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Bureau Clergyman: How the FBI Colluded with an African American Televangelist to Destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Lerone Martin
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Abstract

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This article explains how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) partnered with African American minister Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux to discredit and neutralize Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The Elder, the nation's first minister (black or white) to have his own weekly television show, colluded with the Bureau to shape public opinion against King and cast doubt upon King's religious commitments and activities. Michaux was, what I call, a Bureau Clergyman: a minister who was an FBI “Special Service Contact” or on the Bureau's “Special Correspondents Lists.” Far from secret informants, black and white male clergy in these official Bureau programs enjoyed very public and cooperative relationships with the FBI and were occasionally “called into service” to work in concert with the FBI. The FBI called upon Michaux and he willingly used his status, popular media ministry, and cold war spirituality to publically scandalize King as a communist and defend the Bureau against King's criticisms. In the end, the Elder demonized King, contested calls for black equality under the law, and lionized the FBI as the keeper of Christian America. The story moves the field beyond the very well known narratives of the FBI's hostility towards religion and reveals how the Bureau publicly embraced religion and commissioned their clergymen to help maintain prevailing social arrangements. Michaux's relationship with the FBI also offers a window into the overlooked religious dimensions of the FBI's opposition to King, even as it highlights how black clergy articulated and followed competing ideologies of black liberation during the civil rights movement.

Keywords

The Federal Bureau of InvestigationFBIJ. Edgar HooverElder MichauxMartin Luther King, Jr.TelevangelismSurveillance
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 2018 , pp. 1 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1967

References

Notes

1. All FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, unless otherwise noted. I could not have obtained the documents without the generous support of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, the American Council of Learned Societies, The Louisville Institute, the Wabash Center, and The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, office memo, cc: Mr. Holloman, Mr. Jones, “Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux,” January 23, 1956, 94-4-2848-illegible. Original copy filed in 62-66723-4; “FBI Pledge for Law Enforcement Officers,” The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 12 December 6, 1937, 1-2. Hoover noted that “all the Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” were required to recite, sign, and execute the pledge. Hoover was Lutheran, but then joined the Presbyterian Church during his youth. See Hoover's diary in J. Edgar Hoover Personal Estate Collection, National Law Enforcement Museum, Washington, D.C. Hoover expressed his view of the role of religion in the nation and the Bureau in countless articles and interviews. See for example, Hoover, “Indispensable Supports,” The Sunday Visitor, February 17, 1963; “FBI Chief Tells of Bible's Role in His Life,” The Sunday Star, January 2, 1972, A6. On Nichols, see his obituary in, the Washington Post, “Louis Nichols Dies, Was No. 3 at FBI,” June 10, 1977 and his interview in Demaris, Ovid, The Director: An Oral Biography of J. Edgar Hoover, 1st ed. (New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1975), 65–76.Google Scholar L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, United States Department of Justice memo, “Memorandum for Mr. Tolson,” September 16, 1941, no file number; Nichols to Tolson, office memo, September 20, 1951, 94-4-2848-8. On YMCA and racial segregation see, Chandler, Susan Kerr, “‘Almost a Partnership’: African-Americans, Segregation, and the Young Men's Christian Association,” The journal of Sociology & Social Welfare 21, no 1 (March, 1994).Google Scholar

2. Some have referred to Michaux as “Solomon Lightfoot Michaux;” however, I am using the name Lightfoot Solomon Michaux according to the U.S. Census notes and Church of God histories. See 1910 U.S. Census, Newport, Warick Virginia Roll/T624_1650, Page 6A. Enumeration District 0120 FHL microfilm/1375663; the Church of God at Williamsburg, “Who We Are,” http://www.thechurchofgodatwilliamsburg.org, accessed August 21, 2015; Michaux began visiting the FBI in 1941. During World War II, he worked with the G-Men to extol the FBI as a paragon of Christianity, patriotism, and racial progress while discrediting and slandering a number of “subversive” black civil rights advocates from the National Negro Congress and the Regional Council of Negro Leadership. The FBI credited the preacher with being “instrumental on more than one occasion in rendering us a real service.” See, for example, L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, U.S. Department of Justice memo, “Memorandum for Mr. Tolson,” September 16, 1941, no file number. Nichols to Tolson, memo, September 20, 1951,94-4-2848-8; Michaux based his view on Romans 13:1-7. See, “Elder Michaux's View on Church and State…” No date, archive, The Church of God at Williamsburg, “Who We Are,” http://www.thechurchofgodatwilliamsburg.org. Accessed August 21, 2015; L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, office memo, cc: Mr. Holloman, Mr. Jones, “Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux,” January 23, 1956, 94-4-2848-illegible, original copy filed in 62-66723-4; Teletype Telegram, Michaux to Hoover, April 15, 1956, Bureau File, 94-4-2848-22; On number of agents see, Theoharis, Athan G., The FBI & American Democracy: A Brief Critical History (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2004), 174 Google Scholar; On Cold War ideas of political and domestic “containment,” “spiritual mobilization,” “spiritual insolvency,” and religious “anxiety” see respectfully, Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, fully rev. and updated 20th anniversary ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 16-17; Herzog, Jonathan P., The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 15–16 Google Scholar; Finstuen, Andrew S., Original Sin and Everyday Protestants: The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an Age of Anxiety, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Nichols to Tolson, office memo, September 20, 1951,94-4-2848-8; L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, cc: Mr. Holloman, Mr. Jones, office memo, “Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, January 23, 1956, 94-4-2848-illegible, original copy filed in 62-66723-4, italics mine.

4. See, for example, Johnson, Sylvester A. and Weitzman, Steven, eds., The FBI and Religion: Faith and National Security before and after 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson, Sylvester A., African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom, 1st (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garrow, David J., Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: W. Morrow, 1986)Google Scholar; David J. Garrow, The Martin Luther King, Jr., F.B.I. File, Black studies research sources: microfilms from major archival and manuscript collections (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1984); Garrow, David J., The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr. From “Solo” to Memphis (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1981).Google Scholar

5. There are two exceptions to this scholarly trend. Studies of Catholicism and Mormonism have thoroughly examined the respective cordial working relationships between white Catholics and white Mormons and the FBI. However, the analysis of the role of race, that is the construction of whiteness, and racism are not a part of these studies. For a sample of such work, see David Weddle, “The Gang That Couldn't Smoke, Drink, or Shoot Straight: How the Mormon Mafia Turned the FBI's L.A. Office into the Laughing Stock of Law Enforcement,” California 13 (October 1988); Garneau, James F., “The Director and His Eminence: The Working Relationship and Questions of Church and State as Reflected in Cardinal Cushing's FBI Files,” American Catholic Studies 114 (2003): 37–53 Google Scholar; Rosswurm, Steve, The F.B.I and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962 (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009).Google Scholar Scholars have been slow to examine any similar relationships among Protestants. Michael McVicar's forthcoming monograph, tentatively titled God's Watchers: Domestic Intelligence Gathering and Religious Activism from the Cold War to the War on Terror, will be a much needed addition to the field, pushing scholars beyond “hostility studies” of religion and the FBI. Other scholars have examined the relationship between scholars of religion and the FBI. See, for example, Ammerman, Nancy T., “Waco, Federal Law Enforcement, and Scholars of Religion,” in Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict, ed. Wright, Stuart A. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)Google Scholar; PWeitzman, Steven, “Religious Studies and the F.B.I.: Adventures in Academic Interventionism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81 (December 2013): 959-95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar However, these studies do not analyze the role of race nor do they examine African American religious actors.

6. Belmont to Ladd, letterhead memo, “Special Service Contacts Semiannual Report,” October 16, 1953, 67-045-1732, Office of the Director, J. Edgar Hoover Official and Confidential File, File 14, Box 9, RG 65, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.; SAC, Minneapolis to Director, FBI, letterhead memo, “Special Service Contacts Minneapolis Division,” March 26, 1952, 67-HQ-466236. See Michaux File, 94-HQ-2848 for his membership on the Special Correspondents List. On the FBI's elective affinity and convergence with conservative Christianity, see Rosswurm, , The F.B.I and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962, 13.Google Scholar For a broader look at the Special Correspondents' List and its significance, see Gentry, Curt, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: Norton, 2001), 383-84Google Scholar; Greenberg, Ivan, Surveillance in America: Critical Analysis of the T.B.I, 1920 to the Present (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2012), 101 Google Scholar; Theoharis, Athan G., ed., From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1991), 303-4Google Scholar; Buitrago, Ann Mari and Immerman, Leon Andrew, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the F.B.I. Files? How to Secure and Interpret Your F.B.I. Files (New York: Grove Press, 1981), 208.Google Scholar

7. The word American is placed within quotations based on Maria Frederick's insightful analysis on how scholars in the field use the term as normative. She writes, “Too often white religious practice by default has been categorized as ‘American religion’ while the study of African American religious practitioners sits solely under the category ‘black religious studies.’” Accordingly, “Whiteness in the study of American religion has operated as a normative category.” See Frederick, Maria, Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 5.Google Scholar The only scholarly biography of Michaux is Webb, Lillian Ashcraft, About My Father's Business: The Life of Elder Michaux (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981).Google Scholar The book does not discuss the interworkings of the preacher's close relationship with Hoover and the Bureau. Suzanne E. Smith's forthcoming monograph on Michaux will be a much welcomed and needed addition to the study of religion in America.

8. See Garrow, The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; Garrow, The Martin Luther King, Jr., F.B.I. File; Garrow, Bearing the Cross; Johnson, Sylvester A., African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom, 1st ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sylvester A. Johnson, “Dreams and Shadows: Martin Luther King, Jr., the FBI, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” in Johnson and Weitzman, The FBI and Religion.

9. Rosswurm, The F.B.I, and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962, 2. Few biographers take Hoover's faith seriously. One exception to this trend is Powers, Richard Gid, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover, 1st ed. (New York: Free Press, 1987).Google Scholar Powers argues that Hoover's faith, along with his school and neighborhood, shaped the director's worldview as a child.

10. See, for example, Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities House of Representatives 80th Congress First Session, Part 2, Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 26, 1947); Francis Spellman and J. Edgar Hoover, Communism Is Un-American/Communism Is a Menace, reprinted from The American Magazine (New York: Constitutional Educational League, 1946). See also “FBI Chief Tells of Bible's Role in His Life,” Sunday Star, January 2, 1972, A6; Hoover, J. Edgar, “Soviet Rule or Christian Renewal,” Christianity Today, November 7, 1960, 8–11.Google Scholar

11. Frank Church, Chairman U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 23, 1976), 82, 131, 133, 142. The report does mention the title of a few clergy the FBI attempted to reach with such endeavors including the Pope, while Francis Cardinal Spellman is mentioned by name. The Bureau also made overtures to the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. For a brief look at the FBI's effort to discredit the civil rights movement and King with officials of the National Council of Churches, see Findlay, James F. Jr., Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950-1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

12. For a sample of useful typologies, see Paris, Peter J., Black Religious Leaders: Conflict in Unity, 2nd ed. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991).Google Scholar

13. Best, Wallace, “‘The Right Achieved and the Wrong Way Conquered’: J. H. Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Conflict over Civil Rights,” Religion and American Culture 16 (2006), 217-18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Michaux's biographer, for example, dismisses the Elder's dispute against King as “egotistical frustration,” instead of a dispute with real ideological and theological differences. See Webb, , About My Father's Business, 83.Google Scholar

14. Scholars of this Cold War spiritual mobilization have neglected to examine the roles of race (whiteness) and that of black clergy. See, for example, Kruse, Kevin M., One Nation under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015)Google Scholar; Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex.

15. Norris was so desperate to be connected with Hoover in the public eye that he lied concerning his visit to the FBI. On Norris's various efforts, see, for example, L. B. Nichols to Director, letterhead memo, September 5, 1941, and The Fundamentalists, August 15, 1941, both in Office of Assistant to the Director, Louis B. Nichols Official and Confidential Files, Box 15, RG 65, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. On Peale's relationship, see Bureau File, 62-HQ-77416.

16. In addition to remarks from Hoover, Eisenhower, and McGrath, Michaux also received well wishes from Federal Security Administrator Oscar R. Ewing (who also attended the event), CBS Vice President Earl H. Gammons, as well as Clark Griffith who was the owner of the Washington Senators baseball team. Fellow CBS radio personalities from The Jack Benny Show and Amos ‘n’ Andy also sent along congratulatory notes. Hoover to Michaux's home at 17112 R. Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., cc: Agent Jones, Western Union telegram, 6:47 p.m., September 20, 1951, 94-4-2848-10. On contemporary cost, see Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, “Measures of Worth,” Measuring Worth, 2012, http://www.measuringworth.com/worthmeasures.php, accessed January 26, 2017. On other congratulatory notes, see Jones to Nichols, office memo, September 24, 1951, 94-4-2848-9; Washington Post, September 22, 1951, 7; Chicago Defender, October 6, 1951, 2; Associated Negro Press press release, Church News: Washington, “Thousands Pay Tribute to ‘Happy Am I’ Preacher at Griffith Stadium,” October 3, 1951, in Chicago Historical Society, Claude A. Barnett Papers: Associated Negro Press, 1918-1967, File, “Radio Church of God, Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, July 13, 1934-September 16, 1956. The Associated Negro Press, interestingly, omitted Hoover's name from their catalogue of well-wishers.

17. On early years, see Radio Guide, May 5, 1934, May 12, 1934; Washington Evening Star, July 10, 1938, 3A; Chancellor Williams, “The Socio-Economic Significance of the Store-Front Church Movement in the United States since 1920” (Ph.D. diss., American University, Washington, D.C., 1949), 51-57.

18. Michaux quoted in, The Radio Guide, May 12, 1934; Minutes from the Elders and Deacons Meeting at Newport News, Va., Thursday, November 23, 1967; Williams, “The Socio-Economic Significance of the Store-Front Church Movement in the United States since 1920,” 48. My elucidation of Michaux's Cold War ministry borrows from Steven P. Miller's definition of “evangelical universalism.” See Steven P. Miller, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South, Politics and Culture in Modern America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 9; See also May, Homeward Bound, 17; Herzog, , The Spiritual-Industrial Complex, 16.Google Scholar For a longer look at Michaux's ministry, see Webb, , About My Father's Business, 33–37.Google Scholar

19. J. Edgar Hoover, “An American's Privilege,” speech delivered at the annual banquet of the Holland Society of New York, November 1942, reprinted in the Catholic Review, November 27, 1942; Our Sunday Visitor, May 22, 1950, reprinted from Redbook Magazine. See also J. Edgar Hoover, “Crime Begins at Home,” Redbook Magazine, October 1946.

20. Quoted in Associated Negro Press, “The ‘Happy-Am-I’ Preacher as Seen in His Radio Pulpit on the Potomac,” n.d., Claude A. Barnett Papers, Chicago Historical Society. On early years, see Radio Guide, May 5, 1934, May 12, 1934; Washington Evening Star, July 10, 1938, 3A; Williams, “The Socio-Economic Significance of the Store-Front Church Movement in the United States since 1920,” 51-57. On acting career, see E. Nelson Palmer, “Elder Michaux and His Church of God: A Sociological Interpretation” (Fisk University Charles S. Johnson Papers, Social Sciences Documents, Section 3 Row 6 Box 6 Folder 5, 1944-1947), 37. Palmer uses the term “‘end man’ in a minstrel show.” Special thanks to Jamil Drake for bringing this unpublished paper to my attention.

21. Washington Evening Star, July 10, 1938, 3A; July 11, 1938; Pittsburgh Courier, January 6, 1934, A3; Radio Guide, May 12, 1934, 5, 34; Raymond Julius Jones, “A Comparative Study of Religious Cult Behavior among Negroes with Special Reference to Emotional Group Conditioning Factors, Graduate School for the Division of the Social Sciences, Howard University Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 2.” (M.A. thesis, Howard University, 1939), 91-100.

22. Variety, September 19, 1933, 35; August 7, 1934, 32; Radio Guide, May 5, 1934, 5, 34; May 12, 1934, 5, 34; Billboard, June 26, 1937,11.

23. Washington Evening Star, July 10, 1938, 3A; July 11, 1938; Pittsburgh Courier, January 6, 1934, A3; Williams, “The Socio-Economic Significance of the Store-Front Church Movement in the United States since 1920,” 57, 86-87. CBS dropped Michaux from many of its stations by the outbreak of war in Europe as a result of the ministry being dogged by accusations of financial mismanagement. The Mutual Network picked up Michaux's show on their national network. On CBS stations, see Palmer, “Elder Michaux and His Church of God,” 11. On Mutual, see Associated Negro Press, press release, Church News: Washington, “Thousands Pay Tribute to ‘Happy Am I’ Preacher at Griffith Stadium,” October 3, 1951.

24. On number of listeners, see the radio industry study, American Research Bureau, The Washington Radio Audience, October 15-31, 1949, ed. Seiler, James W. (Washington, D.C.: American Research Bureau, 1949).Google Scholar A special thank you to Philip Goff for sharing this source with me. N.B.: In a letter to the author dated April 3, 2015, the FBI claimed, “records which may have” pertained to Charles Fuller “were destroyed in February 2005… under the supervision of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the FBI Records Retention Plan and Disposition Schedule which has been approved by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and are monitored by NARA.” FBI to author, letter, Subject: Fuller, Charles Edward, April 3, 2015, in author's possession. After the author initiated further inquiry, the FBI revealed that said file number was an FBI headquarters' domestic security case file number 100-100627. According to the FBI Records Retention Plan and Disposition Schedule, by 1981, FBI Headquarters had opened more than 480, 000 domestic security case files, measuring more than 7,000 cubic feet. Of the nearly half million domestic security case files, the District Court ordered the Bureau to retain permanently all cases the court's appraisal deemed “exceptional,” cases with multisections, cases with eighteen or more serials (separate pieces of information), all informant cases, and all cases with an organization or institution as the subject. All others, however, could be destroyed when thirty years old. Therefore, the destruction of Fuller's domestic security file may indicate that it was small. However, as a result of the court-ordered retention plan, researchers and scholars will never know the extent to which nor why the FBI was concerned and/or engaged with Fuller. Moreover, the information the Bureau did obtain on the evangelist and the means to do so are also lost. FBI to author, letter, Subject: Fuller, Charles Edward, June 18, 2015. On retention plan, see National Archives and Records Service, Appraisal of the Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: A Report to Hon. Harold H. Greene, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Submitted by the National Archives and Records Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, November 9, 1981, Amended, January 8, 1982 (Washington, DC: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, 1981)Google Scholar, Appendices, 100-Domestic Security.

25. Associated Negro Press, press release, Church News: Washington, “Thousands Pay Tribute to ‘Happy Am I’ Preacher at Griffith Stadium,” October 3, 1951.

26. Many scholars of religion in America have long held the consensus that Rex Humbard became the first minister/evangelist to host his own weekly television show in 1952. See, for example, God in America, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/godinamerica/timeline/, accessed January 31, 2017. However, Michaux's weekly show was launched four years before Humbard's series. Michaux's local run outlasted its national broadcast. After four total years on the air, the show folded in 1951 when the DuMont Television Network began broadcasting the show of another Bureau clergyman: Bishop Fulton Sheen. On Michaux's show, see Billboard, November 27, 1948, 10; December 27, 1948, 12; Weinstein, David, “Du Mont in Washington, D.C.: Out on a Limb,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 16 (1997), 379-81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erickson, Hal, Religious? Radio and Television in the United States, 1921-1991: The Programs and Personalities (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992), 71.Google Scholar For more on the DuMont Television Network, see Weinstein, David, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006).Google Scholar

27. Billboard, November 27, 1948, 10; December 18, 1948, 12; December 27, 1948, 12; December, 3, 1949, 10; Weinstein, “Du Mont in Washington, D.C.,” 379-81.

28. Billboard, November 27, 1948, 10; December 27, 1948, 12; Weinstein, “Du Mont in Washington, D.C.,” 381.

29. See Webb, About My Father's Business, on various churches.

30. Hoover to Michaux, letter, 94-HQ-4-2848-7.

31. Quoted in Associated Negro Press, press release, “Is the Negro Treated Right in America?” June 4, 1958, in Chicago Historical Society, Claude A. Barnett Papers; Williams, “The Socio-Economic Significance of the Store-Front Church Movement in the United States since 1920,” 48-49, 90; quote from FBI Informant in FBI File, 100-WFO-28088.

32. Quoted in Associated Negro Press, press release, “Is the Negro Treated Right in America,” June 4, 1958.

33. Quoted in ibid. Caps in original.

34. On the concept of religio-racial, see Weisenfeld, Judith, New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration (New York: New York University Press, 2017).Google Scholar Historians of the twentiethcentury United States such as Barbara Savage, Mary L. Dudziak, and Carol Anderson have persuasively shown the centrality of race—both whiteness and blackness—and the importance of black clergy and Protestantism during the Cold War. However, scholars specifically examining the relationship between U.S. religion and the Cold War have been very slow to recognize the same. See, for example, Kruse, One Nation under God; Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex.

35. Dudziak, Mary L., Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 56.Google Scholar See also Anderson, Carol, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

36. Savage, Barbara Dianne, Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 144.Google Scholar

37. L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, U.S. Department of Justice memo, “Memorandum for Mr. Tolson,” September 16, 1941,94-4-2848-2; Nichols to Tolson, memo, June 27, 1943, 94-4-2848-4. Italics mine.

38. Fischer, Dean, “J. Edgar Hoover Speaks Out with Vigor,” Time 96, (December 14, 1970), 28 Google Scholar; Michaux to Hoover, letter, May 31, 1952; Hoover to Michaux, letter, June 4, 1952, 94-HQ-4-2848-12. There were a few black employees who were appointed “special agents,” but as SAC Wayne Davis noted, these men did not meet the Bureau requirements of a college degree nor graduation from the FBI academy. Instead, “They were actually drivers and messengers and gardeners and what have you.” Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc., 2008, “Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI Wayne G. Davis, Brian R. Hollstein, Interviewer,” June 18, 2008,27; “Director Hoover and Diversity in the FBI,” April 23, 2016, accessed July 27, 2017, http://jerriwilliams.com/episode-013-wayne-davis-director-hoover-and-fbi-diversify/. The DOJ finally forced Hoover's hand in 1962 when he sent two black men, Aubrey C. Lewis and James Burrow, to the FBI training academy and hired them as Special Agents. On Special Agent Lewis, see “The Negro in the FBI,” Ebony, September 1962. SAC Wayne Davis and Special Agent John Carey followed in 1963. For more on Hoover and hiring black agents, see Powers, Secrecy and Power, Demaris, The Director; Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, The F.B.I: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).Google Scholar

39. Hoover to Michaux, letter, April 18, 1956, Bureau File, 94-4-2848-22. Italics mine.

40. On white attendees, see Washington Evening Star, July 10, 1938, 3A; Variety, September 18, 1934, 52; Radio Guide, May 5, 1934, and May 12, 1934.

41. Washington Evening Star, July 10, 1938, 3A, and July 11, 1938.

42. On Terrell's leadership, see Jones, Beverly W., “Before Montgomery and Greensboro: The Desegregation Movement in the District of Columbia, 1950-1953,” Phylon 43, (1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Simeon Booker, see Bray, Howard, The Pillars of the Post: The Making of a News Empire in Washington (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1980), 165.Google Scholar See also Booker, Simeon and Booker, Carol McCabe, Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's Account of the Civil Rights Movement (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013), 43–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. Reprinted in Congressional Record Appendix, 109 Congress, August 5, 1963, A4978-A4979.

44. J. Edgar Hoover, “A Christmas Message,” Investigator, Christmas 1961. Italics mine.

45. J. Edgar Hoover, “Message from the Director to all Law Enforcement Officials,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, November 1964.

46. Hoover, J. Edgar, “Wholly Loyal,” Crusader, June 1961, 15.Google Scholar

47. Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations, January 11, 1977, 113-14, found in Martin Luther King, Jr., Main File, 100-106670 Section 103; DeLoach, Cartha D., Hoover's FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1997), 202.Google Scholar See also FBI Secret Monograph, The Communist Party and the Negro, 1953-1956, October 1956; Garrow, The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

48. Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations, 116-18; U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3,104-7.

49. Fischer, “J. Edgar Hoover Speaks Out with Vigor”; DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, 200.

50. William C. Sullivan to Alan H. Belmont, memo, “Communist Party, USA, Negro Question; IS-C,” August 30, 1963, and William C. Sullivan to Alan H. Belmont, unofficial memo, “Communist Party, USA, Negro Question; Communist Influence in Racial Matters,” September 25, 1963, 100-106670, in Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations; U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, 104-7, 134-35; William C. Sullivan to Alan H. Belmont, memo, “Samuel Riley Pierce, Jr.,” January 8, 1964, reprinted in full in Navasky, Victor, “The FBI's Wildest Dream,” Nation 226, (June 17, 1978), 716-18.Google Scholar

51. See Hoover's handwritten comments on William C. Sullivan to Alan H. Belmont, memo, “Samuel Riley Pierce, Jr.,” January 8, 1964, reprinted in full in Navasky, “The FBI's Wildest Dream.” See also Garrow, The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King jr., 68.

52. U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, 81-82, 108; Sullivan to Belmont, memo “Samuel Riley Pierce, Jr.,” January 8, 1964. For a periodization of the Bureau's campaign against King, see Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr., 100.Google Scholar

53. William C. Sullivan to Alan H. Belmont, unofficial memo, “Communist Party, USA, Negro Question; Communist Influence in Racial Matters,” September 25, 1963, 100-106670 in Report of the Department of justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations.

54. “Sunday Radio Logs,” 1963-1967, Washington Post, Times Herald; Transcript of Michaux's sermon in John F. Kennedy Presidential Library: The White House Central Files, Series, Human Rights-Equality of the Races: Federal Government-Organizations, March on Washington, Folder: Gen Hu 2/Fg. Several white evangelicals including Billy Graham joined Michaux in this view. See, for example, Miller, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South; Evans, Curtis, “White Evangelical Protestant Response to the Civil Rights Movement,” Harvard Theological Review 102 (April 2009): 245-73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. The transcript of King's speech is available at the King Center archives, see, http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/mlk-addresses-national-association-radio-announcers#. See also King, Martin Luther Jr., “Transcript: Transforming a Neighborhood into a Brotherhood, Recorded Live by R.C.A. Records at the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers Convention-R.C.A. Dinner, Atlanta, Friday, August 11, 1967,” Jack the Rapper 13 January 11, 1989).Google Scholar Only CBS carried live television coverage of the MOW, but only the speeches were televised live, not even the musical performance of Bob Dylan made the live broadcast. Later, NBC and ABC televised heavily edited recaps of the MOW. King's speech gradually grew in cultural significance. On the importance of radio during the civil rights movement, see Ward, Brian, Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004).Google Scholar

56. Michaux, Washington, D.C., to President John F. Kennedy, The White House, letter, September 25, 1963, in John F. Kennedy Presidential Library: The White House Central Files, Series, Human Rights-Equality of the Races: Federal Government-Organizations, March on Washington, Folder: Gen Hu 2/Fg.

57. “Louis Martin Oral History Interview I,” transcript, May 14, 1969, by David G. McComb; “Louis Martin Oral History Interview II,” transcript, June 12, 1986, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copies, LBJ Library; New York Times, “Louis E. Martin, 84, Aide to 3 Democratic Presidents,” January 30, 1997; Booker, Simeon, “New Negro Power Structure in DC,” Jet 27, February 1965, 21.Google Scholar Louis Martin, Deputy Chairman, Democratic National Committee, to Lee C. White, memo, December 4, 1963, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library: The White House Central Files, Series, Human Rights-Equality of the Races: Federal Government-Organizations, March on Washington, Folder: Gen Hu 2/Fg. Martin successfully advised Johnson to nominate Robert Weaver-the first African American to hold a cabinet level position in the White House (the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development), Thurgood Marshall as the first black Supreme Court justice, and St. Louis native Frankie Freeman—the first black woman appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. For more on Freeman, see her autobiography, Freeman, Frankie Muse and O'Connor, Candace, A Song of Faith and Hope: The Life of Frankie Muse Freeman (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, distributed by University of Missouri Press, 2003).Google Scholar

58. On wiretaps and bugs, see U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3,115-23.

59. New York Times, November 19, 1962, 21; Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach Oral History Interview I, transcript, January 11, 1991, Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. See also, Washington Post, Times Herald, November 19, 1964, Al; Garrow, The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 54-55, 122-27.

60. For one example of Hoover's indirect rebukes of King, see Hoover, J. Edgar, “The Role of the F.B.I, in Civil Rights Disputes,” Yale Political, 2 (August 1963): 12, 31-32Google Scholar; New York Times, September 23, 1964, 40.

61. Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach Oral History Interview I; Sullivan, William C. and Brown, Bill, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's F.B.I (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1979), 139 Google Scholar; DeLoach, , Hoover's FBI, 206.Google Scholar See also, Washington Post, Times Herald, November 19, 1964, Al; Garrow, , The F.B.L and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 122-27.Google Scholar On Why We Can't Wait, see King, Martin Luther, Why We Can't Wait (New York: Harper & Row, 1964)Google Scholar; New York Times, May 22, 1964, 32, and July 26, 1964, BRl. On Hoover's penchant to hold grudges and obsession with winning any and all debates, see Powers, Secrecy and Power. King also publically criticized Hoover in May 1964. See, for example, Norfolk Journal and Guide, May 2, 1964,10.

62. King to J. Edgar Hoover, Western Union telegram, November 19, 1964, in Friedly, Michael, Martin Luther King, Jr.: The FBI File, ed. Gallen, David, 1st ed. (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993), 272 Google Scholar; Washington Post, Times Herald, November 20, 1964, A2; U.S. News and World Report, “Martin Luther King's Reaction,” November 30, 1964, 58.

63. U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, 160-61; Sullivan and Brown, 142; Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 124-26Google Scholar; Churchill, Ward and Wall, Jim Vander, The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the F.B.I.'s Secret Wars against Domestic Dissent (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 97.Google Scholar For the story of one of King's purported paramours, see Powers, Georgia Davis, I Shared the Dream, 1st ed. (Far Hills, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 1995).Google Scholar The entirety of the FBI's letter to King was recently discovered by Beverly Gage and reprinted in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Beverly Gage, “What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals,” New York Times Magazine, November 11, 2014, accessed November 16, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/ll/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letterto-mlk-reveals.html.

64. FBI memo, December 1, 1964, in Friedly, , Martin Luther King, Jr., 280-83Google Scholar; Sullivan and Brown, 142; Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 124-26.Google Scholar The Southern Regional Council did indeed release a statement supporting King. See the front page of the Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 28, 1964. A. Phillip Randolph, Whitney Young of the Urban League, Dorothy Height of the NCNW, NAACP head Roy Wilkins, and CORE's James Farmer also publically expressed their support of King and also met with President Johnson. See Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 21, 1964, CI; Soon after, however, Wilkins appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and called Hoover “a good public servant” and that a call for his dismissal was unnecessary because Hoover had enjoyed a “long and distinguished career.” See Washington Post, Times Herald, November 23, 1964, A8. Noted Mississippi minister Ed King led a “bi-racial” coalition supporting King and calling for Hoover's resignation. See Norfolk Journal and Guide, Novebmer 28, 1964, A17.

65. C. D. DeLoach, Washington, D.C., to Mr. Mohr, Washington, D.C., memo, November 23, 1964, Elder L. S. Michaux, Bureau File 94-HQ-4-2848-27; M. A. Jones to Mr. DeLoach, memo, February 24, 1965, Elder Michaux, Negro Religious Leader, Washington, D.C., Bureau File 94-HQ-4-2848-32.

66. Jones to DeLoach, memo, “Elder Michaux Negro Religious Leader Washington DC,” February 2, 1965, 94-4-2848-32; Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach Oral History Interview I; Lee C. White Oral History Interview II, transcript, February 18, 1971, by Joe B. Frantz, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library; Interview of Former Deputy Director of the FBI Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, transcript, by David G. Binney, May 1, 2007, Electronic Copy, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc., Oral History Program; Sullivan and Brown, 61-70; Will Haygood, “The Man from Jet,” Washington Post Magazine, July 15, 2007. On Crime Records Division, see Buitrago, and Immerman, , Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the F.B.I. Files?, 171.Google Scholar

67. See U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, 152; Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 124-26Google Scholar; Findlay, , Church People in the Struggle, 87–88.Google Scholar Espy, according to Bureau files, swore not to give King another cent. Ben Bradlee, Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, refused even to examine the transcript of the recordings, let alone accept it as a news source. According to Bureau files, Bradlee was outraged, stating that if the FBI carried out such acts against King, surely they would do the same to any other person for personal gain. Bradlee informed Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach about the whole ordeal who immediately flew to President Johnson's ranch to inform the President. Johnson, in turn, told the FBI that Bradlee could not be trusted. See Bray, , The Pillars of the Post, 109-10.Google Scholar

68. C. D. DeLoach to Mr. Mohr, memo, “Elder L. S. Michaux,” November 23, 1964, Bureau File, 94-HQ-4-2848-27.

69. Sword of Loyola Program, November 24, 1964, in J. Edgar Hoover Personal Estate Collection, National Law Enforcement Museum, Washington, D.C.; “Hoover's Sword of Loyola, 1964,” Loyola University Chicago Digital Special Collections, accessed December 18, 2014, http://www.lib.luc.edu/specialcollections/exhibits/show/loyola-traditions/item/320.

70. Speech reprinted in Congressional Record Appendix, February 4, 1965, 111th Congress, Record A511.

71. On the Reverend Archibald Carey, see Dickerson, Dennis C., African American Preachers and Politics: The Careys of Chicago (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011).Google Scholar See the similar accounts of the meeting in U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 164-68; DeLoach to Mohr, letterhead memo, “Martin Luther King Appointment with Director 3:35 p.m., 12-1-64,” December 2, 1964, and J. Edgar Hoover to President Johnson, letter, December 2, 1964, both in Friedly, Martin Luther King, jr., 294-307; Andrew J. Young, Jr., Oral History Interview I, transcript, June 18, 1970, by Thomas H. Baker, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library; Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach Oral History Interview I, DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, 210; Sullivan and Brown, 101, 140; Washington Post, Times Herald, December 2, 1964, Al, and December 5, 1964, E15. See also Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 122-24, 129-30, 271.Google Scholar

72. Ibid. Years later Hoover boasted, “I never called him reverend.” See Fischer, “J. Edgar Hoover Speaks Out with Vigor.” FBI phone taps revealed that King said of his meeting with Hoover, “the old man talks too much.” See Sullivan and Brown 140-41. On Hoover's monologues, see, for example, James Phelan, “Hoover of the FBI,” Saturday Evening Post, September 25, 1965, 23-33; Demaris, The Director.

73. Washington Post, Times Herald, December 2, 1964, Al, and December 5, 1964, E15; also in Friedly, Martin Luther King, Jr., 291. On McCartney, see Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr., 130.Google Scholar

74. U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 82.

75. C. D. DeLoach to Mr. Mohr, memo, “Elder Michaux Negro Religious Leader,” December 9, 1964, Bureau File 94-HQ-4-2848.

76. Some newspapers did mention the letter, but no major paper published it in full. See, for example, the front page of the Norfolk journal and Guide, January 9, 1965, 1, and Washington Post, Times Herald, December 23, 1964, CI. The full letter is contained in Bureau File 94- HQ-2848-29. On Bureau report, see Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr., 133.Google Scholar

77. Michaux to Martin Luther King, letter, December 22, 1964, Bureau File 94-HQ-2848-29.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. C. D. DeLoach to Mr. Mohr, memo, “Elder L. S. Michaux,” November 23, 1964. Bureau File, 94-HQ-4-2848-27. See also FBIHQ 105-340953. In addition to the FBI's civil rights activities, DeLoach also provided Michaux with the “current home address” of his old friend and ally Special Agent Louis Nichols. See, C. D. DeLoach to Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, letter, November 30, 1964, Bureau File 94-HQ-42848-26; Michaux to Martin Luther King, letter, December 22, 1964, Bureau File 94-HQ-2848-29; J. Edgar Hoover to Michaux, letter, January 4, 1965, Bureau File 94-HQ-42848-30.

81. C. D. DeLoach to Mr. Hoover, memo, December 23, 1964, Bureau File 94-HQ-4-2848-29.

82. Washington Post, Times Herald, January 4, 1965, A-20; also in Bureau File 94-4-2848-30.

83. J. Edgar Hoover to Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, letter, January 4, 1965, Bureau File 94-4-2848-30.

84. M. A. Jones to Mr. DeLoach, memo, Feburary 24, 1965, Elder Michaux, Negro Religious Leader, Washington, D.C., Bureau File 94-HQ-4-2848-32; U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, 120. On Michaux's admittance to receiving letters that “applauded King,” see Rouse, Parke Jr., “Happy Am I!” Commonwealth, July 1965, 30–33.Google Scholar

85. J. Edgar Hoover to Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, letter, February 24, 1965, Bureau File 94-4-2848-31.

86. Baltimore Afro-American, February 6, 1965, 5.

87. Chicago Defender, May 1, 1965, 8.

88. Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 13, 1965, 9.

89. Chicago Defender, January 2, 1965, 9.

90. New York Times, April 2, 1965, 24; Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1965, 2; Martin Luther King, Jr., “Let My People Vote,” n.d., in Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954-1970, Part 1: Records of the President's Office, Folder: 27:35, May 1964-School Desegregation, a Few Years After. King Library and Archive at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia; DeLoach to Mohr, memo, April 1, 1965, 94-4-2848-3.

91. New York Times, April 2, 1965, 24; Baltimore Afro-American, April 10, 1965, 1; U.S. Department of Justice FBI, internal security memo, Baltimore, Maryland, April 5, 1965, Reverend Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, Bureau File 100-442529896. The Afro-American stated the protest was smaller than one hundred. I have chosen to go with the estimates of the New York Times and the FBI field report as their estimates agree.

92. New York Times, April 2, 1965, 24. U.S. Department of Justice FBI, internal security memo, Baltimore, Maryland, April 5, 1965. Baltimore Afro-American, April 10, 1965, 1.

93. On wiretaps and the Bureau's shift in focus, see U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book 3, 116, 121. On James Harrison, see Paul Good, “An Uneasy Life for Man who Spied on King,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 16, 1980, 1A, 16A; Garrow, , The F.B.I, and Martin Luther King, Jr., 174-75, 286 n.2.Google Scholar

94. DeLoach to Mohr, memo, “Dr. Archibald J. Cary, Jr., Reverend Martin Luther King,” May 19, 1965,161-2040-30.

95. Washington Post, Times Herald, February 17, 1965, A8. In the Harris poll, 21 percent were not sure, while 13 percent agreed with neither. King's overall public approval rating dipped tremendously when he publically condemned America's involvement in the Vietnam War. At the SCLC Convention on August 12, 1965, King made a conciliatory and tepid statement calling for an end to war in Vietnam, noting there was no “blame” to be had. However, he infamously indicted the United States for the war in Vietnam at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967. For 1965 statement, see http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/statement_by_king_at_the_sclc_convention.l.html. For 1967 sermon, see http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/kingweb/publications/speeches/BeyondJVietnam.pdf

96. Jones to DeLoach, memo, “District of Columbia Crime Commission,” May 13, 1965, 62-110232-6; Hoover to Attorney General, memo “District of Columbia Crime Commission Suggested List of Names,” May 14, 1965, 62-110232-3. Washington Post, Times Herald, July 17, 1965, Al, A5. Johnson, despite Hoover's recommendation, did not choose the preacher.

97. On black COINTELPRO, see Director to SAC Albany, Counterintelligence Program Black Nationalist-Hate Groups Internal Security, August 25, 1967, 100-448006-1, and Director to SAC Albany, Airtel memo, “Counter-intelligence Program Black Nationalist-Hate Groups Racial Intelligence,” March 4, 1968,100-448006-17, both in Churchill, and Wall, Vander, The Cointelpro Papers, 92, 108-11.Google Scholar On the Bureau's renewed effort to recruit “racial informants,” see FBI Internal Monograph, Development of Racial Informants, September 1967. On the death of Mrs. Michaux, see Washington Post, Times Herald, October 29, 1967, D4; J. Edgar Hoover to Michaux, Washington, D.C., letter, October 30, 1967, Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux File, Bureau File 94-4-2848-34.

98. Baltimore Afro-American, Sepember 7, 1968, Al; Washington Post, Times Herald, October 21, 1968, Al.

99. Washington Post, Times Herald, October 21, 1968, Al; October 22, 1968, B4; October 28, 1968, B8; Journal and Guide, November 2, 1968, B27.

100. Director to SAC Albany, Airtel memo, “Counter-intelligence Program Black Nationalist-Hate Groups Racial Intelligence,” March 4, 1968, 100-448006-17, in Churchill, and Wall, Vander, The Cointelpro Papers, 108-11Google Scholar; J. Edgar Hoover to Ruth Michaux, Washington, D.C., letter, October 21, 1968, Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux File, Bureau File 94-4-2848-35, italics mine; Journal and Guide, November 2, 1968, B27.