Federal Bureau of Investigations on Martin Luther King and Black Panther Party
Civil rights activism was not a walk on the park as most people would think. Martin Luther King has received credit for his tireless efforts to see equality in America, and he had to do that against a series of complications. The Black Panther Party that was founded on King’s ideologies was also not spared by the challenges that King faced before his death. Civil rights activism was supported by the federal government, although the response later revealed different perceptions. The main reason for the support from the federal government was that America had struggled to establish harmonious coexistence of the various races in the US. The civil rights activists, therefore, provide the much-needed help to the government, especially in bridging the gap between the whites and the Black Americans. The role of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) however brought out a different perspective to the support on civil rights activism from the federal government as activists such as King and the Black Panther Party were targeted and prevented from achieving their goals freely.
The 1950s marked a time when civil rights movements were at their prime owing to the increased gap between the American races. The African-American were not impressed with the way the government was addressing matters to do with racial discrimination, and the streets could not rest. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was however not willing to give the activists, freedom to get popularity in the streets as that was seen as a cause for concern on the order that the government believed to have existed (Stieva, 2018). Instead of supporting what the federal government believed to be a solution in the offing for racial coexistence, the FBI started targeting the activists and termed them as fierce and horrific. The society was therefore turned against any attempts of activism from the inception. Martin Luther King became an important target of the FBI as they termed him as a dangerous Negro who needed immediate address before he disrupted order in the society.
Martin Luther King was a major target by the FBI as the director of the organization marked branded him as one of the most dangerous activists that they had to deal with. The branding was hypocritical since the organization had other pressing matters to deal with, such as the increasing white violence. Therefore, the claim that the FBI was protecting the society from dangerous activism was misguided since the society needed protection from white supremacists that were making life difficult for the African-Americans. The FBI’s campaign against black activism was revealed before the 1963 March on Washington as a hundred and fifty FBI agents were deployed to monitor the activities of the crowd. Generally, such heavy deployment only showed how the bureau had branded black activism as violent and unlawful (Dong, 2020). The FBI director was not impressed with the influence of King on the masses and FBI officials marked the movement as demagogic is viewed from the standing point of communism. Therefore, fresh branding was started as King was accused of having communism backing, and the bureau began investigating him.
Capitalist ideologies have dominated in America for a long time, and communist ideologies are seen as a threat to democracy. Therefore, activists with communist backing have always faced a difficult time both from authorities and the citizens who have accepted capitalism as their way of life (Strasser & Andrews, 2019). The 1963 March to Washington changed the playing ground for civil rights activism. The FBI suspected Martin Luther King of having communism ideas and backing on his activism efforts. The communism accusation was sufficient to put King not only on the FBI radar but also to change the perspective of the Americans who were beginning to see sense in his arguments. The FBI sought help from Robert Kennedy, the then-Attorney General to be granted permission of surveillance on King’s residences. The surveillance permission included offices, phones, and hotel rooms and even people who were believed to be close to King.
The enmity between the FBI and King worsened in 1964 after King was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. The events that were slowly turning ugly saw the FBI send a letter to King asking him to commit suicide. Also, tapes of King’s sexual indiscretions were sent to his wife in a bid to undermine him. The FBI was putting all efforts within their reach to see that King was not allowed to carry out his activism freely. At some point, King was forced to change his motel room after the FBI leaked the news that he was about to rent a room in a hotel that was regarded as being too classy for the blacks. King would later be forced to change his hotel preference, and two days later, he was assassinated as he left the hotel. The FBI did not pay attention to his assassination as it did to following his activism movements. For example, the bureau thumped up its investigation to ensure that King’s wife did not connect her late husband’s movement to the civil rights movement. Moreover, King was targeted for racial politics which were false allegations.
Racial politics had been branded as one of the FBI’s major concerns in the history of the bureau. The FBI had, for a long time, monitored King under the Racial Matters Program, which focused on associations and individuals involved in racial politics. When King was associated with the card-carrying members of the Communist Party, it was expected that he be investigated. However, the bureau waited until in 1962 to bring up the charges and use the Attorney General in search of surveillance rights. The surveillance rights were used even after the death of King, showing the bureau’s determination to lock any activist attempts.
The death of Martin Luther King was not the end of the FBI conflicts as other civil rights movements were targeted under the guise of supporting racial politics. The Black Panther Party was among the targeted groups, and that started immediately after its formation in 1966. The FBI officials were aware that black activism was more widespread than it appeared, and the death of King had not served to stop activists from continuing with their advocacy (Donovan, 2019). He Black Panther Party was, however different and did not believe diplomacy would provide the solutions that King had attempted to find. Therefore, the party engaged in violence, and the FBI did not have a difficult time marking them as a dangerous group pretending to fight for the rights of the blacks. The Black Panthers’ message of socialism and Black Nationalism was clear and direct, and that forced the FBI to form the COunter INTELligence PROgram (COINTELPRO), to curb the organization before it grew out of control.
The Black Panther Party was labeled as a communist organization, and the FBI employed all efforts to bring the organization down as it was viewed as an enemy of the government. The targeting of Black Party by the FBI was seen clearly after 1969 when the party’s leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed (Goforth, 2019). The murders were later to be associated with FBI who initially refuted any claims associating them with the murders. When the leaders were killed, the police reported that a shoot-out had occurred and surviving suspects had been arrested. The charges against the arrested suspects were that they were involved in attempted murder although the charges were bogus. Further investigations would reveal that the Black Panther had fired a single shot in retaliation after the attack from police. The initial claims by the then minister, Bobby Rush, who was also a member of the Black Panther Party (that the FBI was involved in the murder), were not considered because he did not present concrete evidence. However, Bobby Rush later worked in unison with other lawyers to reveal the truth behind the truth, and it was found that the FBI was responsible. Moreover, the COINTELPRO played a crucial role in targeting the Black Panther Party.
One of the methods used by the FBI to target the Black Panther Party was the formation of the COINTELPRO. However, the COINTELPRO was kept as a secret for a long time, and the cover-up was done to keep information away from the public relating to the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark (Cronin, 2020). The information on COINTELPRO would later be revealed after a secret activists group dubbed “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI” broke into the FBI offices and discovered documents that directly linked the FBI to the murders of Black Panther Party leaders. The documents revealed that the FBI director had ordered the COINTELPRO to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” organizations believed to be Black-American. Individuals such as Martin Luther King were also targeted in the documents, and it was clear that the FBI was targeting the civil rights activists. Generally, the Black Panther Party suffered the disadvantage that it had to deal with blocks set by the FBI, which enjoyed support from other police departments and the criminal justice system.
The Black Panther Party appeared to be fighting a losing battle since the FBI enjoyed support from government agencies either willingly or through dubious means. The direct support from the government was enjoyed after the FBI promised to deal with all the enemies of the government. The Black Panther Party had been marked as a communism organization and was by default an enemy to the government. Therefore, the FBI could easily convince the public and the government to have a negative perception of the Black Panther Party. Also, the Black Panther Party did not enjoy good relationships with other activist movements since it believed in using violence. Activism had taken a peaceful basis, but the use of violence by the Black Panther Party came as a setback to other movements. Moreover, the FBI employed a strategy that destroyed the Black Panther Party from within and eventually, the party was destroyed.
The move to fight the Black Panther Party from within was the last tool of war that the FBI needed to bring the party down. A disclosure in a different case involving the FBI and the Black Panthers Party showed that the FBI had used William O’Neal, as an informant. William O’Neal had served in the Black Panther Party as the Chief of Security and provided crucial information to the FBI. The BI was, therefore, able to carry out raids such as the one that killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. However, the advocates who had attempted to uncover the truth between the roles of FBI in the events leading to the failure of the party faced several challenges. The government would always take sides with the FBI, and the judges were not willing to give orders requiring the FBI to provide the necessary documents. Generally, the FBI targeted individuals and groups that attempted to advocate for civil rights under the African-American movements.
In sum, the role of the FBI brought out a different perspective to the support on civil rights activism from the federal government as activists such as King and the Black Panther Party were targeted and prevented from achieving their goals freely. Martin Luther King became an important target of the FBI as they termed him as a dangerous Negro who needed immediate address before he disrupted order in the society. The death of Martin Luther King was not the end of the FBI conflicts as other movements such as the Black Panther Party were targeted under the guise of supporting racial politics.
References
Cronin, M. D. (2020). The American Indian movement and the Black Panther party compared: violence, the state and social movements in the USA, 1966 to 1976 (Doctoral dissertation, NUI Galway).
Dong, C. X. (2020). “Why Don’t You Die For the People?” Memory and Martyrdom in the Black Panther Party.
Donovan, M. (2019). FBI Investigations into the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left.
Garrett, L. (2018). And At Once My Chains Were Loosed: How the Black Panther Party Freed Me from My Colonized Mind.
Goforth, R. (2019). ” Something Worth Being Killed Over”: The FBI, Cultural Propaganda, and the Murder of Fred Hampton.
Stieva, K. (2018, July). ‘What Colour are You?’: FBI Counter-Intelligence and the Targeting of White Hate and Black Extremist Groups in the 1960s. Arts.
Strasser, D. H., & Andrews, M. (2019). The Modern Civil Rights Movement in Iowa and Minnesota. Black Americans and the Civil Rights Movement in the West, 16, 181.