From the Bullet to the Poll: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Occasion and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago (The John Hope Franklin Collection in African American Historical past and Tradition)

On this complete historical past of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Occasion (ILBPP), Chicago native Jakobi Williams demonstrates that town’s Black Energy motion was each a response to and an extension of town’s civil rights motion. Williams focuses on the life and violent demise of Fred Hampton, a charismatic chief who served as president of the NAACP Youth Council and continued to pursue a civil rights agenda when he grew to become chairman of the revolutionary Chicago-based Black Panther Occasion. Framing the story of Hampton and the ILBPP as a social and political historical past and utilizing, for the primary time, sealed secret police information in Chicago and interviews performed with usually reticent former members of the ILBPP, Williams explores how Hampton helped develop racial coalitions between the ILBPP and different native activists and organizations. Williams additionally recounts the historical past of the unique Rainbow Coalition, created in response to Richard J. Daley’s Democratic machine, to indicate how the Panthers labored to create an antiracist, anticlass coalition to battle city renewal, political corruption, and police brutality.