Mark Clark, an Illinois Black Panther Party defense captain, was only 22 years old when he and Fred Hampton, deputy chair of the Illinois Black Panther Party, were killed in a raid coordinated by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, Chicago police, and the FBI.
Clark and 21-year-old Hampton were gunned down by 14 police officers in the early morning hours of December 4, 1969, while sleeping in Hampton’s apartment in Chicago, Illinois. A hundred bullets were fired in what police described as a gun battle with Black Panther Party members.
However, ballistics experts later discovered that only one of those bullets came from the Panthers’ side. The raid was also discovered to be part of COINTELPRO, a secret FBI program whose stated purpose was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of Black nationalist hate type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters,” according to one FBI document.
Huey Newton and fellow student Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party, which insisted on a Black nationalist response to racial discrimination. Hampton was the leader of the party’s Illinois chapter when he was assassinated by authorities using information provided by FBI informant William O’Neal. O’Neal, who was then a petty criminal, infiltrated the party and provided the FBI with a floor plan of the Chicago apartment where Hampton and Clark were murdered in 1969.
Much has been written about Hampton, including his charisma, leadership abilities, and intelligence, but Clark, who died alongside him during the raid, receives little attention. Clark, in fact, was the first to be murdered when Chicago Police stormed into Hampton’s apartment. He died instantly after a bullet struck him in the heart.
Who was Clark?
On June 28, 1947, he was born in Peoria, Illinois. Clark joined the local NAACP chapter at the age of 15 and later founded the Peoria chapter of the Black Panther Party. Clark also established Peoria’s first free breakfast program for children.
“He was very active in political things. Really just the fight against racism,” Gloria Clark-Jackson said of her brother when she published a book about him entitled, Mark Clark: Soul of a Black Panther in September 2020.
Clark and his siblings were raised as devout Christians. Elder William Clark, his father, was a pastor and the founder of Holy Temple Church of God and Christ, which is still located on Webster and McBean on Peoria’s South Side.
“It was ironic that we were always taught to treat people right, but we weren’t always treated the same way, as people of color,” Clark-Jackson, who is a retired nurse, told WCBU.
Clark attended Manual High School and then Illinois Central Junior College in Peoria. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. and could call for order when older people couldn’t. However, he was unable to complete his graduation. He seemed to enjoy learning but disliked school. “The majority of his knowledge came from his own efforts,” Elner, his sister, said in an interview.
Clark, who was described as a “thinker” and a “quiet leader,” died unexpectedly in the early morning hours of December 4, 1969, when Chicago Police stormed Hampton’s apartment where he was staying. Hampton’s fiancée, Deborah Johnson, later recounted what happened.
“I remember it like it was yesterday. The police knocked on the door (around 4.35 am) and Defense Captain Mark Clark (who headed up the Black Panther’s Peoria chapter) answered the door by saying, ‘Who is it?’ The police said, ‘Tommy.’ And Mark responded, ‘Tommy who?’ Then the police responded back, ‘Tommy gun.’ After that, the police kicked in the front door and started shooting. And Mark was killed instantly.”
Reports said that when Clark was shot in the heart, his shotgun fired as a reflexive convulsion. That was the only shot the Panthers fired as compared to about a hundred bullets from the cops.
“He had a feeling for people and placed them above himself,” a close friend said of Clark after his murder.
Clark-Jackson, who tells her brother’s story in her book, was also a member of Clark’s Black Panther Party. She told WCBU that she will never forget her brother’s determined, serious expression the day he recruited her into the Black Panther Party.
“I will never forget the words he spoke that still reverberate in my mind. His message is as clear today as it was then: ‘There are many who will talk about the injustice in this country, but only a few will do something about it. Which one are you?’”
In the early 1980s, the city of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government reached an agreement with Clark’s and Hampton’s survivors. As his role in the 1969 raid that killed Hampton and Clark became public, FBI informant O’Neal was reviled by some and praised by others. Many believe his death in 1990 was caused by his guilt over his role as an FBI informant. O’Neal apparently walked in front of a speeding car, killing him. His death was determined to be a suicide.