Cross Cultural Solidarity

History; in the Service of Solidarity

State Repression of the Black Freedom Struggle

Image: Bullet holes in Fred Hampton’s home, following his assassination by the Chicago Police Department.

Books

Simone Browne: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness.

Clayborne Carson: Malcolm X: The FBI File.

Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall: Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement.

David J. Garrow: FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr: From “Solo” to Memphis.

Kenneth O’Reilly: Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972.

Videos & Podcasts

Black Geographies: Surveilling Blackness With Dr. Simone Browne.

Democracy Now! “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther”.

Deb Ellis and Denis Meuller: The FBI’s War on Black America.

Independent Lens: Spies of Mississippi: A secret spy agency formed to preserve segregation investigated citizens and organizations in attempts to derail the civil rights movement.

NPR: COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying.

Articles: Contemporary Repression  

ACLU:

Brennan Center for Justice: The FBI Targets a New Generation of Black Activists.

Daniel Connolly: 8 things we learned at the Memphis police surveillance trial.

Malkia Cyril & Shanelle Matthews: We say black lives matter. The FBI says that makes us a security threat. The government is labeling activists as “black identity extremists.”

Megan Ming Francis: Black Surveillance Matters.

Mike German: The FBI has a history of targeting black activists. That’s still true today.

Ben Norton: FBI, Homeland Security sued for records on surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists: Human rights attorneys filed a lawsuit against the agencies for failing to release docs on monitoring of the M4BL.

Robyn C. Spencer: Black Identity Extremists: COINTELPRO 2017.

Jeanne Theoharis: Comey Says FBI’s Surveillance of MLK Was “Shameful” — but Comey’s FBI Targeted Black Activists and Muslim Communities Anyway.

Articles: Historical Repression

Dan Berger:

Christopher Bonanos: The Civil Rights Movement Photographer Who Was Also an F.B.I. Informant.

Nana Afua Y. Brantuo: Targeted: Undocumented Black Immigrants Under Trump.

Charisse Burden-Stelly: ‘Stoolpigeons’ and the Treacherous Terrain of Freedom Fighting.

Lynn Burnett: Martin Luther King: The Assassination and the FBI.

James Campbell: James Baldwin and the FBI.

Joshua Clark Davis: The FBI’s War on Black-Owned Bookstores: At the height of the Black Power movement, the Bureau focused on the unlikeliest of public enemies: black independent booksellers.

Defending Rights & Dissent: Resisting HUAC – A Grassroots Success Story.

Martin Dobrow: How the FBI Tried to Block Martin Luther King’s Commencement Speech: The untold story of a government plot, a maverick college president, and the most important figure of the civil rights era.

Michel duCille: Black Moses, Red Scare.

Ashley D. Farmer:

Garrett Felber: Malcolm X assassination: 50 years on, mystery still clouds details of the case: Despite freedom of information act requests throughout the years, New York still will not release records to the public and claim files would endanger the safety of police off.

Nishani Frazier:

Beverly Gage: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals. (History of the “suicide letter” the FBI sent to King.)

Conor A. Gallagher & Aaron J. Leonard: Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton.

David Garrow: The FBI and Martin Luther King: Martin Luther King was never himself a Communist—far from it. But the FBI’s wiretapping of King was precipitated by his association with Stanley Levison, a man with reported ties to the Communist Party. Newly available documents reveal what the FBI actually knew—the vast extent of Levison’s Party activities.

Ashawnta Jackson: James Baldwin and the FBI: The author was monitored for his political activities, but also for being gay. The surveillance took a toll on him.

Andrew Lanham: When W. E. B. Du Bois Was Un-American.

Jared Leighton: “Character Assassins”: How the FBI Used the Issue of Homosexuality against the Black Freedom Struggle.

Denise Lynn:

Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar: The FBI’s War on Civil Rights Leaders: Steeped in its own racism, without any checks or balances, the FBI devoted more resources to harming the civil rights movement than any other task in its purview.

Kristine Phillips: In the latest JFK files: The FBI’s ugly analysis on Martin Luther King Jr., filled with falsehoods.

Phillip Luke Sinitiere: How W.E.B. Du Bois Resisted Government Repression.

Anthony C. Siracusa: State Surveillance of the Black Freedom Movement in Memphis.