By Dray Breezy
Feb 18, 2021
What do you get when you mix racism, capitalism and a closeted gay sociopath? You get the COINTELPRO operation, created by the infamous queer J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI . COINTELPRO was created in the 1950’s to suppress any group that was resisting white supremacy or exploitative capitalism.
COINTELPRO is Black History
What’s important when discussing Black History Month is discussing the strong and consistent white supremacist resistance to Black leadership. COINTELPRO was one of these resistant programs, a domestic espionage operation created by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to discredit and deplatform the majority of significant black civil rights leaders in the 1960’s. Hoover used unconstitutional, immoral, and unethical methods of intimidating black thought leaders and the COINTELPRO operation was easily one of the most powerful methods of resistance to the civil rights movement. On this episode of The Breeze Podcast we discuss the dark history of COINTELPRO and how it fits into the larger pattern of black oppression. (The podcast is located at the bottom of this page)
According to the Church committee, COINTELPRO was “a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech an association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.”
How Did this Program Begin?
The program began in the 1950’s during the Red Scare. After WW2, America was terrified of the perceived communist threat growing within America’s borders. Domestic groups such as the Socialist Worker Party and the Communist Party of the United States were growing steadily. This culture war between the USSR and United States led to the creation of the counterintelligence program, often referred to as COINTELPRO, signed into effect by President Eisenhower and later on Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
During this time there is a natural alliance that is growing between communist groups and civil rights groups. Many civil rights leaders such as Fred Hampton and Martin Luther King Jr. were connecting capitalism to racism and the communist party offered an alternative to being a wage slavery and vastly unequal and racist financial institutions. The communists also offered an social alternative to the virulent American racism that black people faced from most modern establishments (restaurants, banks, pools, schools). Turns out equality is a powerful incentive. Hoover and the American establishment began to notice this growing alliance and could have easily bettered the situation by improving the conditions in which black people were discontent with, but instead they choose to crack downs on these groups with the full force of the law.
COINTELPRO was originally created to defeat the rise of American communism but it quickly became a way to destabilize any group that questioned the social value of white supremacy. The FBI infiltrated and sabotaged the Black Panther Party, Socialist Workers Party, the Nation of Islam, NAACP, the Ku Klux Klan, feminist groups, animal rights activists, environmental activist groups, First Nation tribes, and various New Left organizations with the intent of destroying them or disabling them as a threat to the social order of white supremacy.
Hoover and King
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, seemed to have a personal vendetta against Dr. King, often using strong language to describe him in speeches as a liar. After his “I have a Dream” speech, Dr.King became the number one target for Hoover.
Yes, the director of the FBI thought the biggest threat to America was a pastor whose most famous line is, “just not by the color of one’s skin, but the content of one’s character”. King’s message of love and equality was too much for Hoover’s pea sized racist mind.
The FBI carried out a massive surveillance campaign against Dr. King. Starting in 1963, with the approval of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the FBI wiretapped Dr. King’s phones, as well as those of his associates in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, including close advisers. They surveilled Dr. King non-stop and used evidence of an extramarital affair to try and blackmail him into committing suicide. When that didn’t work, they conspired to outright have him killed.
The FBI used various illegal and unconstitutional methods to achieve their goals. This included psychological warfare, threatening and manipulating postal workers, landlords, switchboard operators and anyone else that seemed sympathetic to the civil rights or communists movements.
The FBI forged documents and coerced the IRS to harass members of these organizations as well. The Bureau arrested targets under bullshit crimes, falsified evidence, intimidated witnesses, did everything possible to eliminate non-violent dissent in this country.
Particularly shameful is the story of Jean Seberg, who donated money to the Black Panthers. The FBI decided to nuke her reputation by circulating lies that her unborn baby had been the product of an affair with a member of the Black Panthers. The LA Times and Newsweek both ran the libel.
When Seberg discovered these lies, she attempted to end her life, resulting in the stillbirth of her baby. According to her partner, she attempted suicide every year near the anniversary of the baby’s death, eventually succeeding on August 30, 1979.
Agents were sending anonymous letters to MLK and Malcolm X, these letters heightened tension and paranoia amongst already stressed out groups. These letters often suggested false informants or otherwise supplied misleading information to leadership. Agents sent these letters to increase mistrust into these groups, oftentimes being successful as was the case with Malcolm X who ended up being murdered by another member of the Nation of Islam.
According to the Panthers’ former attorney, between 1967 and 1969, the party spent over $200,000 ( $1.3 million in today’s dollars) on bail bond for incarcerated members.
Destruction of Black Nationalism
COINTELPRO made a point of increasing friction between competing factions such as the Black Panthers and Black Rangers, or from civil rights groups and local law enforcement. In cases like Fred Hampton, these altercations ended in death. By comparison, the Bureau kept members of the KKK on payroll even after heinous crimes such as the 16th street church bombing and supported right wing groups brutal beatings of the freedom riders.
Photos of Birmingham, Alabama
The FBI was so afraid of the downfall of white supremacy that they conducted a wholly unconstitutional program of terrorism to destroy the ideas that these groups fought for. What’s most disturbing is that the legacy of COINTELPRO exists to this day. Look at the conservative treatment of Occupy Wall Street and BLM. They are called terrorists and anti-American. The narrative of activist groups being secret communists intent on destroying America has never gone away. It is constantly used to distract away from what racist white Americans fear so much, change and having a truthful and uncomfortable discussion on race in America.
American Racism and Christopher Colombus
It’s why they voted for a president that labeled anti-discrimination programs as racist and anti-American. It’s why they rally for Columbus day and want to protect the “heritage” of confederate statues.
I can imagine why these conversations would be uncomfortable with white people, but avoiding these discussions is doing terrible damage to the fabric of this country. It’s mind boggling to me that racist whites have more fear of a literal reverend than they do of violent white supremacists. Amazing how Hoover could listen to the “I Have A Dream” speech and somehow feel fear or threatened from the words that Dr. King spoke. However, figures like Hoover are not rare, they are a regular occurrence in American politics. Upholding white supremacy at all costs is a staple of this American experiment, constitution be damned.
The Collapse of COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was finally exposed to the public in the early 1970s. Activists with the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into a FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, stealing hundreds of documents related to COINTELPRO and sent them to the press in 1972. Verified stories on COINTELPRO weren’t published for another year. In 1972, J. Edgar Hoover died, leaving the FBI in chaos; continued information on COINTELPRO continued to be released in the wake of Hoover’s death and lead to a congressional investigation.
You can decide how much the Bureau has evolved since then, I haven’t seen much progress. We The People are still target number one.