Fred Hampton Jr. was the sone of Fred Hampton, who served as the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Eventually Hampton Sr. rose through the ranks to serve the Black Panther Party in a national capacity. Supporters of the party praised his community initiatives along multicultural lines and also his charisma and his abilities as an orator. Government offices and officials such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and specifically Director J. Edgar Hoover found Hampton Sr.’s efforts to unite communities as a danger to American society. At the time the FBI’s “Counter Intelligence Program” (COINTELPRO) had long been infiltrating and illegally surveilling groups and individuals deemed as “radicals” and therefore domestic threats. The FBI characterized the Black Panthers in this manner specifically, targeting Hampton Sr. The FBI, with the help of informants and high ranking government officials in Illinois, carried out a raid on Hampton Sr.’s apartment in 1969 resulting in the assassination of Hampton Sr. and fellow Black Panther Mark Clark. The government claimed that they had fired on the parties in the apartment in self-defense, though ballistics evidence disproved this theory. Fred Hampton Jr. was born just weeks after the 1969 assassination. Hampton Jr. has also engaged in activism and many claim that he has been imprisoned for it. Hampton Jr.’s main causes have been African internationalism, protesting racism, and prisoners’ rights.