Fred Hampton, iconic Black Panther Party Chairman, who was shot and killed during a 1969 police raid of his Chicago apartment, Illinois childhood home has been designated a historical landmark. Hampton was only 21 years old.
According to The Associated Press, in a news release, organizers of the Save The Hampton House initiative, led by Hampton’s son, Fred Hampton Jr, and widow, Akua Njeri, announced that the Maywood Village Board voted to recognize the house as a historical landmark.
The two-story apartment building is currently a community gathering space. The home will be renovated and transformed into museum where the works of the Black Panther Party can be displayed. The museum collection currently includes never seen photographs, documents, and artifacts from the life of Hampton and his work with the Black Panther Party.
The final vote from last Tuesday, comes after a yearlong campaign that was connected to the success of the Academy Award-winning film “Judas and the Black Messiah” based on the chairman and his death.
The landmark application cited, “The significance of the Hampton home is that it represents worker housing for companies like the nearby American Can Company, which was the largest employer during the Great Depression, and later, African-Americans and Immigrants were actively recruited during World War I due to the labor shortage at the time, further adding to the diverse nature of the Village’s growing residential base,” the Village Free Press reported.
The home, the application continues, “is credited with being the fertile ground that nurtured a future thought and opinion leader, whose influence and legacy are still felt to this day by many in the community.”