Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

by Michael Harriot

In the book The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI, Betty Medsger writes: More than anything, the Media files offered “the public and Congress an unprecedented glimpse of how the U.S. government watches its citizens—particularly black citizens,” wrote Washington Post journalist William Greider in an analysis of all the files the summer after the burglary. Despite the fact that the files had been removed from a very small bureau office in a predominantly white area, they revealed details of the bureau’s policies and actions that made it clear the FBI conducted massive spying on African Americans, most of it unjustified. The overall impression in the Media files of how the FBI regarded black people was that they were dangerous and must be watched continuously. To become targets of the FBI, it wasn’t necessary for African Americans to engage in violent behavior. It wasn’t necessary for them to be radical or subversive. Being black was enough.