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

From 1918 into the early Twenties, any African Americans who spoke out for their race - editors, union organizers, civil rights advocates, radical political activists, and Pan-Africanists - were likely to be investigated by a network of federal intelligence agencies. This book presents an account in the history of American political intelligence. From 1918 into the early 1920s, any African Americans who spoke out forcefully for their race—editors, union organizers, civil rights advocates, radical political activists, and Pan-Africanists—were likely to be investigated by a network of federal intelligence agencies, most ruthlessly by the Bureau of Investigation (renamed the FBI in 1935). The "crime" which justified such surveillance was almost always the ideas these individuals expressed. Agents of the federal government watched them, tapped their phones, rifled their offices, opened their mail, infiltrated their organizations, intimidated their audiences, and caused them to suffer the prospect of prosecution, all because of their beliefs.

"Seeing Red": Federal Campaigns against Black Militancy, 1919-1925, by Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., is the gripping, painstakingly documented account of this neglected chapter in the history of American political intelligence.

Kornweibel has pieced together how the federal government's political intelligence system took shape during and after World War I. Despite the fact that the Bureau was ordered to cease political spying in 1924, it never did. Nor did the army or State Department halt their intelligence activities during the interwar years. World War II added a new urgency and additional targets to the domestic intelligence system, which then moved unchecked into the Cold War era.

Kornweibel documents the crucial and early role played by the young J. Edgar Hoover, then an ambitious Justice Department attorney. "In spearheading the Bureau of Investigation's anti-radical crusade in 1919, [Hoover] fixated on the belief that racial militants were seeking to break down social barriers separating blacks from whites, and that they were inspired by communists or were the pawns of communists. These notions became imbedded in the FBI and its director. Hoover's hostility toward Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement of the 1960s was shaped by the fears which Hoover conjured up in 1919 and which he helped cement into the Bureau's institutional memory."

Kornweibel's research discloses the Bureau's extensive use of black undercover informants and infiltrators, a practice necessitated by the inability of white agents to penetrate racial organizations and gain the confidence of black militants. His accounts of the Bureau's first black agents describe their accomplishments and failures but resist moral judgment on their activities. He points out that Marcus Garvey, the pan-Africanist who was a major target of the government's campaign, is widely honored today, but in the 1920s his sizable following was counterbalanced by many who sincerely believed he was dangerously misleading the race. Identifying for the first time informants and agents provocateurs, as well as conveying the dilemma of the first black federal investigators, Kornweibel has discovered a number of interesting figures.

Readers will learn for the first time about James E. Amos, the second African American agent hired by the Bureau of Investigation, but the first to operate publicly. He would serve the Bureau for over 30 years, earning the high regard of Hoover—who was otherwise hostile to hiring black agents. Before joining the Bureau, Amos had served with the Interior Department and Customs Office, and for 12 years worked as President Theodore Roosevelt's personal attendant, confidential messenger, and bodyguard. Amos was put in charge of the Marcus Garvey case, identifying and "encouraging" witnesses to testify against him. Says Kornweibel: "As a pathfinder, Amos has no peer: he, more than any of the other early black agents, 'proved' what should never have needed proving: that African Americans could serve the federal government in sensitive positions with objectivity, intelligence, and professionalism."

Strongly written and exhaustively researched, "Seeing Red" sheds new light on the federal injustice that prevailed after World War I, establishing a pattern of hostility to racial and civil rights progress that persisted for the next 50 years, until after the death of J. Edgar Hoover.

Now in Paper! "Seeing Red" Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925 Theodore 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 "Unrest and radicalism are rife" : the flowering of modern political intelligence -- "Dangerous influences at work upon the Negro" : fears of communism during and after the Red Scare -- "They are visciously edited with a view of creating racial hatred" : investigation and intimidation of the Chicago defender and other Black newspapers -- "The existence of this organization may be for no good purpose" : the NAACP and the Crisis avoid federal suppression -- "The most dangerous of all Negro publications" : federal efforts to suppress the Messenger and Black socialist activism -- "An undesirable, and indeed a very dangerous, alien" : the federal campaign against Marcus Garvey -- "The most colossal conspiracy against the United States" : efforts to thwart the Crusader and the African Blood Brotherhood -- "Ultra radical Negro Bolsheviki" : the pursuit of Black Wobblies -- Epilogue: "The force of the law." Despite the fact that the Bureau of Investigation (renamed the FBI in 1935) was ordered to cease political spying in 1924, it never did. Fearing that Bolshevism was spreading to America, the Bureau, led by a young J. Edgar Hoover, spearheaded the federal government's political intelligence network to help create a nation-wide antiradical panic, the first Red Scare. Hoover was convinced that black militancy -- including the demand for civil rights -- was communist-inspired and a threat to both national security and white hegemony, views which would remain part of the FBI's gospel well into the 197Os, Theodore Kornweibel spent ten years researching governmental archives and has uncovered much new material on the era of the first Red Scare, including the identities of black informers and agents provocateurs. Modern America's political intelligence system-surveillance, investigation, and spying on individuals because of fear or dislike of their beliefs, resulting in harassment, intimidation, or prosecution-came of age during World War I and the Red Scare of 1919 to 1921, and it would thenceforth justify its existence by identifying a never-ending series of national security threats.