The site of the former Illinois Chapter headquarters of the Black Panther Party will receive a permanent historical marker in a public ceremony on Saturday, July 26, 2025. Located at 2350 West Madison Street, the site will be honored with the first of 12 plaques to be installed across Chicago recognizing the legacy of the Black Panther Party.

The ceremony will take place from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and will be officiated by former Congressman Bobby L. Rush, a co-founder and former Minister of Defense of the Illinois Chapter. Rush later served more than four decades as a public official. The event is free and open to the public.

The plaque dedication marks the latest step in preserving the legacy of the Illinois Chapter, which was officially established in November 1968. In 2023, the Illinois Chapter was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Following that designation, the Historical Preservation Society of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (HPS-ILBPP) purchased 13 plaques to create the inaugural Black Panther Party Heritage Trail in Illinois.

The marker at 2350 West Madison, the site of the chapter’s former headquarters, will be the first to be installed in Chicago. It follows the June 28 dedication of the trail’s first marker in Peoria at Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church. That site was home to the city’s Free Breakfast for Children Program, launched by Peoria Defense Captain Mark Clark, who was killed in the infamous 1969 raid that also claimed the life of Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton.

The new Chicago plaque will commemorate the Illinois Chapter’s role in several landmark programs and events, including the founding of the nation’s first Free Breakfast for Children Program on April 1, 1969, and the 1971 launch of a national campaign to raise awareness about sickle cell anemia, which helped prompt President Richard Nixon to sign the National Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act in 1972.

Other locations along the future trail include the site of the Spurgeon “Jake” Winters People’s Medical Care Center at 3850 West 16th Street, and 2337 West Monroe, the apartment where Hampton and Clark were assassinated in a coordinated raid by the FBI and Chicago Police on December 4, 1969.

The July 26 dedication will include a temporary street closure on Madison between 2330 and 2358 West Madison from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Canopies will provide limited shelter in case of light rain. In the event of severe weather, the event will be canceled with no rescheduled date.