The FBI and Me.

Click here to view my FBI file

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my name first popped up on the FBI’s radar in a Memorandum dated 5/29/71; Subject: BLACK PANTHER PARTY (BPP). 

Had I known, I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised. Political activists knew that the FBI, and other government sleuths were always lurking behind the scenes conducting nefarious ‘black bag’ operations against progressive and left-wing militants. 

Years earlier, the Bureau had focused its ire on the Civil Rights movement and relentlessly hounded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the very moment Dr. King was murdered by an assassin’s bullet in April 1968, Time magazine identified the man kneeling next to him as Merrell McCullough, an undercover police agent who later worked for the CIA. 

A year before the King assassination, J Edgar Hoover, head of the Bureau, had issued a directive: "Prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement.”

FBI GOALS FOR COINTELPRO

Under Director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) was aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political groups within the United States. In the 1960's, COINTELPRO's targets frequently included civil rights activists, both those who espoused non-violence, like Martin Luther King, and those that Hoover referred to as "black nationalist hate groups," like the Black Panthers. This document outlines the program's goals in attempting to limit the effectiveness of such groups. In practice, the FBI used infiltration, legal harassment, disinformation and sometimes extra-legal intimidation and violence against King, the Panthers, and other black activist groups in its attempt to discredit and disrupt them.

Goal #2

Prevent the RISE OF A “MESSIAH” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a “messiah;” he is the martyr of the movement today. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Muhammed all aspire to this position. Elijah Muhammed is less of a threat because of his age. King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed “obedience” to “white, liberal doctrines” (nonviolence) and embrace black nationalism. Carmichael has the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way.

Those of us in Madison who had heard Illinois Chairman of the Panther Party Fred Hampton speak (as I had twice) embraced Chairman Fred as that ‘messiah’. Chairman Fred exhibited the charisma and the political ideology to unify not only the black movement, but the broader Rainbow Coalition of multi-national activists. 

Per Hoover’s ‘messiah’ directive, Chairman Fred’s life was snuffed out in an assassination, as police fired 100 rounds into his apartment on Dec. 4, 1969, while he slept after having been surreptitiously drugged. Informant William O'Neal, who provided police with a hand drawn map of Fred’s apartment, was paid $300 by the FBI. 

Chairman Fred’s murder, unabashedly executed by armed agents of the state, imbued me with a sense of determination to devote myself to bringing about the revolutionary change that Chairman Fred had so eloquently advocated. 

I took on the task of coordinating sales of the weekly Panther paper in Madison. To organize distribution, I frequently spoke with the Panther office in Chicago. Tracking phone calls to and from my house at 506 W. Mifflin during the “July 1979 to February 1971” period (see FBI Memo) to a telephone number associated with the Chicago BPP landed me on the FBI’s surveillance radar. 

While I always felt the presence of the Bureau’s reach during my activist days, I never had concrete verification until I decided to request my files pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in July 1984. In response: “48 pages were reviewed, and 42 pages [were] released”. Not satisfied, I appealed and received another inadequate response: 63 pages reviewed, and 47 pages released. Of those pages released, over half were blacked out (redacted).

Unsatisfied, I kept appealing. Finally, I received almost 1000 pages with a lot of redactions. I was shocked! The Bureau’s level of surveillance vastly exceeded anything I had contemplated. 

Bureau agents had visited, or communicated with, each of my employers while working in industry in Milwaukee. I was finally able to conclusively confirm that Bureau agents had worked in cahoots with the American Motors Corporation to orchestrate my discharge in 1973 (see FBI memo). The file also included agendas of meetings at my house; logs of the license plates of cars parked on my block; detailed, in-depth reporting on strike support committee meetings and strategy discussed; and much, much more as you will see if you click on the attached link. 

Unfortunately, government surveillance methods have become more sophisticated and more intrusive, which should act as a warning to today’s activists. Don’t be overly alarmed or paralyzed but be aware that agents of the state are determined to infiltrate and surveil activities whenever we stand up to the system and fight for justice.