CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Proviso East High School is making a change in honor of a famous former student.
A room at Maywood High School is now known as the Chairman Frederick A. Hampton Social Justice Room.
Officials said the change is fitting since the room is where Black students gathered in the days after the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party was killed in December 1969 to brainstorm memorial ideas.
Five decades later, Hampton has an honor at the school with his image and biography hanging over the fireplace of the newly-named room.
Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, a 1986 graduate of Proviso East, and Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Maywood native, were among those who attended the recent dedication.
The Oscar-winning film “Judas and the Black Messiah” is a biopic about Hampton’s time as a Black Panther Party leader.
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