The Life and Legacy of Mark Clark
Mark Clark’s Early Years
Mark Clark was born June 28, 1947. He was the ninth child out of Elder William and Fannie Clark’s seventeen children. Mark was their seventh son. As a child Mark Clark spent a lot of time at his fathers church where he was active in the Sunshine Band. Mark attended Lincoln Elementary School and Roosevelt Junior High School in Peoria Illinois. He joined the Peoria Chapter of the NAACP in his early teens where he displayed leadership abilities with the youth. According to NAACP chapter President John Gwyn “Mark could call youth to order when adults could not”.
Mark Joins The Black Panther Party
Mark Clark had the tenacity to engage in a revolutionary struggle for justice and liberation. He joined the Black Panther Party, organizing the Peoria Branch in early 1969.
Black Panther Party Leader Clark motivated inner-city youth to dedicate themselves to the Black Panther Party ten-point program, platform, and initiatives. Mark Clark routinely required the Peoria BPP Branch recruits to participate in marching exercises designed to help achieve greater discipline and unity. Peoria recruits monitored the neighborhood and sold Black Panther newspapers which highlighted Party initiatives and exposed police fascism and brutality.
Mark Clark encouraged the community to get tested for sickle-cell anemia and he wanted to establish acBPP free medical center in Peoria.
Mark established a Black Panther Party Free Breakfast Program in the spring of 1969. The BPP Free Breakfast program was operated out of Peoria’s Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church. The Peoria BPP prepared free breakfast for children and distributed food bags to needy and elderly in the inner-city. Eventually, church officials began receiving threats from suspected FBI operatives forcing them to discontinue the program for a period of time. Eventually the church resumed the food program.
The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party
The Peoria Branch of the Black Panther Party was under the leadership of Tge Chicago, Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party.
Mark Clark would travel back and forth from the Peoria branch to Chicago where he met with Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. of the Chicago Illinois Chapter of the BPP. Sometimes recruits from the Peoria branch went to Chicago for political education classes led by Chairman Fred Sr.
(Below are Quotes from Defense Captain Mark Clark)
Police and FBI Target BPP / Assassinate Fred and Mark
Fearing the unification of Black leadership and the success of the Black Panthers Free Breakfast for Children Program, Free People’s Medical Clinic and Political Education classes; FBI officials deemed The Black Panther Party to be the number one threat to the security of the nation. FBI set up a special task force to focus on eliminating the Black Panthers. Members of the BPP were maliciously charged with serious crimes; Some were given lengthy prison sentences. Other Black Panthers were killed by police in cities and towns throughout the nation.
The FBI COINTELPRO unit devised a plan to eliminate Chairman Fred Sr. after deeming him a potential Black Messiah because of his influence.on the Black masses and rainbow coalitions.. In order to obtain their objective, the FBI conspired together with the U.S. Justice Department, Chicago Police Department, and Cook County States Attorney's Office. A raid was planned on the pretext that there were illegal weapons in Chairman Fred’s Monroe st. apartment on Chicago’s south side.
FBI agent Roy Mitchell met with informant William O’Neal who provided a floor plan of the apartment showing where Chairman Fred was sleeping. He was paid $300 bonus for the floor plan and $17,000 for ongoing detailed information the Chicago, Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and tts comrades. The information William O’Neal provided included detailed descriptions of Black Panther Party members and their daily routines. Agent Mitchell passed on all the information he received to a special racial matters unit. Richard Jolovec coordinated with Sergeant Daniel Groth and infamous Chicago police officer James “Gloves” Davis and the other policemen in the special police unit
The assassination of Black Panther Party Leaders Hampton and Clark occurred in Chicago, Illinois on December 4th 1969 at approximately 4:45 am, the Cook County State Attorney Edward Hanrahan initiated the raid. There were fourteen officers on the special racial matters squad, Eight officers entered at the front of the apartment, and six officers at the back. Police rushed inside the front of the apartment and began spraying the walls with gunfire. Their sub machine guns penetrated the walls of Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. and his pregnant fiancée’s bedroom.
Defense Captain Mark Clark was in the front living room in a chair, when police forcibly kicked the door open and began shooting without warning. Mark was shot twice, once in the heart and once in the lung; and was killed instantly.
Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. was asleep in the back bedroom with his pregnant fiancée when he was shot in the shoulder from the submachine gunfire that penetrated through the wall. His pregnant fiancée, unable to wake him, was hurried out of the back bedroom into the kitchen. Several policemen enter the bedroom where they shot Chairman Fred several more times. Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. Was shot a total of four times, twice in the head at point blank range. An officer was heard to have said "He's good and dead now". Police continued to spray the apartment. There were 99 sub machine gun shots fired by police resulting in the assassinations and serious injury of several other Black Panther Party members.
Mark Clark’s Funeral and Burial In Peoria
Mark Clark's family learned of his death from news reports but were never officially notified by authorities. When family members arrived in Chicago to claim his body, they found Mark listed as an unknown person, even though FBI and police knew his identity.
Mark Clark was transported to his hometown Peoria, Illinois. And His Funeral service was held Saturday, December 13, 1969 at Freedom Hall in Peoria, Illinois. Hundreds of people attended the solemn funeral service. Members of the Black Panther Party wore black leather jackets and black berets. Mark Clark was buried at Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, Illinois. Even in death he wore the black leather jacket and black beret, the aesthetics of the Black Panther Party and symbolic of his revolutionary struggle.
13 Years Of Trials & Appeals
It would take nearly 13 years of trials and appeals going all the way up to the U.S. Supreme court before a civil judgement was awarded In 1983 a settlement of $1.85 million was reached, much of which went to attorneys fees . no police or FBI operatives was held criminally responsible as the government gave FBI operatives qualified immunity.