Opposition to the effort has emerged from unexpected directions, and feelings around the group and its history in Chicago remain bitterly contested. In the late 1960s, federal authorities portrayed the party as a rampaging street gang; FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and directed the bureau’s COINTELPRO counter-intelligence program to disrupt the group’s membership — a campaign that, most scholars agree, culminated in Hampton’s assassination.