investigate the Rainbow Coalition, "destroy what the [BPP] stands for", and "eradicate its 'serve the people' programs".

[41] Documents secured by Senate investigators in the early 1970s revealed that the FBI actively encouraged violence between the Panthers and other radical groups; this provoked multiple murders in cities throughout the country.

[43] On the night of November 13, 1969, while Hampton was in California, Chicago police officers John J. Gilhooly and Frank G. Rappaport were killed in a gun battle with Panthers; one died the next day.

An augmented, 14-man team of the SAO (state Special Prosecutions Unit) was organized for a predawn raid; they were armed with a search warrant for illegal weapons.

Afterward, as was typical, he was accompanied to his Monroe Street apartment by Johnson and several Panthers: Blair Anderson, James Grady, Ronald "Doc" Satchell, Harold Bell, Verlina Brewer, Louis Truelock, Brenda Harris and Mark Clark.

[63] In a second press conference on December 8, the police leadership praised the assault team for their "remarkable restraint," "bravery," and "professional discipline" in not killing all the Panthers present.

He was eulogized by black leaders, including Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.'s successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

[15][14][16][17] The jury qualified their verdict on Hampton's death as "based solely and exclusively on the evidence presented to this inquisition";[15] police and expert witnesses provided the only testimony during the inquest.

[82] Attorneys for the Hampton and Clark families did not introduce any witnesses during the proceedings but called the inquest "a well-rehearsed theatrical performance designed to vindicate the police officers".

[15] Released on May 15, 1970, the reports of a federal grand jury criticized the actions of the police, the surviving Black Panthers, and the Chicago news media.

[83][84] The grand jury called the police department's raid "ill conceived" and said many errors were committed during the post-raid investigation and reconstruction of the events.

In 1979, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago found that the government had withheld relevant documents, thereby obstructing the judicial process.

[85] In 1982, the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government agreed to a settlement in which each would pay $616,333 (equivalent to $1.95 million per payee in 2023) to a group of nine plaintiffs, including the mothers of Hampton and Clark.

[85] G. Flint Taylor, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said, "The settlement is an admission of the conspiracy that existed between the FBI and Hanrahan's men to murder Fred Hampton.

"[86] Assistant United States Attorney Robert Gruenberg said the settlement was intended to avoid another costly trial and was not an admission of guilt or responsibility by any of the defendants.

"[89] This view is also presented in Jakobi Williams's book From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago.

[90] Hampton was very close with Chicago Black Catholic priest George Clements, who served as his mentor and as a chaplain for the local Panther chapter.

"[97] Two days after the killings of Hampton and Clark, on December 6, 1969, members of the Weathermen destroyed numerous police vehicles in a retaliatory bombing spree at 3600 N. Halsted Street in Chicago.

These initially included preparations to bomb a U.S. military non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in what Brian Flanagan later said was intended to be "the most horrific hit the United States government had ever suffered on its territory".

The events of his rise to prominence, Hoover's targeting of him, and Hampton's subsequent death are also recounted with footage in the 2015 documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.