SFCINEMATHEQUE

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The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971) by Howard Alk & Michael Gray

Sunday, February 21, 1988, 8:00 pm

The Murder Of Fred Hampton

Produced by Michael Gray

SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE

800 Chestnut Street

San Francisco, CA, 94133

Michael Gray’s passionate and grimly determined 1971 film which unraveled the death of Fred Hampton, the articulate leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, remains one of the most vivid documents of that turbulent period. In 1968 Gray began a film about the charismatic Black Panther leader and was well-experienced with verite technique when the Chicago police struck on pre-dawn December 4, 1969. Gray pieces together through clear investigative inquiry that Hampton was murdered as he slept, in a barrage of shotgun and machine gun fire, in a cold and precisely orchestrated execution.