Mark Clark (June 28, 1947 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and member of the Black Panther Party (BPP). He was killed on December 4, 1969 with Fred Hampton, state chairman of the Black Panthers, during a Chicago police predawn raid. In January 1970, a coroner's jury held an inquest and ruled the deaths of Clark and Hampton to be justifiable homicide. Survivors and the relatives of Clark and Hampton filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government (specifically FBI). It was settled in November 1982, with each entity paying $616,333 to a group of nine plaintiffs. Youth Clark was born on June 28, 1947, in Peoria, Illinois, to Elder William Clark and Fannie (Bardley) Clark. He became active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at an early age and joined in demonstrating against discrimination in employment, housing, and education. 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 . Black Panther Party After reading their literature and the Ten Point Program, Clark joined the Black Panther Party and later decided to organize a local Peoria chapter. He went from church to church in an effort to find a building to house a free breakfast program. He was eventually successful when Pastor Blaine Ramsey agreed to allow a free breakfast program. Church members later voted against continuing the breakfast program because of concerns of government monitoring of the Black Panther Party. It was later revealed that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was at that time running a massive and largely illegal disruption and neutralization campaign against the Panthers as an organization and against individual members, sympathizers and supporters of the BPP as part of the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), in close collaboration with state and local police throughout the USA. Death Some family members and friends say Mark Clark knew he would be murdered