On December 4, 1969, the day of the Chicago police murder of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton, and in the weeks to follow, reporters who wanted to report this momentous incident, were at an impasse. The State’s Attorney and the police he used to raid the Panthers apartment and kill Hampton in his bed were lying about what happened; the Panther survivors were not talking on the record but only to their lawyers; and local media news editors and managers were hugging the misleading middle of the road.

Journalists assigned to cover this horrendous incident were frustrated that the stories they wanted to present about an assassination-like police ”shoot-in,” rather than a Panther “shootout,” were not getting through to the public. One reporter, Brian Boyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, resigned when his story detailing some of the lies in the police account of the raid and murder was buried in the back pages and published only in the late edition of the newspaper. So Boyer and other journalists assigned to the story turned to their own independent publication, The Chicago Journalism Review, to produce a detailed report on the murder, its causes, and its meanings. The 16-page magazine had a gripping cover donated by Pulitzer prize-winning, Sun-Times editorial cartoonist, Bill Mauldin.

This story, so vividly dramatized in a new film, “Judas and the Black Messiah,” reverberates to this day, informing new generations and reinforcing the shocking memories of those who lived through this horrendous chapter in Chicago’s and the nation’s history. At the time of the incident, December 1969, reporters knew nothing about what would become the film’s major theme: the role and actions of the FBI, its notorious director, J. Edgar Hoover, and its spy and informant, William O’Neal, the “Judas” of the film, who became Hampton’s bodyguard and helped the police plan and carry about the murderous raid—even drugging Hampton with a barbiturate.

Because of the interest provoked by the film, two living members of the Journalism Review, which stopped publication in the 1970s, and their friends and relatives decided to launch this web site to republish the December, 1969 issue. We have also included some related source materials about the murder of Fred Hampton. If you have additional contributions, we welcome you to contact us.

—Hank DeZutter