Fred Hampton and Mark Clark Park
Rename Franklin Park to Honor Black Panther Leaders in Illinois
Dear Superintendent Escareño,
On August 30, 2023, Mayor Brandon Johnson declared August 30th as Chairman Fred Hampton Day. Our organization and its members are requesting Benjamin Franklin Park be renamed “Fred Hampton and Mark Clark Park” in honor of two leaders of the Black Panther Party in Illinois who the FBI assassinated.
My name is Leila Wills, and I am the executive director of the Historical Preservation Society of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. We completed a landmarking request with the state of Illinois. In late December 2023, the National Park Service signed a Thematic Listing for the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party into the National Register of Historic Places.
You may view the Thematic Listing and our extensive documentation of the Party’s work in Chicago here - Final ILBPP Thematic Listing MPS.pdf
Franklin Park, 4320 W. 15th Street, is near several significant sites in North Lawndale, the most prominent Black Panther Party area. The most notable of these sites is the Spurgeon Jake Winters People’s Medical Center at 3850 W. 16th Street, which officially opened in January 1970.
The free medical center was in a remodeled storefront. Penn Elementary School, located across the street from the medical center at 1616 S. Avers, was the first location of the Party’s Sickle Cell Anemia canvassing. It still exists today, and the school’s mascot is a panther. Illinois Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton and Defense Captain Mark Clark were slain in an FBI-planned assassination three weeks before the health center opened at 2337 W. Monroe. The Deputy Minister of Health, Ronald Satchell, was severely wounded in the attack.
The Great Migration, white flight, and local politics led to the concentration of poverty, hunger, and disease in Black-populated areas with the most significant influx of migrants like North Lawndale. These areas were “no man’s lands” and “medical wastelands”, and Cook County’s main hospital was used as a poor patient dumping ground.
Where other groups could not organize healthcare clinics in poor neighborhoods, the Black Panther Party’s community outreach proved successful. The American Journal of Public Health estimated that the Spurgeon Jake Free People’s Medical Center, named after a fallen BPP member, had 1400 patients registered and saw at least 75 patients a week. Dr. Quentin Young said, “The Panthers weren’t taking the easy route. The community they picked, Lawndale, was about as depressed as you can get in America. It was the center of the ghetto. Very high joblessness, a very high dependency on welfare, all of the attendant problems.”
Hampton explained the rationale behind opening the clinic in North Lawndale, “...our free health clinic is opening up probably this Sunday at 16th and Springfield. Now does everybody know where 16th and Springfield is at? That’s not in Winnetka, you understand. That’s not in Dekalb, that’s in Babylon. That’s in the heart of Babylon, brothers, and sisters. And that free health clinic was put there because we know where the problem is at. We know that black people are most oppressed. And if we didn’t know that, then why the hell would we be running around talking about the black liberation struggle has to be the vanguard for all liberation struggles?”
In April 1971, the BPP began an all-out public outreach campaign on Sickle Cell Anemia. The newspaper carried images of sickled blood cells on the front page, and the middle spread explained the disease. The Party criticized the US Government for its lack of response to the disease and set out to test community members. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed the National Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act, which provided funds for education, research, and treatment for those with the disease. Today, hospitals test all newborns for the trait and disease.
We are developing a Black Panther Party Heritage Trail in Illinois. During their short time with us, Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark demonstrated outstanding service and dedication to the people in their work to open the medical center and all other social programs. The community was robbed of their continued work when the FBI assassinated them. We nominate Benjamin Franklin Park to be renamed in their honor and in honor of the Black Panther Party.
Other parts of our landmarking initiative include several markers at significant Party locations, and we hope to include the park’s renaming in our upcoming programming.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can provide anything further.
A copy of this letter is attached, and we look forward to working with you.
