Mark Clark and the Peoria Journal Star

(March 24, 2018, Peoria, IL.) — After all the years, and all the change, and all the opportunities to do simple fair reporting and analysis, you have to wonder what exactly is behind the inability of the Peoria Journal Star to do right by Mark Clark.

This daily newspaper of record in central Illinois cannot even commit to basic journalism in 2018 when it comes to the city’s late revolutionary human rights’ leader who was murdered by Chicago police under the direction of FBI COINTELPRO authorities during the extra-judicial execution of the legendary Illinois Black Panther Party Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton in an infamous predawn home raid on December 4, 1969.

Just days ago on March 10, the Journal Star published long-time columnist Phil Luciano’s work “Killing of Peorian Mark Clark at center of Black Panther exhibit”. In the very first mention of Clark, Luciano writes, ” . . . plus a guest room used by Mark Clark, a party member from Peoria.”

Clark was not just “a party member from Peoria,” he was the founder and unquestioned head of the Peoria chapter of the Illinois Black Panther Party.

Repeatedly describing Clark as “a party member” is like calling Barack Obama a Democratic Party member in 2009 without referring to the fact that he was the president of the US, and the undisputed leader of the party. Almost 50 years afterwards, Luciano and the Journal Star newspaper won’t state the fact, and thereby give him his proper place and position in history, that Mark Clark was the founder and head of the Peoria chapter of the Illinois Black Panther Party at the time of his death. If they cannot get that right, how can this writer Luciano and especially this city newspaper be recognized for serious and responsible journalism?

The best Luciano can say about Clark is he “ventured to Chicago . . . to attend organizing and strategy sessions of party leaders from throughout the state.” Sorry, but that doesn’t remotely identify Clark as head of the Peoria chapter. And the many photo captions that accompany Luciano’s column all refer to Clark only as “Peoria (BPP) member”.

Why won’t the writer and the newspaper give Clark his due?

All Luciano had to do is read my very recent December 2017 front-page article in Peoria’s Community Word monthly newspaper to see what BPP position Clark held. It’s right in the first paragraph. Or he could have referred to the academic work “Nobody Knows My Name: The Marginalization of Mark Clark in America’s Collective Consciousness,” in International Social Science Review (2010, Vol. 85, Nos. 3 & 4) by Dr. Judson L. Jeffries and Dr. Omari L. Dyson.

The article noted, “Clark is important because of the work that he did. He opened up a Black Panther Party branch in a city where there was not a tremendous amount of radical activity, which means he could not hide from authorities. He was right out front and there were few other radical groups whose members experienced the repression levied by the police.”

As the head of the Peoria Black Panthers, Clark started the first free breakfast program for children on the city’s South Side. “He came to my church (in 1969) and asked me, ‘Rev. Ramsey, can we use Ward Chapel A.M.E. for our breakfast program?’ And I consented to it — no other church in Peoria would open their doors — for what I considered a worthwhile endeavor. There were a number of little children who really needed a good breakfast,” Rev. Blaine Ramsey, head of the renowned Ward Chapel church from 1966-1969, said in a past interview. The minister noted the Peoria Black Panthers’ breakfast program for children headed by Clark served approximately 30 students Monday through Friday for six months.

If Luciano and the Journal Star can make sure their readers know that Clark was arrested for selling BPP newspapers without permission on the Bradley University campus, and that Clark had been previously arrested for non-Panther related “fisticuffs,” why is there no mention of the Peoria Black Panther head’s months-long free children’s breakfast that served thousands of meals?

Other local people sure noticed.

Since 2011, people like the African American Hall Of Fame Museum in Peoria noticed Mark Clark. That’s the year he was inducted into this august group that includes John Gwynn, Evelyn Ogletree, Richard Pryor, Wayne McCain, Jimmy Binkley, Warletta Johnson, and many more.

So why there is no mention of Clark’s HOF status in this piece recounting his life and legacy?

And Luciano could have better informed himself about Clark’s life if he had simply visited the Peoria Riverfront Museum, where Clark’s place in the African American HOF has been a presence since 2012. His photo and short bio are right there in the African American Wall of Fame display within the museum’s Peoria History Center. Not so hard to find, really.

To recap, in a March 2018 piece about Mark Clark’s place in a Chicago Black Panther storefront history exhibit, Phil Luciano and the Peoria Journal Star neglect to state 1). Clark was the founder & head of the Peoria chapter of the Black Panther Party; 2). Clark began and maintained a free children’s breakfast program in the Peoria’s most important African-American church, but make sure we know about his minor arrests for selling newspapers and “fisticuffs”; 3). Clark was inducted into the Peoria African-American Hall of Fame seven years ago; and 4). Clark’s inclusion in the permanent Peoria History Center African American Wall of Fame exhibit within the Peoria Riverfront Museum six years ago.

Hey, I understand that Luciano is a columnist and not technically a reporter, but he is still bound by journalistic ethics of fairness and balance and context. When I contacted Luciano five years ago about a story on Clark, he begged off claiming I was attempting to bully and shame him into writing something about Clark when I offered “Your paper especially has a lot to make up for in recognizing the good and significant work of Peorian Mark Clark.”

He should have never taken on the topic. Luciano’s column only adds to the litany of misrepresentations, omissions, malfeasance and outright racism exhibited by the Peoria Journal Star in connection with Mark Clark ever since his murder nearly 50 years ago.

In its December 10, 1969 issue, less than a week after Clark’s murder, the lead editorial titled The Panthers Need Help claimed, “And it was finally put together under the Panther label by a coterie of articulate ex-convicts and jobless civil rights activists who duped a few young men who were not overly bright to sell their newspapers and play the cannon-fodder roles of tough-guy revolutionaries.”

Not overly bright jobless ex-convicts. Hmmm. I’m surprised the Journal Star found enough restraint to actually not use the n-word.

A week after its first Panther editorial, the Journal Star published a follow-up piece Slowness in Washington that decried the US Attorney General’s apparent foot dragging in ordering the FBI to investigate Clark and Hampton’s killings. The reason for that delay? Again, the Journal Star blamed the victim: “The slowness of Attorney General (John) Mitchell’s response and the complete silence from the White House in regard to the Chicago affair is a discouraging commentary on how far the extremist tactics of the Black Panthers and other violent groups have set back black people in their quest for justice.”

That editorial confidently concluded, “We know justice will be done in Chicago . . . but it may be a little longer in the doing.” In fact, like Luciano noted, no one was ever convicted in the deaths, and it took until 1983, 14 years after the murders, that a $1.85M settlement was finally awarded to the raid survivors, families of Hampton and Clark, and their lawyers.

The Journal Star did wrong by Mark Clark in its editorial pages when he died, and it continues to do wrong by him even now decades later in the woefully incomplete words of one of its main columnists.

In their article, professors Judson and Dyson note that, “Clark’s lack of national distinction should not detract from viewing him as an important figure in American history. He is important because he sacrificed his life so that others may live a better life. He is important just as hundreds of civil rights workers whose names were not household words were important, but whose work made a difference in people’s lives.”

Luciano and his newspaper need to apologize to Clark, his family, and the entire African-American community. Until they do, the columnist and the city’s daily newspaper cannot call themselves fair and responsible members of the local media.

See my earlier works on Mark Clark included below for more details and background on his life and legacy.[]

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