Racial Matter Analysis

1305 Words6 Pages
Morena Rivas Dr. Adewole Umoja History 42 MW-4:55pm-6:20pm Racial Matters by Kenneth O’Relly Kenneth O’Relly “ Racial Matters “The FBI’s secrets file on Black America 1960 -1972 is an examination of the actions and inactions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the civil rights movements, focusing largely on the director of the FBI in this time frame, Edgar Hoover. It explains the ways in which Edward Hoover’s personality was permanently stamped on everything. O’Reilly shows the way in which the FBI response to the civil rights movement changed over time, although most of these changes were nearly invisible to an outsider. John Edward personal life was full of surprises. Rumors of Hoover being…show more content…
As far as anyone could remember, he never had a date. He lived with his mother until she died, but the single factor that gave rise to the strongest rumors was Hoover’s lifelong intimacy with Clyde Tolson. Tolson was a tall, handsome man from Missouri who got his law degree from Hoover’s alma mater, George Washington University. John Edgar Hoover’s professional life began in 1924. He was the longtime director of the FBI and spent much of his career gathering intelligence on radical groups and individuals, “subversives” Martin Luther King Jr. being one of his favorites. Hoover’s methods included infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps and planted evidence and his legacy is tainted because of it. His stance or controversial tactics against black was unspeakable. He name Martin Luther king Jr. the most dangerous Negro in the future of this nation, and he was so afraid of Marcus Garvey that he called him a notorious negro agitator and began searching for any that would allow this guys to be charged with a crime. Hoover used COINTELPRO to initiate around the clock surveillance on king, hoping to find evidence of communism or sexual deviance. Using an illegal wiretap,…show more content…
Hoover held the power of secrets of the U.S government for nearly 50 years. Black activists stirred up a drive to fight in the ghettos but militant protest scared the United States government. Edgar Hoover called on the FBI to rid of the vanguard (black activists) and keep an eye on the black community in his two track system. In 1967 the FBI launched a counter-intelligence program that targeted civil rights movement leaders and black power activists. Under his counter intelligence program nicknamed the COINTELPRO operation, Hoover unlawfully manipulated and tracked many black leaders. COINTELPRO was designed by the FBI to neutralize political radicals. A whole section of this program was directed at Black Nationalist Hate Groups in 1967 to 1971. The goal of this program was to “expose disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise cancel out the activities of black nationalist, hate type organizations and grouping, their leadership, spokesmen, membership and supporters and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.” There was a long list of African American leaders, group’s television programs and other media that the FBI aimed to wipe out of existence. On the other hand O’Relly mentioned in his book “the last thing he wanted was for the FBI to become a national police force.” (p.64). Finally,

More about Racial Matter Analysis

Open Document