Speaker 1: Under Hoover's time, You've got this kind of communist scare.
Speaker 1: Bombs are going off, riots in the street. By any
Speaker 1: means necessary, you try to quash that threat. What's going
Speaker 1: on now in college campuses? As a government, we're not
Speaker 1: accepting free speech? Am I a fan of violence?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Have I worked cases against Hamas a proven terrorist organization? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: They are cold blooded evil. Have I seen any evidence
Speaker 1: that the people who are being grabbed by masked men
Speaker 1: on campus are Hamas? No? I haven't, so. I worry
Speaker 1: that we're you know, we're going back. We're going back.
Speaker 3: The A building Episode seven, co Intel.
Speaker 4: Pro I want to smoke. Nah, I quit a year ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: You know those things supposedly killed Edward R.
Speaker 4: Morrow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he did a bunch of stories about cigarettes
Speaker 5: and cancer.
Speaker 3: He died because he.
Speaker 4: Was a socialist. Okay, Dan, where the hell are we going?
Speaker 2: The work of an FBI agent is surprisingly bureaucratic. Files, names, dates,
Speaker 2: phone numbers, stakeouts. The two agents you just heard are
Speaker 2: delivering warnings, warnings to families. Scenarios like the scenes in
Speaker 2: this episode were commonplace. No one is knocking talks. They
Speaker 2: were a method of intimidation within the FBI in the
Speaker 2: era of Gagar Hoover. He's quoted as saying, it's always
Speaker 2: practical to go after the family. That's where it can
Speaker 2: hurt the most.
Speaker 6: Hello, can I help you?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: Hello, my name is and this is my partner. These
Speaker 5: are my credentials. We're sorry to bother you. How are
Speaker 5: you this morning?
Speaker 3: You're with who?
Speaker 1: The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Speaker 4: We have some news about your son.
Speaker 1: First of all, is this your son?
Speaker 4: Let's show her the.
Speaker 2: Picture any day now, I know, I know?
Speaker 5: Hold it, damn it, Walter Johnson?
Speaker 3: This him?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: What is this? Do you know who h.
Speaker 5: Rap Brown is? Ma'am? Walter has been spending a lot
Speaker 5: of time at his shop in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: I've seen the name in the paper.
Speaker 5: Bad stuff, missus Johnson. These are real radical negroes, the
Speaker 5: worst kind. And we know you don't want this for Walter.
Speaker 5: You're a god fearing woman, a Christian woman, a school teacher.
Speaker 5: You said, Walter to college after losing your husband in Korea?
Speaker 5: And then how does he pay you back by getting
Speaker 5: kicked out of Moorhouse?
Speaker 3: Behind this Milton crop?
Speaker 4: Is that what you want for him?
Speaker 8: Is he in trouble?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Not yet.
Speaker 3: We just wanted to let you know they get the
Speaker 3: hell off my porch. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4: You'd think they'd be more grateful, and.
Speaker 1: We just delivered the news.
Speaker 3: They can do with what they please. Well, maybe she
Speaker 3: wants to see Walter through plateglass.
Speaker 4: For twenty years.
Speaker 3: In the early sixties, a new and powerful voice emerged
Speaker 3: and rose quickly in the movement towards racial equality. H
Speaker 3: rapped around, had a big voice, and it was getting bigger,
Speaker 3: and the FBI took notice.
Speaker 7: Lyndon Johnson, you can always raise an argument about law
Speaker 7: and order because he never talks about justice.
Speaker 2: But black people.
Speaker 7: Fall for that same argument, and they go around talking
Speaker 7: about lawbreakers. We did not make the laws in this country.
Speaker 7: We'll neither, Marley not legally confined to those laws, those
Speaker 7: laws that keep them up keep us.
Speaker 3: You got to begin to understand.
Speaker 2: That a new wave of black social justice spread nationwire
Speaker 2: like a firestorm. Leaders like Kaimei terray byb Seal, Angela Davis,
Speaker 2: Huey P Newton, and Tupac's mother of Phoenie.
Speaker 7: Chicour violence is a part of America's culture. It as American,
Speaker 7: as Jerry Pye American taught the.
Speaker 3: Black people to be violent.
Speaker 7: We will use that violin to be it ourselves of oppression.
Speaker 7: If necessary, we will be freed by any means necessary.
Speaker 2: Who is this man? And why did the FBI care
Speaker 2: so much? H?
Speaker 3: Rap Brown born Hubert Gerald Brown on October fourth, nineteen
Speaker 3: forty three, in Baton, Rouge, Louisiana, emerged as a significant
Speaker 3: figure in the American civil rights movement during the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 3: His father, Eddie Charles Senior, worked for ESL Oil, and
Speaker 3: his mother, Thelma Warren Brown, was a domestic worker and
Speaker 3: elementary school teacher. From an early age, Brown showcased exceptional
Speaker 3: verbal skills, earning the nickname Rap.
Speaker 2: Brown's activism began in his teenage years, when he moved
Speaker 2: to Washington, d c. And joined the Non Volid Action
Speaker 2: Group inag a local affiliate of the Student Non Violent
Speaker 2: Coordinating Committee SNICK. By nineteen sixty seven, browse seceated Stokely
Speaker 2: Carmichael as a national chairman of SNICK. As chairman, Brown
Speaker 2: was known for his fireI rhetorican stock advocacy for black power.
Speaker 2: His speeches often attracted national attention and controversy.
Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty seven, following a speech in Cambridge, Maryland,
Speaker 3: Brown was wounded by gunfire from local police officers. Shortly
Speaker 3: after he left the state, a local school building burned down,
Speaker 3: leading to accusations against Brown for inciting rights, though the
Speaker 3: origins of the fire were disputed.
Speaker 2: Brown's legal challenges continued into nineteen seventy when two SNICK
Speaker 2: members died in a car explosion in Maryland under unclear circumstances.
Speaker 2: Brown went into hiding for eighteen months, appearing on the
Speaker 2: FBI's ten most wanted lists before being arrested in New York.
Speaker 2: During his imprisonment, he can ready to Islam and adopted
Speaker 2: the name Jamil Abdullah l Aman.
Speaker 1: Look here it is right here.
Speaker 4: Oh I see it.
Speaker 3: No, I fucking hate Tennessee. Yeah, pulling over there.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: It works so hard to make their houses look normal.
Speaker 5: Hello, my name is This is my partner. These are
Speaker 5: my credentials. We're sorry to bother you, ma'am. How are
Speaker 5: you this morning?
Speaker 2: For the FBI, the expulsions at Morehouse were an opportunity
Speaker 2: to curtail this new wave of activism. H Y Brown,
Speaker 2: as he was known at the time, was particularly effective
Speaker 2: at talking to young people.
Speaker 4: Is this your son, Samuel Jackson.
Speaker 3: Oh, I haven't seen him at months.
Speaker 9: Have a good day, gentlemen.
Speaker 5: It wasn't much to him anyway, and it looks like
Speaker 5: he's in deep with a smack.
Speaker 4: Probably won't hear anything from him.
Speaker 3: Oh please, Lord, pick up the phone. Come on, come on, Frankie, Frankie,
Speaker 3: is Sam there?
Speaker 2: Where is he? Okay?
Speaker 6: Tell him, I'm going to be in Atlanta the day
Speaker 6: after tomorrow.
Speaker 2: You understand two days. To understand this, you have to
Speaker 2: understand cointel Pro.
Speaker 3: The FBI started the program in nineteen fifty six. The
Speaker 3: goal was to suffocate interest in the Communist Party of
Speaker 3: the United States. The FBI used long form surveillance. The
Speaker 3: operations would take months or even years. Co Intel Pro
Speaker 3: lacked any due process and often went beyond any jurisdictional standards.
Speaker 3: To understand cointel Pro from the FBI's perspective, spoke with
Speaker 3: Frank for gluesy. Frank joined the FBI in nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: seven and rose to the ranks, eventually being appointed to
Speaker 3: the lofty role of Assistant Director for counter Intelligence in
Speaker 3: twenty eleven by then Director Robert Muller. He's a regular
Speaker 3: expert contributor on NBC and the author of two books,
Speaker 3: The FBI Way Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence and
Speaker 3: Long Haul Hunting the Highway serial Killers. And as menm
Speaker 3: pointed out, Frank is also a good looking man.
Speaker 2: First of all, though Hans isn't Frank right out of
Speaker 2: central casting. You're a handsome fella. I'm just saying like this,
Speaker 2: if I was casting, you know, we're filmmakers, I would
Speaker 2: cast you as the FBI guy.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you, you'd be in the big office, Frank.
Speaker 1: Lighting and makeup, lighting and mega. So what was co
Speaker 1: intel pro It stands it's an acronym. It's a code
Speaker 1: word that stands for counterintelligence program. That got my attention
Speaker 1: because I was the head of counter Intelligen just at
Speaker 1: the end of my career. It was a secret program
Speaker 1: to counter all of this so called sedition, instability, protest movement,
Speaker 1: even the violent, especially the violent side of things. And
Speaker 1: what did it consist of? Undercover agents, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: the FBI sucked at in the sixties and early seventies.
Speaker 1: It was a new concept that guys, white guys in
Speaker 1: suits and ties and wingtip shoes were somehow good at
Speaker 1: going undercover in protest movements and developing sources on campus.
Speaker 1: Not good.
Speaker 3: Do you think there's anything in the history of the
Speaker 3: FBI that had like a seed of this notion of
Speaker 3: the politicization of the FBI, like certain communities being suspicious
Speaker 3: of the FBI.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. Look, as they said during Jay Edgar
Speaker 1: Hoover's reign, and I'll say rain in the FBI because
Speaker 1: he was there for over forty years. They he used
Speaker 1: to joke in Washington, if you've seen one FBI director,
Speaker 1: you've seen them all because he was it.
Speaker 2: He was it.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean? When you've got that much power,
Speaker 1: you can become politically powerful. And Hoover knew that, and
Speaker 1: he knew that the secret of staying in power was
Speaker 1: behind the scenes to gain political influence. And how did
Speaker 1: he do that. He kept files on people, kept files
Speaker 1: on members of Congress, and they feared him. People came
Speaker 1: to fear Hoover in the black community, minority community. Generally,
Speaker 1: when people wield power and rule by fear, you can
Speaker 1: literally terrorize parts of the population. History repeats itself and
Speaker 1: the lessons of the past are sometimes forgotten. If you're
Speaker 1: an evidence based agency like the FBI is right, just
Speaker 1: the facts, man, facts and evidence in law. The agency
Speaker 1: has every opportunity to flush out the so called communist
Speaker 1: threat to America, and you can't find it, or it's
Speaker 1: far less than you. And that was the case, by
Speaker 1: the way, for Hoover, and it was particularly the case
Speaker 1: with MLK, who was viewed by Hoover as a threat.
Speaker 1: And we can talk for hours about trying to get
Speaker 1: inside Hoover's had whether this was largely race racially motivated.
Speaker 1: I think that was a huge part of it. Whether
Speaker 1: or not he truly had the goods on MLK being
Speaker 1: too affiliated with communism, The records we have now available
Speaker 1: to us today show that he couldn't prove it. The
Speaker 1: evidence was not there. Did MLK have associates who were
Speaker 1: present or former Communist Party members? Yes, he had one
Speaker 1: particularly close associate who was a former Communist member that
Speaker 1: sent Hoover into orbit and was used to justify all
Speaker 1: other means. You know, the phrase by any means necessary,
Speaker 1: We align closely with Malcolm X in some of his species.
Speaker 1: By Eddie means necessary, Well, guess what, Jaeger Hoover also
Speaker 1: adopted that, and it did it in a largely unlawful way,
Speaker 1: there's a great scene and this is like in FBI data.
Speaker 2: There's a great scene in Malcolm X where this the
Speaker 2: night before Malcolm is killed and these two FBI agents
Speaker 2: are listening to him talk and he's just sitting in
Speaker 2: his hotel calling his wife.
Speaker 3: Ask them why they had new concre Do you want
Speaker 3: some furniture?
Speaker 2: Do you want some cars? We have?
Speaker 3: What if we have? Meanwhile?
Speaker 2: King was you know, he like he liked the ladies, right,
Speaker 2: And these FBI guys are listening and he says to
Speaker 2: one guy, compared to King, this guy's a monk.
Speaker 1: Right, he didn't do anything right.
Speaker 2: He was He was boring. He offered none of the
Speaker 2: salacious details and life that doctor King did. So in
Speaker 2: some ways he was a disappointment in terms of what
Speaker 2: they could get on him. You know, the FBI considered
Speaker 2: Malcolm XX a massive threat. His file was open in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six when the Stars characterized Nation of Islam.
Speaker 2: As his profile grew nationally, so did his surveillance. His
Speaker 2: file would include more than thirty six hundred pays of information.
Speaker 2: They would either follow him overseas. The extent of the
Speaker 2: surveillance as far beyond would have documented or published. The
Speaker 2: scope of this and the relation to his assassination may
Speaker 2: never be uncovered.
Speaker 1: Kennedy was briefed by Hoover on what he was doing
Speaker 1: with Martin Luther King. Richard Nixon had been briefed on
Speaker 1: what the plan was for the Black Panthers. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't pretend that this was all about a rogue
Speaker 1: FBI director.
Speaker 2: It was not.
Speaker 1: It was an administration that was held bent on keeping
Speaker 1: people quiet.
Speaker 3: That's amazing because I feel like when I was in college,
Speaker 3: I would hear people talk about Hotel pro and it
Speaker 3: sounded like a conspiracy theory against the government. Like it
Speaker 3: sounded like that's what you know, your high uncle would.
Speaker 2: Say, yeah, or some he had a barbershop or something.
Speaker 3: Or someone had a barbershop. And it wasn't until much
Speaker 3: later that I realized that co Intel Probe was real
Speaker 3: in it and it actually existed. And I always feel like,
Speaker 3: even even doing this podcast, and some of the older
Speaker 3: black folks are a little bit hesitant to even to
Speaker 3: just fully talk because there's there seems to be this
Speaker 3: still this through line of the poyancy and paranoia about
Speaker 3: this program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of good came out of the exposure
Speaker 1: of this program in terms of setting out attorney general guidelines,
Speaker 1: there was a huge congressional inquiry called the Church Committee.
Speaker 1: Because the congress members started it was Frank Church, and
Speaker 1: they were blown away. They they thought, you know, from
Speaker 1: the media reporting, they thought they had pretty much the
Speaker 1: four corners of the co intel program figured out. And
Speaker 1: then here here comes this parade of witnesses that starts
Speaker 1: talking about illegal wire taps, breaking into people's homes without warrants,
Speaker 1: planting evidence, take King evidence, bugging phones, planting microphones. And
Speaker 1: they were like, you had got to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: So and by the way, this this certainly extended to
Speaker 1: to Martin Luther King personally in terms of bugging him
Speaker 1: without without legal process.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 1: And they were blown away. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: guidelines and laws and rules came into place. And now
Speaker 1: I truly fear and least by the way we're drilled
Speaker 1: into our heads, uh in the FBI. I mean, the
Speaker 1: notion that some supervisor would tell you to do an
Speaker 1: illegal wiretap or something. You know, it just simply isn't
Speaker 1: going to happen. But I have to tell you we
Speaker 1: may have come full circle because this this concept of
Speaker 1: you know, going after your your political enemies, going after
Speaker 1: perceived threats, I think is taking on a new life.
Speaker 3: He is more from our conversation with Frank Faguzzi, former
Speaker 3: de he director of the FBI.
Speaker 2: So Malcolm and Dice Furst and not the king assassinated
Speaker 2: in that period in the early seventies, what were some
Speaker 2: of the biggest concerns for the FBI.
Speaker 1: The biggest concern while Hoover was nearing the end and
Speaker 1: even after his demise, was we're going to get caught
Speaker 1: at this. We were in trouble. And when does Hoover
Speaker 1: when is his raigning nine seventy two he poss I believe.
Speaker 1: And now people are panicked at FBI headquarters and even
Speaker 1: in certain field offices because they know there's there's accountability coming.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there were moves to indict even with
Speaker 1: regard to a Watergate cover up. L Patrick Gray, who
Speaker 1: had been named acting FBI director after Hoover, he was
Speaker 1: they were moving him toward indictment with all these what
Speaker 1: they call black bag jobs, that's what they were called,
Speaker 1: where you would go into someone's home without a warrant
Speaker 1: and do a search, planting mics or taking evidence or
Speaker 1: planting evidence. This stuff was illegal and in many cases,
Speaker 1: and they were afraid they were going to prison, and
Speaker 1: there was a movement afoot to actually put FBI executives
Speaker 1: in prison. So that was their first concern, getting caught
Speaker 1: and then covering it up, and then getting caught about
Speaker 1: the cover up, and then you know, there was much
Speaker 1: discussion about how to whether or not to destroy files,
Speaker 1: particularly about MLK. So, for example, Hoover's famous secretary had
Speaker 1: control of a safety that had what were called the
Speaker 1: obscene files or yeah, I think they were known as
Speaker 1: the obscene files, and they included files on congressmen and
Speaker 1: it's about seventeen congressmen allegedly and MLK. And these included
Speaker 1: wire taps or bugs placed in his hotel rooms when
Speaker 1: he traveled. He traveled a lot, and they, yeah, they
Speaker 1: allegedly can tained evidence of extramarital affairs the WIRESAFS led
Speaker 1: to a last ditch effort. And this is how we
Speaker 1: need to perceive this. By the way, you have the
Speaker 1: premier law enforcement agency in the country. They have tried
Speaker 1: every which way to flesh out this communist threat with
Speaker 1: around MLK and the Black movement. They've been unsuccessful. I
Speaker 1: mean even to the point where there's there's a memo
Speaker 1: I've seen from the head of the San Francisco Field
Speaker 1: office regarding the Black Panthers. Hoover had put out the word,
Speaker 1: we've got to smash the Black Panthers. They got to go,
Speaker 1: and he again he saw them as a threat. And
Speaker 1: the head of the San Francisco says, Boss, We've taken
Speaker 1: a hard look at this, and the worst thing we've
Speaker 1: caught the panthers doing here in our city is feeding
Speaker 1: breakfast to inner city kits. That's what we've got. And
Speaker 1: he was pissed by that response. And by the way,
Speaker 1: when did the real emphasis in the FBI of going
Speaker 1: after King really kick in? He had his eye have
Speaker 1: I have a dream speech on the National Mall.
Speaker 3: I have a dream.
Speaker 10: That one day.
Speaker 11: This nation will rise up, live out the true meaning
Speaker 11: of its creeds. We hold these choos to be self evident,
Speaker 11: that all men are created.
Speaker 1: This nineteen sixty three, sixty three thank you. That is
Speaker 1: when literally William Sullivan, who was that then the deputy
Speaker 1: director of the FBI, says to Hoover, that's enough. This
Speaker 1: guy has too much power and influence, and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he's black. We've got to pull out the stops. That
Speaker 1: really got the FBI's attention was that I have a
Speaker 1: dream speech that he could pour people into the National Mall.
Speaker 1: So then the excerpt of the of the Bug transcript
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So they decide they're going to write a letter,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts it's trafted by this guy, William
Speaker 1: Sullivan FBI. A course, there's no way in terms of
Speaker 1: way the FBI works, that that kind of letter would
Speaker 1: be drafted and sent without Jay Garhoover's approval. Just there's
Speaker 1: just no way. So it's sent and essentially, and I paraphrase,
Speaker 1: you are reprehensible, Immral. We're going to expose you and
Speaker 1: your your deviance and you know something like the best
Speaker 1: you know, the best solution for you is to go.
Speaker 3: Here are some direct quotes from that letter.
Speaker 8: In view of your low grade abnormal personal behavior. I
Speaker 8: will not dignify your name with either a mister or
Speaker 8: a reverend or a doctor, and your last name calls
Speaker 8: to mind only the type of king such as King
Speaker 8: Henry the eighth and his countless acts of adultery and
Speaker 8: a moral conduct lower than that of a beast king.
Speaker 8: Look into your heart. You know you are a complete
Speaker 8: fraud and a great liability to all of us. Negro
Speaker 8: white people in this country have enough frauds of their own,
Speaker 8: but I am sure that they don't have one at
Speaker 8: this time that is anywhere near your equal. You are
Speaker 8: no clergyman, and you know it. I repeat, you are
Speaker 8: a colossal fraud, and an evil, vicious one at that.
Speaker 8: You cannot believe in God and act as you do.
Speaker 8: Clearly you don't believe in any personal moral principles. King,
Speaker 8: Like all frauds, your end is approaching. Your honorary degrees,
Speaker 8: your nobel prize, what a grim farce, and other rewards
Speaker 8: will not save you. King, I repeat, you are done.
Speaker 8: No person can overcome facts, not even a fraud like yourself.
Speaker 8: Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure. It is
Speaker 8: all there on the record, your sexual orgies. Listen to yourself,
Speaker 8: you filthy, abnormal animal. You are all the record. You
Speaker 8: have been on the record, all your adulterous acts, your
Speaker 8: sexual orgies, extending far into the past. This one is
Speaker 8: but a tiny sample. The American public. The church organizations
Speaker 8: that have been helping Protestant, Catholic and Jews will know
Speaker 8: you for what you are, an evil, abnormal beast.
Speaker 3: You are done, King.
Speaker 8: There is only one thing left.
Speaker 1: For you to do.
Speaker 2: You know what it is.
Speaker 8: You have just thirty four days in which to do this.
Speaker 8: This exact number has been selected for a specific reason.
Speaker 8: It has definite practical significance.
Speaker 3: You are done.
Speaker 8: There is but one way out for you. You better
Speaker 8: take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bare
Speaker 8: to the nation, and the implication.
Speaker 1: Cleary that it's time to commit suicide. That's about one
Speaker 1: of the more horrific things I think in FBI history,
Speaker 1: quite honestly.
Speaker 2: In addition to this letter, the FBI sent audio tapes
Speaker 2: to doctor King and his wife Coretta. This will literally
Speaker 2: be known as the blackmail package. The direct undertone of
Speaker 2: the letter seems to suggest that doctor King should kill
Speaker 2: himself before receiving the historic Mobil Peace Prize. Pro wanted
Speaker 2: to destroy personal relationships and family. This was a critical
Speaker 2: tactic in the process.
Speaker 3: Do you think that with the intelligence gathering that the
Speaker 3: FBI had during this time period, when we think about
Speaker 3: leaders like Medigar, Evers, King, Malcolm, do you think the
Speaker 3: FBI is aware of real threats to those leaders?
Speaker 1: So I'll caveat this first by saying I don't have
Speaker 1: direct documented evidence of this, but I'll then quickly go
Speaker 1: into the reality of life in the FBI those days,
Speaker 1: which was it was all about targeting these perceived threats
Speaker 1: and as we said, developing sources literally that will point
Speaker 1: you to how to how to assassinate a Black Panther leader,
Speaker 1: getting in and bugging king suggestion he commits suicide. It's
Speaker 1: inconceivable to believe that someone in the bureau was on
Speaker 1: where that people could kill these targets, but it's conceivable
Speaker 1: that the FBI was part and parcel of trying to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 3: Paranoia was a key tactic for the FBI. Many informants
Speaker 3: and victims of Conteil pro would be called hysterical by
Speaker 3: friends and family about potential surveillance. This process was undoubtedly
Speaker 3: critical in the assassination of Fred Hampton in December of
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: The FBI, this has been proven in by many historians,
Speaker 1: had a role in the murder of a Black Panther
Speaker 1: leader in Chicago, and they did it through a source
Speaker 1: development that was close to this Black Panther and a
Speaker 1: special unit at the Chicago PD so the FBI didn't
Speaker 1: want to get its hands dirty, but it developed this
Speaker 1: source close to the panther. Then they turned it over
Speaker 1: to this special unit as Chicago PD. When the source said, Hey,
Speaker 1: our target is going to be here, asleep in this
Speaker 1: apartment at this time, here comes the Chicago PD unit
Speaker 1: and they they take him out, They shoot him.
Speaker 2: Killed him in Cobood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was Fred Hampton, right, Fred Hampton, And that
Speaker 1: the chief concern was getting caught at.
Speaker 2: This This quote comes directly from FBI Director Jay Edgar Hoover.
Speaker 2: We must avoid the rise of a messiah that would
Speaker 2: unify and electrify the militant nationalist movement. Cointelpro was his brainchild,
Speaker 2: and the blunt force and lack of civil liberties came
Speaker 2: right from his playbook.
Speaker 3: The mental unrest was just as significant as a potential
Speaker 3: imprisonment or even loss of life.
Speaker 2: Sam Jackson's mother understood this, and when the FBI came
Speaker 2: to her door in Tennessee, she got to Atlanta as
Speaker 2: fast as she could.
Speaker 6: Mama, I don't know if all of this is necessary.
Speaker 6: You have had the FBI knock on your door. Come on, mama,
Speaker 6: let me ask you again. Have you ever had the
Speaker 6: FBI knock on your door. No, no, well, you didn't
Speaker 6: see what I saw. You didn't see how nice they were.
Speaker 6: You didn't see how they were dressed, holding the little papers,
Speaker 6: big folders filled with names, and one of them names
Speaker 6: was yours.
Speaker 3: Keep your head down and you come back what.
Speaker 8: I say the safe?
Speaker 2: Oky?
Speaker 3: Okay? I love you, I love you too. Sam Jackson
Speaker 3: has his own insights into the lengths the government went
Speaker 3: to stop the movement beyond contel Pro in the sixties.
Speaker 10: The most drastic thing that happened in the summer sixty
Speaker 10: nine months, all of a sudden, they took all the
Speaker 10: marijuana and all the hallucinogens were taken out of Atlanta,
Speaker 10: and the only drug you could buye was a heroin
Speaker 10: only drug, you BOYE was heroin and we were drug users,
Speaker 10: So we started using hero good planning, get people started
Speaker 10: dying off, people started o daying, dying just became you know, useless,
Speaker 10: worthless junkies.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 10: And that was that was the most effective diffuser of
Speaker 10: the revolution that they you know, came up with at worked.
Speaker 3: Here's former Morehouse alum and civil rights activist James Early.
Speaker 9: I brought a context of this, Uh, that has no
Speaker 9: direct relationship to the takeover, but it's again a contextual piece.
Speaker 3: So in that period, then heroin hits.
Speaker 12: So, you know, one of my running buddies, Morehouse, had
Speaker 12: recruited several Puerto Ricans. You know, Morehouse won the national
Speaker 12: swimming championship I think for two or three years, and
Speaker 12: a small college swimming championship rig Berto Centron who died
Speaker 12: of a heroin overdose just a few blocks from campus.
Speaker 12: This was a time also around that campus of which
Speaker 12: Morehouse was not ready for. And no, you know, most
Speaker 12: colleges were not four.
Speaker 9: And I can remember three four occasions of you know,
Speaker 9: we're looking for that weed.
Speaker 1: We would go to an apartment.
Speaker 12: There would be eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve guys, needles
Speaker 12: in the arms.
Speaker 1: Booting.
Speaker 13: Booting is you put the needle in and as the
Speaker 13: heroine is almost exhausted me, you boot it back. You
Speaker 13: pull the blood back so that you can draw out
Speaker 13: as much of the heroin as you can. So this
Speaker 13: was a contextual issue going on in society. The status
Speaker 13: quo society. The assumptions, the presumptions of comportment and culture
Speaker 13: and whatnot were in the process of dramatic sometimes turbulent change.
Speaker 2: Sam would flee to Los Angeles and stay with an aunt.
Speaker 2: He would pursue a new found passion for acting, a
Speaker 2: passion that grew would assume to be wife with Tagya.
Speaker 3: Sam was able to escape, but many Black Americans found
Speaker 3: themselves caught in the web of co intel pro Welcome
Speaker 3: back to the A building. Here's more from our conversation
Speaker 3: with Frank fig Lucy. I heard a story about a
Speaker 3: young woman who around the time, probably about a year
Speaker 3: before Fred Hampton was assassinated, was a college student and
Speaker 3: they were doing the freedom rides to go down south.
Speaker 3: So they would they would train these college students and
Speaker 3: they would do the freedom ride and they were they
Speaker 3: were holding like these training sessions. The one that she
Speaker 3: went to was at Oberlin in Ohio. So she goes
Speaker 3: to Oberlin for the summer and when she gets to Oberlin,
Speaker 3: her mother and her older sister were waiting for her
Speaker 3: and they were like, you're not doing this, And she
Speaker 3: was like, first of all, how did you find out?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Da da da, And they said, the FBI came to
Speaker 3: our house and told us that you were doing this
Speaker 3: and that they couldn't protect you if you went down South,
Speaker 3: and I hadn't heard a couple stories like that where
Speaker 3: the FBI would reach out to the parents of students
Speaker 3: to say, hey, they're in this activity and we can't
Speaker 3: protect them, be careful, you know, and would enact influence
Speaker 3: over the person through family members. Is that something that
Speaker 3: that that rains true to you?
Speaker 1: So as a concept, absolutely, you know, does the FBI
Speaker 1: do this kind of thing, Yes, of course, But let's
Speaker 1: try to differentiate between doing it legitimately, like reaching out
Speaker 1: to a family member and trying to prevent a crime,
Speaker 1: or doing what we call a knock and talk. This
Speaker 1: happens all the time. By the way, this didn't get
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity, but just prior to the January
Speaker 1: sixth insurrection at the US Capitol, the FBI, by by
Speaker 1: most accounts that have been verified by not only the
Speaker 1: media but my own sources, the FBI did a knock
Speaker 1: and talk with about a dozen to twenty individuals, hardcore
Speaker 1: people who already were predicated, meaning the FBI already had
Speaker 1: a case open on them, and there had been some
Speaker 1: inkling that they might go to the Capitol. On January sixth,
Speaker 1: They did knock in talks and said something like we're
Speaker 1: onto you, right, and you do this at great risk
Speaker 1: because you're going to blow your case. You're telling the
Speaker 1: guy we know you are, but we've got winds that
Speaker 1: you may be thinking about doing bad things at the Capitol,
Speaker 1: and we're telling you if you get on a plane, train,
Speaker 1: or automobile and start heading that way, that could put
Speaker 1: us over the edge to arrest you based off Well,
Speaker 1: we have already. There's nothing wrong with that kind of
Speaker 1: knock and talk. It happens all the time. But now
Speaker 1: let's go to your scenario at Oberlin knock and talk
Speaker 1: with a family to say, we don't like what your
Speaker 1: daughter or niece is about to do, which is lawful
Speaker 1: activity in aid of a civil rights activism. We don't
Speaker 1: want to happen. That's a problem that's trying to shape
Speaker 1: a national narrative that you know. I think it's way too,
Speaker 1: way too off the off the shark. So what's your reaction.
Speaker 2: What was the reaction when you heard about this story
Speaker 2: at Morehouse Number one?
Speaker 1: Glad somebody's addressing it, because I have extremely limited knowledge
Speaker 1: of this. I even though by the way, my first office,
Speaker 1: as I said, Atlanta, Georgia and the FBI certainly had
Speaker 1: contact with Morehouse, have fellow FBI agents who went to Morehouse.
Speaker 1: But I think there's there's an insight here. Is is
Speaker 1: it possible that Morehouse is finally getting what what getting
Speaker 1: a goal in place, which is we're going to seriously
Speaker 1: educate our young people. We've got we've got this going
Speaker 1: pretty damn well here, and we don't need any attention
Speaker 1: from the government, the FBI. We're in the deep South, Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and let's kind of not rock this boat. And now
Speaker 1: you have black, bright, black students going not so fast.
Speaker 1: We don't have everything we want, and we're not going
Speaker 1: to be as quiet as you may want us to be,
Speaker 1: and we've got some demands ourselves. I think that that's
Speaker 1: just from the outside looking in. I think that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't serve in the FBI in Atlanta till
Speaker 1: like nineteen eighty seven, but you know, the concern still
Speaker 1: that I can't emphasize this enough, and I put it
Speaker 1: in my book. I go down there, it's eighty seven.
Speaker 1: I'm from Connecticut. Do you know that I worked cross
Speaker 1: burnings and clan rallies as an FBI agent in Atlanta Georgia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the eighties, it was surreal. I'm on the streets
Speaker 1: of downtown Atlanta trying to make sure that blacks aren't
Speaker 1: attacking a clan rally, that the clan doesn't turn on
Speaker 1: the black protest. And by the way, was it this
Speaker 1: black protesters? Thank god? There were a lot of protesters
Speaker 1: at this client rally in Atlanta. But we're like, are
Speaker 1: we And I'm kind of like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 7: Am I?
Speaker 1: I know I'm doing this as a civil rights operation?
Speaker 1: Whose civil rights am I protect? It was part of
Speaker 1: the question. And then I'll never forget across burning like
Speaker 1: I think it was Decab County outside of Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is another what is going on here?
Speaker 1: So why do I mention that? And now go back
Speaker 1: to this incident at Morehouse and imagine what the climate
Speaker 1: is in Atlanta and the desire to not mess up
Speaker 1: what is looking like a good thing Morehouse University and
Speaker 1: here come these students going no, you know, no, we
Speaker 1: got a press. The other takeaway I have is what's
Speaker 1: going on now in college campuses, good and bad? And
Speaker 1: this is obviously a hot sensitive topic, but all of
Speaker 1: the protests on elite college universities with regard to the
Speaker 1: Palestinian Israeli conflict, right, and people just flipping out our
Speaker 1: government literally grabbing people with student visas, even green cards,
Speaker 1: and saying we're taking away your student visa, we're taking
Speaker 1: away your green card, and we're deporting you. In one
Speaker 1: case because a young lady, a Tufts University student, had
Speaker 1: the audacity to write an opinion piece in the school newspaper.
Speaker 1: What so you know, it's so I can't. I'm always
Speaker 1: looking at past and present and seeing the connections, and
Speaker 1: right now we as a government, we're not accepting free
Speaker 1: speech on college campus. Am I a fan of violence?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Have I worked cases against Hamas, a proven terrorist organization.
Speaker 1: Absolutely they are cold blooded evil. Have I seen any
Speaker 1: evidence that the people who are who are being grabbed
Speaker 1: by masked men on campus are Hamas?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 3: I have it.
Speaker 1: So I worry that we're you know, we're going back.
Speaker 1: We're going back when you're under stress. Here's where things
Speaker 1: go south in the bureau and same for all human nature.
Speaker 1: Under Hoover's time, you've got this kind of communist scare.
Speaker 1: Bombs are going off, riots in the street. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not thrilled with black people getting influence and power.
Speaker 1: We're all scared, okay, And what happens by any means necessary,
Speaker 1: you try to quash that threat. What happens in the
Speaker 1: US after nine to eleven? And I was I was
Speaker 1: the number two person in FBI Miami after the terror
Speaker 1: attacks of nine to eleven unprecedented? Right, And do we
Speaker 1: start to see things going south? Are people trying to
Speaker 1: develop sources inside mosques? Yes, NYPD all by themselves had
Speaker 1: a covert program to spy inside mosques. The Patriot Act
Speaker 1: is passed, and some people take that as license to
Speaker 1: grab up everybody's phone communications. All kinds of weird things
Speaker 1: are happening. How about Hey, how about torture? How about waterboarding?
Speaker 1: How about the torture to the point where we can't
Speaker 1: even use what you just gave us in court, We've
Speaker 1: got to go military tribunal because it's useless to us. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: when a society is under stress, things can go bad.
Speaker 1: How do you try to put guardrails up? You have
Speaker 1: the kinds of guardrails that I lived with in my
Speaker 1: twenty five year experience you and you follow them relentlessly,
Speaker 1: and you punish those who go outside those guidelines.
Speaker 3: Frank, I can't let you. I can't let you talk
Speaker 3: to my kid, because if you talk to my kid,
Speaker 3: you might convince him to become an FBI convincing.
Speaker 2: Tell me a good job, darn it.
Speaker 4: I tell you what.
Speaker 1: If it was a year ago, I might have talked
Speaker 1: him into it. I don't. I don't know what to
Speaker 1: tell young people today.
Speaker 3: Frank, don't I let you. I let you near My
Speaker 3: son is twenty two. I let you near my kid.
Speaker 3: Next thing I know, he's got an application in. He's
Speaker 3: like that, I'm going on to I live in d C.
Speaker 3: So it's just down the road. Training is down down
Speaker 3: the road. Like the way you talk about it. Man,
Speaker 3: you had me halfway looking like am I little too?
Speaker 1: All? Like we'll sign you up, We'll sign you up.
Speaker 3: In November of twenty twenty four, the surviving family of
Speaker 3: Malcolm X sued the FBI, the CIA, and the NYPD
Speaker 3: for the involvement in his assassination. The trial is still pending.
Speaker 3: These ideas were at the heart of the at Moorhouse.
Speaker 3: These students wanted their education to mean something in a
Speaker 3: world that could fall apart at any moment. The state
Speaker 3: could take down icons.
Speaker 2: In this context, the sacrifice of the students at Morehouse
Speaker 2: if not only reasonable, but a necessary progression of the
Speaker 2: civil rights movement.
Speaker 3: The educational landscape would take a major shift in the
Speaker 3: next twenty years. The next wave of martyrs would continue
Speaker 3: the history of protecting the black home and the black family.
Speaker 2: The Reagan era would introduce radical changes to policing and
Speaker 2: drug policy. This would go on to be exacerbated by
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety four Crime Bill that would place an
Speaker 2: entire generation of black and brown people behind bars for
Speaker 2: non violent crimes.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty five, our republic is in scorn. We
Speaker 3: must revisit the heroes of our past to defeat the
Speaker 3: cowards of our future. Next time, on the A Building,
Speaker 3: the lock in the idea just came from two people,
Speaker 3: myself and another brother named Spurge and Smith.
Speaker 2: Certainly think there's a risk in protesting Bay, specifically because
Speaker 2: the world was burning.
Speaker 3: The risk hasn't been this high a long time. They
Speaker 3: came out of it. I'm knocking, huh, class, I demand
Speaker 3: to be released, and I said, I demand as you
Speaker 3: get back in now. The A Building is produced by
Speaker 3: Imagine Audio for iHeart Podcasts. It is written and hosted
Speaker 3: by me, Hans Charles and my co host menelike La Mumba.
Speaker 2: It is executive produced by Karl Welker and Nathan Kloke,
Speaker 2: me Medelich, Wlamomba and Hans Charles.
Speaker 3: Executive producers at iHeart Podcasts ar Katrina Norville and Nikki
Speaker 3: Torre Marketing lead is David Wasserman.
Speaker 2: It is produced, directed, and edited by Timothy Fernarra with
Speaker 2: producer John Asanti. Sound design and music by Alloy Tracks.
Speaker 3: And special thanks to April Ryan, Doctor, Eliot Davis, Kim
Speaker 3: vci Ada, Bobby Know and James Early. If you enjoyed
Speaker 3: this episode, be sure to rate and review the A
Speaker 3: Building on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts