Memorial service for Carl Hampton
by Timothy J. O'Brien Thursday, Jul. 26, 2007 at 10:25 PM
timothy_obrien@hotmail.com 832.771.7263

Memorial service to commemorate the life of People's Party II leader Carl Hampton who was murdered by the Houston Police Department on July 26, 1971.

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Community members gathered Thursday evening on two thousand block of Dowling Street in the heart of the Third Ward to memorialize the life of People’s Party II’s leader Carl Bernard Hampton. Community activists and witnesses to the incident shared an important part chapter of the largely unwritten Houston African American history.

The service marked thirty-six years since the Houston police department gunned down the twenty-one year old Hampton on July 26, 1971. The actions by the murderous HPD on that fateful date became known as the Dowling Street shootout. The police fired the fatal bullet from atop St. John’s Baptist church, which still stands today.

According to historian Dwight Watson, author of Race and the Houston Police Department, 1930-1990, the city gave HPD chief Herman Short the green light to control the Black Panthers and other radicals. After a warrant was issued for Hampton on possession of a weapon charges, Short and Mayor Louie Welch decided to arrest him to break up the People’s Party II organizing activities. Similar to many African American Houstonians a peaceful arrest wasn’t in the cards for Hampton. In addition to killing Hampton the police shot four others and arrested fifty-two people on the scene.

Historian Watson concluded that although Black Nationalism scared black and white Houstonians, the result of the Hampton slaying was a more politically aggressive black citizenry. Therefore Hampton did not die in vain and as today’s ceremony showed, his memory is respected and honored.

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Celebrating Carl Hampton's legacy
by Timothy J. O'Brien Thursday, Jul. 26, 2007 at 10:25 PM
timothy_obrien@hotmail.com 832.771.7263

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