Mark Clark (activist)

Clark was born on June 28, 1947, in Peoria, Illinois. He was the ninth child of Fannie Mae Clark and Pastor William Clark. Clark grew up in a religious home, as his father was the founder of the Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, and was known from childhood to be stubborn, principled, and possessing great empathy for the downtrodden. His family members note that as a junior high school student, he regularly attended the Carver Community Center where he practiced drawing, painting, and carving. According to John Gwynn, former president of state and local chapters of the NAACP, Clark and his brothers played a role in helping keep other teenagers in line. "He could call for order when older persons or adults could not", Gwynn said of Clark in a December 1969 interview with the Chicago Tribune. In that same Chicago Tribune article, family members are quoted as saying Clark enjoyed reading and art, and was good at drawing portraits. He attended Manual High School and Illinois Central College in East Peoria. After quitting high school, Clark enrolled in a few courses at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, where he was actively involved in the Black Student Union. There, he participated in political education work to raise the political consciousness of Black Peoria residents. Due to his involvement in the NAACP, even prior to his joining of the Black Panther Party, Clark was a target of the Peoria police department. According to his sister, Gloria Clark Jackson, Clark was repeatedly beaten and detained on bogus charges, a common practice in Peoria at the time, as many police officers were members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). ==Black Panther Party==

Clark was first introduced to the Black Panther Party in December 1968 through family friend Henry Howard, who was a party member in San Francisco. After Howard successfully encouraged him to join the Panthers, Clark accompanied him to Chicago to pick up reports from the Chicago chapter prior to going to the Central Committee office in Oakland, California. It was on this trip that Clark first met deputy chairman of the Illinois Party chapter, Fred Hampton. Upon meeting Clark, Hampton asked him to remain in Chicago for three months in order to train and acquire the skills necessary to start a local branch in Peoria. During these three months, Clark was trained in leadership, took political education classes, and read Panther literature, including the Ten Point Program. During this time, Clark became good friends with Hampton, a friendship that endured throughout their lives. At one point, Rev. Ramsey was ousted as the church's pastor due to his permitting the Peoria Panthers to use church facilities for the Free Breakfast Program. ==Murder==

In late November 1969, Clark made the decision to go to Chicago following the death of Panther Spurgeon (Jake) Winters, who had just been killed by the Chicago Police Department in a shootout that claimed the life of two police officers. Clark's family and friends, as well as Clark himself, knew that the party had likely been infiltrated by the FBI and that his life was in danger upon arriving in Chicago:) and Fred Hampton (age 21 Because he was on security duty, CPD shot Clark first, hitting him in the heart. A federal grand jury determined that the police fired between 82 and 99 shots, including into bedrooms, while most of the occupants lay sleeping Inquest Shortly afterwards, Cook County Coroner Andrew Toman began forming a special six-member coroner's jury to hold an inquest into the deaths of Clark and Hampton. On December 23, Toman announced four additions to the jury which included two African-American men: physician Theodore K. Lawless and attorney Julian B. Wilkins, the son of J. Ernest Wilkins Sr. An official with the Chicago Urban League said: "I would have had more confidence in the jury if one of them had been a black man who has a rapport with the young and the grass roots in the community." Jury foreman James T. Hicks stated that they could not consider the charges of the Black Panthers in the apartment who stated that the police entered the apartment shooting; those who survived the raid were reported to have refused to testify during the inquest because they faced criminal charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault during the raid. Attorneys for the Clark and Hampton families did not introduce any witnesses during the proceedings, but described the inquest as "a well-rehearsed theatrical performance designed to vindicate the police officers". State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan said the verdict was recognition "of the truthfulness of our police officers' account of the events". Civil rights lawsuit In 1970, a $47.7 million lawsuit was filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Clark and Hampton stating that the civil rights of the Black Panther members were violated. Twenty-eight defendants were named, including Hanrahan as well as the City of Chicago, Cook County, and federal governments. The following trial lasted 18 months and was reported to have been the longest federal trial up to that time. After its conclusion in 1977, Judge Joseph Sam Perry of United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed the suit against 21 of the defendants prior to jury deliberations. Perry dismissed the suit against the remaining defendants after jurors deadlocked. In 1979, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago stated that the government had withheld relevant documents, thereby obstructing the judicial process. Reinstating the case against 24 of the defendants, the Court of Appeals ordered a new trial. The Supreme Court of the United States heard an appeal but voted 5–3 in 1980 to return the case to the District Court for a new trial. In 1982, the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government agreed to a settlement in which each would pay $616,333 to a group of nine plaintiffs, including the mothers of Clark and Hampton. The $1.85 million settlement was believed to be the largest ever in a civil rights case. == Legacy ==

In the aftermath of the 1969 raid and assassination, media coverage largely treated Clark as an afterthought to Hampton. Hampton's name was mentioned far more frequently than Clark's in every newspaper of the time, across both the black and the mainstream press. Scholars believe this framing in the press may explain why Clark has been marginalized in both the collective historical memory of his life and work as a Panther, as well as in subsequent writings about his death. Clark's hometown newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star, vilified his character in reports after his murder: articles focused on him dropping out of school in the eighth grade, his legal troubles and his lengthy arrest record (including the fraudulent assault charges for which he was imprisoned twice). In a blistering editorial published just a week after the raid, the Peoria Journal Star expressly characterized Clark as a misguided young man led astray by the Black Panthers: "The real sympathy that the Panthers need from black leaders of the day is the kind which attempts to protect these young men not from the Police but from the idiotic Panther leadership which should not be allowed to continue to drive young men like Mark Clark to early graves." Clark's body was dressed in his Panther uniform: his official black leather jacket and the black beret indicating his Panther leadership. and his and Hampton's deaths were the main feature of the 2017 "Black Panther Party 50-Year Retrospective Exhibit" at the Movement & Justice Gallery inside Chicago's Westside Justice Center. Clark is also recognized with a plaque at Peoria's African American Hall of Fame museum, and a scholarship named Seize the Time has been established in his memory for African American students at Illinois Central College. ==Weather Underground reaction==

By December 1969, the Weathermen had already split from the SDS and conducted a series of radical actions that faced police pushback. However it wasn't until the assassination of Clark and Hampton, which was widely known to most likely be FBI led, paired with the Kent State Massacre 5 months later, that the group took steps to further radicalization. Following the May 4th Massacre the group went "underground," adopting fake identities, and pursuing covert activities only. On May 21, 1970, they issued a "Declaration of War" against the United States government, using for the first time its new name, the "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO). Following the declaration, the WUO prepared for a bombing of a U.S. military non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in what Brian Flanagan said had been intended to be "the most horrific hit the United States government had ever suffered on its territory". ==References==