Seeing Red: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925 (Blacks in the Diaspora)

By Theodore Kornweibel Jr.

Book Overview

Now in Paper ""Seeing Red""Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925Theodore Kornweibel, Jr. A gripping, painstakingly documented account of a neglected chapter in the history of American political intelligence. ""Kornweibel is an adept storyteller who admits he is drawn to the role of the historian-as-detective....What emerges is a fascinating tale of secret federal agents, many of them blacks, who were willing to take advantage of the color of their skin to spy upon others of their race. And it is a tale of sometimes desperate and frequently angry government officials, including J. Edgar Hoover, who were willing to go to great lengths to try to stop what they perceived as threats to continued white supremacy."" -- Patrick S. Washburn, Journalism History Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., Professor of African American history in the Africana Studies Department at San Diego State University, is author of No Crystal Stair and In Search of the Promised Land. Blacks in the Diaspora -- Darlene Clark Hine, John McCluskey, Jr., and David Barry Gaspar, general editors

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253333377
• ISBN13: 9780253333377
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The FBI, born in a war against Black rights

The FBI and the other "security" and "intelligence" agencies of the US government came into their modern identities in the vicious campaigns against dissent in this country during World War I and in the years after it when the heat of the Russian Revolution and the upserge of revolution that followed it swept over the United States. The government carried out a ruthless campaign of deportations, banning newspapers, imprisoning IWW and socialist leaders like Eugene V. Debs and violent crushing of strikes by the national guard, armies of cops, and the US Military. This was the period with US Army "air pioneer" Billy Mitchell offered to bomb West Virginia strikers, but was told the mine bosses would use their own planes! This book indicates that the African American movement for civil rights and equality as well as early Black nationalist, socialist, and other radicals were the target of spying, harassment, and persecution during these days. Not only did government agents penetrate African American organizations and attempt to provoke them against each other, but the Post office and the FBI attempted to obstruct the circulation of main line Black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender. This book also show how Washington worked directly with the British government to harass, spy on, and hinder organizations that advocated independence and self-government for British and other European colonies in Africa and the West Indies. The FBI, born in this period, was born to fight Black rights!