131-566: The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination ( CARD ) was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasted until 1967, that lobbied for race relations legislation. The group's formation was inspired by a visit by Martin Luther King Jr. to London in December 1964 on his way to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize . The Trinidadian pacifist Marion Glean , then a graduate student at
262-703: A Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen. King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania , and took several courses at the University of Pennsylvania . At Crozer, King was elected president of the student body. At Penn, King took courses with William Fontaine , Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F. Flower , a professor of philosophy. King's father supported his decision to continue his education and made arrangements for King to work with J. Pius Barbour ,
393-415: A Children's Crusade . The Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene "Bull" Connor , used high-pressure water jets and police dogs against protesters, including children. Footage of the police response was broadcast on national television news, shocking many white Americans and consolidating black Americans behind the movement. Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of
524-668: A civil rights march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him. Martin King Jr. memorized hymns and Bible verses by the time he was five years old. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events with his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and More Like Jesus"; his singing moved attendees. King later became
655-405: A B-plus average. The high school was the only one in the city for African-American students. Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to question the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school . Martin Jr. said that he found himself unable to identify with
786-1012: A Senate report, the FBI's motivation was "protecting national security , preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order". Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers targeted include Fred Hampton , Mark Clark , Zayd Shakur , Geronimo Pratt , Mumia Abu-Jamal , and Marshall Conway . Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of exculpatory evidence. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize"
917-458: A church filled with white congregants. King wrote to his parents about the lack of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites go to the same church". He played freshman football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the ministry . He would later credit
1048-511: A church in the South. King tearfully told a friend that he could not endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte , said Betty had been "the love of King's life." King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951. He applied to the University of Edinburgh for
1179-779: A doctorate in the School of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead. In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University , and worked as an assistant minister at Boston's historic Twelfth Baptist Church with William Hunter Hester. Hester was an old friend of King's father and was an important influence on King. In Boston, King befriended a small cadre of local ministers his age, and sometimes guest pastored at their churches, including Michael E. Haynes , associate pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury. The young men often held bull sessions in their apartments, discussing theology, sermon style, and social issues. At
1310-436: A family friend and Crozer alumnus who pastored at Calvary Baptist Church in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania . King became known as one of the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. and Samuel D. Proctor , who both went on to become well-known preachers. King reproved another student for keeping beer in his room once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of
1441-567: A friend from Atlanta named Mary Powell, a student at the New England Conservatory of Music , if she knew any nice Southern girls. Powell spoke to fellow student Coretta Scott ; Scott was not interested in dating preachers but eventually agreed to allow King to telephone her based on Powell's description and vouching. On their first call, King told Scott, "I am like Napoleon at Waterloo before your charms," to which she replied, "You haven't even met me." King married Scott on June 18, 1953, on
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#17328511390201572-630: A group of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, Connecticut , at the tobacco farm of Cullman Brothers Tobacco. This was King's first trip into the integrated north. In a June 1944 letter to his father King wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our way here we saw some things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit anywhere we want to." The farm had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages towards
1703-562: A high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College to study for entry to the ministry. Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating in 1920, and married on November 25, 1926. Until Jennie's death in 1941, their home was on the second floor of Alberta's parents' Victorian house , where King was born. Michael Jr. had an older sister, Christine King Farris , and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King . Shortly after marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of
1834-477: A hit on Fort. They also were instrumental in developing the rift between Black Panther Party leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, as executed through false letters inciting the two leaders of the Black Panther Party. Dhoruba Bin Wahad , a former Black Panther, reflects on how these tactics made him feel, saying he had a combat mentality and felt like he was at war with the government. When asked about why he thinks
1965-434: A letter telling him: "There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation". King believed that he was subsequently informed that the audio would be released to the media if he did not acquiesce and commit suicide prior to accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. When King refused to satisfy their coercion tactics, FBI Associate Director, Cartha D. DeLoach, commenced
2096-405: A media campaign offering the surveillance transcript to various news organizations, including Newsweek and Newsday . Even by 1969, as has been noted elsewhere, "[FBI] efforts to 'expose' Martin Luther King Jr. had not slackened even though King had been dead for a year. [The Bureau] furnished ammunition to opponents that enabled attacks on King's memory, and ... tried to block efforts to honor
2227-575: A member of his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone with the Wind . In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School for the seventh grade . While there, King took violin and piano lessons and showed keen interest in history and English classes. On May 18, 1941, when King had sneaked away from studying at home to watch
2358-404: A member of the junior choir in his church. He enjoyed opera, and played the piano. King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of words to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted throughout his life. In 1939, King sang as
2489-414: A much more militant vision of " black power ". While the FBI was particularly concerned with leaders and organizers, they did not limit their scope of target to the heads of organizations. Individuals such as writers were also listed among the targets of operations. This program coincided with a broader federal effort to prepare military responses for urban riots and began increased collaboration between
2620-611: A parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning home, he learned she had a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital. He took her death very hard and believed that his deception in going to see the parade may have been responsible for God taking her. King jumped out of a second-story window at his home but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been called home to God as part of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to move
2751-564: A police officer who referred to Martin Sr. as "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's father took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed to sit in the back. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy any shoes at all", before leaving the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. afterward, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it." In 1936, Martin Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in
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#17328511390202882-451: A second-story window, but rose from the ground after hearing that she was alive. Martin King Jr. became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his home. In September 1935, when the boys were about six years old, they started school. King had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate school for white children only. Soon afterwards,
3013-469: A situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." The campaign's early volunteers did not succeed in shutting down the city, or in drawing media attention to the police's actions. Over the concerns of an uncertain King, SCLC strategist James Bevel changed the course of the campaign by recruiting children and young adults to join the demonstrations. Newsweek called this strategy
3144-449: A sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence. The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI (initially called BOI until 1936) exercising political repression as far back as World War I, and through
3275-452: A time when both parties were courting the support of Southern Whites and their political leadership including Governor Vandiver. Nixon, with whom King had a closer relationship before, declined to make a statement despite a personal visit from Jackie Robinson requesting his intervention. Nixon's opponent John F. Kennedy called the governor (a Democrat) directly, enlisted his brother Robert to exert more pressure on state authorities, and, at
3406-404: Is at the mercy of the meanest white man." King was selected as the winner of the contest. On the ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that white passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law if he did not. As all
3537-426: Is to disrupt the Black Panther Party and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge." Viola's family endured Hoover's claiming that cuts on her arm from the car's shattered window indicated "recent drug use" and that her proximity to Moton resembled "a necking party," despite an autopsy revealing no traces of drugs in her system and indicating she hadn't had sex recently before her death. —On
3668-498: The Atlanta sit-ins from March 1960 onwards. In August the movement asked King to participate in a mass October sit-in, timed to highlight how 1960's Presidential election campaigns had ignored civil rights. The coordinated day of action took place on October 19. King participated in a sit-in at the restaurant inside Rich's , Atlanta's largest department store, and was among the many arrested that day. The authorities released everyone over
3799-456: The Bible as instructed by their father. After dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to as "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible . Martin Jr.'s father regularly used whippings to discipline his children, sometimes having them whip each other. Martin Sr. later remarked, "[Martin Jr.] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and
3930-876: The Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers , and independence movements (including Puerto Rican independence groups such as the Young Lords and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party ). Although the program primarily focused on organizations that were part of the broader New Left , they also targeted white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party . The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under
4061-674: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act . The SCLC used tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent. On September 20, 1958, King was signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein's department store in Harlem when Izola Curry —a mentally ill black woman who thought that King
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4192-649: The London School of Economics , arranged with Bayard Rustin for King to meet a group of Black spokespersons and activists at the Hilton Hotel, where an ad hoc committee was formed for a movement to "agitate for social justice and oppose all forms of discrimination", with CARD formally being launched at the next meeting on 10 January 1965. CARD's founding members included Jocelyn Barrow as well as Marion Glean , politician Anthony Lester , London County Councillor David Pitt , historian C.L.R. James , Dipak Nandy and
4323-636: The Missouri State Penitentiary , was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes he was a scapegoat ; the assassination remains the subject of conspiracy theories . King's death was followed by national mourning , as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities . King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
4454-560: The Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War . In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign , when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee . James Earl Ray , a fugitive from
4585-962: The Reformation leader Martin Luther . In reaction to the rise of Nazism , the BWA made a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Heavenly Father , all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any part of the world." After returning home in August 1934, Michael Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. and his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr. At his childhood home, Martin King Jr. and his two siblings read aloud
4716-781: The Socialist Workers Party from their pledge of support for the antiwar movement. The FBI has said that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics have claimed that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO targeted groups such as the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador , the American Indian Movement , Earth First! , and the anti-globalization movement . According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home ,
4847-753: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) , the Deacons for Defense and Justice , Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Nation of Islam . BLACK HATE established the Ghetto Informant Program and instructed 23 FBI offices to "disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type organizations". A March 1968 memo stated
4978-455: The civil rights movement . FBI records show that J. Edgar Hoover personally communicated these insinuations to President Johnson. Despite this, three Klansmen would be convicted in a federal trial for Liuzzo's murder in December 1965. FBI informant Rowe has also been implicated in some of the most violent crimes of the 1960s civil rights era, including attacks on the Freedom Riders and
5109-404: The entrance examination . As World War II was underway many black college students had been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their enrollment by allowing juniors to apply. In 1944, aged 15, King passed the examination and was enrolled at the university that autumn. In the summer before King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and
5240-638: The right to vote , desegregation , labor rights , and other civil rights . He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia , and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama . King was one of
5371-473: The 1920s, when agents were charged with rounding up "anarchists, communists, socialists, reformists and revolutionaries" for deportation. From 1936 through 1976, the domestic operations were increased against political and anti-war groups. The FBI claimed that the purpose behind COINTELPRO was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, or otherwise neutralize" groups that the FBI officials believed were "subversive" by instructing FBI field operatives to: At its inception,
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5502-645: The 1963 Birmingham, Alabama 16th Street Baptist Church bombing . The ACLU has claimed the FBI supported an extreme right-wing group of former Minutemen , transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization that targeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the Anti-War Movement, using both intimidation and violent acts. Hoover ordered preemptive action "to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence." The final report of
5633-506: The Albany effort proved a key lesson in tactics for King and the national civil rights movement, the national media was highly critical of King's role in the defeat, and the SCLC's lack of results contributed to a growing gulf between the organization and the more radical SNCC . After Albany, King sought to choose engagements for the SCLC in which he could control the circumstances, rather than entering into pre-existing situations. In April 1963,
5764-634: The Black Panther Party had concluded that in his city, at least, the Panthers were primarily engaged in feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the agent's career goals would be directly affected by his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the Black Panther Party was "a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means". Hoover supported using false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: "Purpose of counterintelligence action
5895-562: The Black Panthers were targeted he said, "In the United States, the equivalent of the military was the local police. During the early sixties, at the height of the civil rights movement, and the human rights movement, the police in the United States became increasingly militaristic. They began to train out of military bases in the United States. The Law Enforcement Assistance Act supplied local police with military technology, everything from assault rifles to army personnel carriers. In his opinion,
6026-509: The Committee finds that the most serious breaches of duty were those of senior officials, who were responsible for controlling intelligence activities and generally failed to assure compliance with the law. Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that ... the Bureau conducted
6157-621: The Counterintelligence Program went hand-in-hand with the militarization of the police in the Black community, with the militarization of police in America." The FBI also conspired with the police departments of many U.S. cities (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Chicago) to encourage repeated raids on Black Panther homes—often with little or no evidence of violations of federal, state, or local laws—which resulted in
6288-637: The Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring of 1931 and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. With support from his wife, he raised attendance from six hundred to several thousand. In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; one of the stops on the trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist World Alliance [BWA]). He also visited sites in Germany that are associated with
6419-550: The FBI ensured that groups would not unite in their causes. For instance, they launched a campaign specifically to alienate the Black Panther Party from the Mau Maus, Young Lords, Young Patriots and SDS. These racially diverse groups had been building alliances, in part due to charismatic leaders such as Fred Hampton and his attempts to create a "Rainbow Coalition". The FBI was concerned with ensuring that groups could not gain traction through unity, specifically across racial lines. One of
6550-401: The FBI on November 21, 1964, that contained audio recordings obtained through tapping King's phone and placing bugs throughout various hotel rooms over the past two years, and that was created two days after the announcement of King's impending Nobel Peace Prize . The tape, which was prepared by FBI audio technician John Matter, documented a series of sexual indiscretions by King combined with
6681-584: The FBI perceived as subversive . Groups and individuals targeted by the FBI included feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA , anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists in the civil rights and Black power movements (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr. , the Nation of Islam , and the Black Panther Party ), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like
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#17328511390206812-600: The FBI used five main methods during COINTELPRO: The FBI specifically developed tactics intended to heighten tension and hostility between various factions in the black power movement, for example between the Black Panthers and the US Organization . For instance, the FBI sent a fake letter to the US Organization exposing a supposed Black Panther plot to murder the head of the US Organization, Ron Karenga . They then intensified this by spreading falsely attributed cartoons in
6943-413: The FBI used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years, as part of its COINTELPRO program, in attempts to force King out of his leadership position. King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of
7074-493: The FBI's ongoing surveillance of black leaders, including it within COINTELPRO, with the justification that the movement was infiltrated by communists . In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T. R. M. Howard , a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee , Emmett Till , and other African Americans in
7205-487: The FBI's overall workload during a 15-year timeframe), COINTELPRO was subsequently subject to criticism from both Congress and the American public for infringing upon first amendment rights and other grounds. Tactics included anonymous phone calls, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits, and the creation of documents that would divide the American communist organization internally. An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified
7336-621: The FBI's targeting of Viola Liuzzo In one particularly controversial 1965 incident, white civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was murdered by Ku Klux Klansmen , who gave chase and fired shots into her car after noticing that her passenger was a young black man; one of the Klansmen was Gary Thomas Rowe , an acknowledged FBI informant. The FBI spread rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in
7467-502: The FBI, Central Intelligence Agency , National Security Agency , and the Department of Defense . The CIA launched its own domestic espionage project in 1967 called Operation CHAOS . A particular target was the Poor People's Campaign , a national effort organized by King and the SCLC to occupy Washington, DC. The FBI monitored and disrupted the campaign on a national level, while using targeted smear tactics locally to undermine support for
7598-477: The Gandhi Society produced a document that called on President Kennedy to issue an executive order to deliver a blow for civil rights as a kind of Second Emancipation Proclamation . Kennedy did not execute the order. The FBI , under written directive from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy , began tapping King's telephone line in the fall of 1963. Kennedy was concerned that public allegations of communists in
7729-575: The Negro race". For a time, he was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch 's "social gospel". In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with the white daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in the cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as well as King's father, advised against it, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring
7860-834: The New Left") to the New Mexico Free University and other "alternate" schools, and from underground newspapers to students' protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them. Examples of surveillance, spanning all presidents from FDR to Nixon, both legal and illegal, contained in the Church Committee report: Groups that were known to be targets of COINTELPRO operations include: The COINTELPRO operators targeted multiple groups at once and encouraged splintering of these groups from within. In letter-writing campaigns (wherein false letters were sent on behalf of members of parties),
7991-479: The SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in Birmingham, Alabama . The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Wyatt Tee Walker . Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and sit-ins , openly violating laws that they considered unjust. King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create
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#17328511390208122-424: The SCLC in the libel case Abernathy et al. v. Sullivan ; the case was litigated about the newspaper advertisement " Heed Their Rising Voices ". Wachtel founded a tax-exempt fund to cover the suit's expenses and assist the nonviolent civil rights movement through a more effective means of fundraising. King served as honorary president of this organization, named the "Gandhi Society for Human Rights". In 1962, King and
8253-404: The SCLC would derail the administration's civil rights initiatives. He warned King to discontinue these associations and later felt compelled to issue the written directive that authorized the FBI to wiretap King and other SCLC leaders. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover feared the civil rights movement and investigated the allegations of communist infiltration. When no evidence emerged to support this,
8384-431: The SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm's way. But the campaign was a success: Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow" signs came down, and public places became more open to blacks. King's reputation improved immensely. King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest out of 29. From his cell, he composed
8515-645: The SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included every Black Student Union and many other black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to the InterUniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from Antioch College ("vanguard of
8646-497: The Senate's Church Committee (see below) stated that "COINTELPRO began in 1956, in part because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups." Official congressional committees and several court cases have concluded that COINTELPRO operations against communist and socialist groups exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association . The program
8777-493: The South. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an African-American civil rights organization, was founded in 1957, the FBI began to monitor and target the group almost immediately, focusing particularly on Bayard Rustin , Stanley Levison , and eventually Martin Luther King Jr. After the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom , Hoover singled out King as a major target for COINTELPRO. Under pressure from Hoover to focus on King, Sullivan wrote: In
8908-449: The United States Senate, commonly referred to as the " Church Committee " after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (D- Idaho ), launched a major investigation of the FBI and COINTELPRO. Many released documents have been partly or entirely redacted . The Final Report of the Select Committee castigated the conduct of the intelligence community in its domestic operations (including COINTELPRO) in no uncertain terms: The Committee finds that
9039-587: The activities of these movements and especially their leaders. Under Hoover, the official in charge of COINTELPRO was assistant director William C. Sullivan . Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of the programs, giving written approval for limited wiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so". Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. The FBI initiated COINTELPRO, an abbreviation for Counterintelligence Program, in 1956 with
9170-487: The actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the titles of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Communist Party members but also sponsors of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or deemed to be not sufficiently "anti-Communist". The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of anti-war demonstrations which were cosponsored by
9301-567: The age of 25 in 1954, King was called as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama . King received his PhD on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation (initially supervised by Edgar S. Brightman and, upon the latter's death, by Lotan Harold DeWolf ) titled A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman . An academic inquiry in October 1991 concluded that portions of his doctoral dissertation had been plagiarized and he had acted improperly. However, "[d]espite its finding,
9432-588: The aim of undermining the operations of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, the scope of the organization was broadened to encompass various additional domestic factions, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. The cessation of all COINTELPRO operations occurred in 1971. Despite its relatively small scale (constituting approximately 0.2% of
9563-473: The audience was hostile and frustrated. King then gave an impassioned speech calling participants to resist the "cancerous disease of disunity", helping to calm tensions. The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia , in November 1961. In December, King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation in
9694-466: The black communities pitting the Black Panther Party against the US Organization. This resulted in numerous deaths, among which were San Diego Black Panther Party members John Huggins, Bunchy Carter and Sylvester Bell. Another example of the FBI's anonymous letter writing campaign is how they turned the Blackstone Rangers head, Jeff Fort, against former ally Fred Hampton, by stating that Hampton had
9825-555: The burglary. Muhammad Ali was a COINTELPRO target because he had joined the Nation of Islam and the anti-war movement. Many news organizations initially refused to immediately publish the information, with the notable exception of The Washington Post . After affirming the reliability of the documents, it published them on the front page (in defiance of the Attorney General's request), prompting other organizations to follow suit. Within
9956-413: The bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement. In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy , Fred Shuttlesworth , Joseph Lowery , and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct nonviolent protests in
10087-584: The church's pastor, King became known for his oratorical preaching in Montgomery and the surrounding region. In March 1955, Claudette Colvin —a fifteen-year-old black schoolgirl in Montgomery—refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in violation of Jim Crow laws , local laws in the Southern United States that enforced racial segregation . Nine months later on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks
10218-472: The city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel." The following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. According to King, "that agreement was dishonored and violated by the city" after he left. King returned in July 1962 and
10349-511: The civil rights movement. In the mid-1960s, King began to publicly criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States. In his 1991 memoir, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide. Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous " suicide package " sent by
10480-514: The college's president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays , with being his "spiritual mentor". King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest." King graduated from Morehouse with
10611-566: The committee said that 'no thought should be given to the revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree,' an action that the panel said would serve no purpose." The committee found that the dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship." A letter is now attached to the copy of King's dissertation in the university library, noting that numerous passages were included without the appropriate quotations and citations of sources. Significant debate exists on how to interpret King's plagiarism. While studying at Boston University, he asked
10742-590: The court, an FBI agent testified that he believed Pratt had been framed, because both the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department knew he had not been in the area at the time the murder occurred. Some sources claim that the FBI conducted more than 200 " black bag jobs ", which were warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members. In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of
10873-501: The daily indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights supporters, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the civil rights movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s. King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote , desegregation , labor rights , and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted into law with
11004-531: The domestic activities of the intelligence community at times violated specific statutory prohibitions and infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens. The legal questions involved in intelligence programs were often not considered. On other occasions, they were intentionally disregarded in the belief that because the programs served the "national security" the law did not apply. While intelligence officers on occasion failed to disclose to their superiors programs which were illegal or of questionable legality,
11135-806: The emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction from religion. He later said of this point in his life, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly." In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into an orotund baritone . He joined the school's debate team. King continued to be most drawn to history and English , and chose English and sociology as his main subjects. King maintained an abundant vocabulary . However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with spelling, while King assisted her with math. King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing polished patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him
11266-587: The family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta. As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure. In 1942, when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal . In the same year, King skipped the ninth grade and enrolled in Booker T. Washington High School , where he maintained
11397-403: The final months of his life. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Malcolm X by Manning Marable asserts that most of the men who plotted Malcolm's assassination were never apprehended and that the full extent of the FBI's involvement in his death cannot be known. Amidst the urban unrest of July–August 1967, the FBI began "COINTELPRO–BLACK HATE", which focused on King and the SCLC, as well as
11528-477: The formal programs were instituted, and more significantly, COINTELPRO-type activities may continue today under the rubric of 'investigation." Many of the tactics used in COINTELPRO are alleged to have seen continued use, including discrediting targets through psychological warfare ; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; illegal violence; and assassination . According to
11659-593: The lawn of her parents' house, in Heiberger, Alabama . They had four children: Yolanda King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (b. 1957), Dexter Scott King (1961–2024), and Bernice King (b. 1963). King limited Coretta's role in the civil rights movement, expecting her to be a housewife and mother. The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was influential in the Montgomery African-American community. As
11790-700: The leaders of the 1963 March on Washington , where he delivered his " I Have a Dream " speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial , and helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 . There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently. King
11921-401: The light of King's powerful demagogic speech ... We must mark him now if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security. Soon after, the FBI was systematically bugging King's home and his hotel rooms, as they were now aware that King was growing in stature daily as the most prominent leader of
12052-585: The main ways of targeting these groups was to arouse suspicion between the different parties and causes. In this way the bureau took on a divide-and-conquer offensive. The COINTELPRO documents show numerous cases of the FBI's intentions to prevent and disrupt protests against the Vietnam War . Many techniques were used to accomplish this task. "These included promoting splits among antiwar forces, encouraging red-baiting of socialists, and pushing violent confrontations as an alternative to massive, peaceful demonstrations." One 1966 COINTELPRO operation tried to redirect
12183-469: The march. The Black Panther Party was another targeted organization, wherein the FBI collaborated to destroy the party from the inside out. Overall, COINTELPRO encompassed disruption and sabotage of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), the Nation of Islam , the Black Panther Party (1967), and the entire New Left social/political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). A later investigation by
12314-432: The negotiations failed and sit-ins and boycotts resumed for several months. On March 7, 1961, a group of Black elders including King notified student leaders that a deal had been reached: the city's lunch counters would desegregate in fall 1961, in conjunction with the court-mandated desegregation of schools. Many students were disappointed at the compromise. In a large meeting on March 10 at Warren Memorial Methodist Church,
12445-498: The next few days, except for King. Invoking his probationary plea deal, judge J. Oscar Mitchell sentenced King on October 25 to four months of hard labor. Before dawn the next day, King was transported to Georgia State Prison . The arrest and harsh sentence drew nationwide attention. Many feared for King's safety, as he started a prison sentence with people convicted of violent crimes, many of them White and hostile to his activism. Both Presidential candidates were asked to weigh in, at
12576-495: The nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends. He liked flirting with girls and dancing. His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town." On April 13, 1944, in his junior year , King gave his first public speech during an oratorical contest . In his speech he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro
12707-410: The now-famous " Letter from Birmingham Jail " that responds to calls to pursue legal channels for social change . The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern political prisoner ". King argues that the crisis of racism is too urgent, and the current system too entrenched: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by
12838-400: The official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. However, the official chronology of the program is the subject of the debate. According to a senate investigation, "If COINTELPRO had been a short-lived aberration, the thorny problems of motivation, techniques, and control presented might be safely relegated to history. However, COINTELPRO existed for years on an 'ad hoc basis before
12969-583: The oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." He points out that the Boston Tea Party , a celebrated act of rebellion in the American colonies, was illegal civil disobedience, and that, conversely, "everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal'." Walter Reuther , president of the United Auto Workers , arranged for $ 160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors. "I have almost reached
13100-519: The parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked with him about the history of slavery and racism in America , which King would later say made him "determined to hate every white person". His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone. Martin King Jr. witnessed his father stand up against segregation and discrimination . Once, when stopped by
13231-468: The personal request of Sargent Shriver , called King's wife to offer his help. The pressure from Kennedy and others proved effective, and King was released two days later. King's father decided to openly endorse Kennedy's candidacy for the November 8 election which he narrowly won. After the October 19 sit-ins and following unrest, a 30-day truce was declared in Atlanta for desegregation negotiations. However,
13362-429: The police killing many members of the Black Panther Party, most notably Chicago Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969. Whether or not the FBI sanctioned his killing remains unproven. Before the death of Hampton, long-term infiltrator, William O'Neal, shared floor plans of his apartment with the COINTELPRO team. He then gave Hampton a dose of secobarbital that rendered Hampton unconscious during
13493-498: The program's goal was to "prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups"; to "Prevent the RISE OF A ' MESSIAH ' who could unify ... the militant black nationalist movement"; "to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence [against authorities]"; to "Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them to ... both
13624-522: The program's main target was the Communist Party. In an interview with the BBC 's Andrew Marr in February 1996, Noam Chomsky —a political activist and MIT professor of linguistics —spoke about the purpose and the targets of COINTELPRO, saying: COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police, the FBI, under four administrations ... by
13755-495: The raid on his home. In order to eliminate black militant leaders whom they considered dangerous, the FBI is believed to have worked with local police departments to target specific individuals, accuse them of crimes they did not commit, suppress exculpatory evidence and falsely incarcerate them. Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt , a Black Panther Party leader, was incarcerated for 27 years before a California Superior Court vacated his murder conviction, ultimately freeing him. Appearing before
13886-615: The regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set
14017-524: The request of the SCLC. In Atlanta, King served until his death as co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church . Georgia governor Ernest Vandiver expressed open hostility towards King's return. He claimed that "wherever M. L. King Jr., has been there has followed in his wake a wave of crimes", and vowed to keep King under surveillance. On May 4, 1960, King drove writer Lillian Smith to Emory University when police stopped them. King
14148-420: The responsible community and to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy"; and to "prevent the long-range GROWTH of militant black organizations, especially among youth". Dr. King was said to have potential to be the "messiah" figure, should he abandon nonviolence and integrationism, and Kwame Ture was noted to have "the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way" as he was portrayed as someone who espoused
14279-593: The same period the program also targeted Malcolm X . While an FBI spokesman has denied that the FBI was "directly" involved in Malcolm's murder in 1965, it is documented that the Bureau worked to "widen the rift" between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad through infiltration and the "sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization", rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes, which ultimately led to Malcolm's assassination. The FBI heavily infiltrated Malcolm's Organization of Afro-American Unity in
14410-433: The seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rest of the way to Atlanta. Later King wrote of the incident: "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life." During King's junior year in high school, Morehouse College —an all-male historically black college that King's father and maternal grandfather had attended —began accepting high school juniors who passed
14541-486: The service of civil rights reform. The group was inspired by the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham , who befriended King, as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by King allies Stanley Levison and Ella Baker . King led the SCLC until his death. The SCLC's 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom was the first time King addressed a national audience. Harry Wachtel joined King's legal advisor Clarence B. Jones in defending four ministers of
14672-540: The situation became so tense that King's house was bombed. King was arrested for traveling 30 mph in a 25 mph zone and jailed, which overnight drew the attention of national media, and greatly increased King's public stature. The controversy ended when the United States District Court issued a ruling in Browder v. Gayle that prohibited racial segregation on Montgomery public buses. King's role in
14803-460: The slain leader." However, more portions of the FBI letter to King were made public in 2014 which suggested that the FBI's intent was to push King out of leadership and have "older leaders" like Roy Wilkins lead the civil right movement. The claim that the FBI's intent was to remove King from SCLC leadership was also previously backed in 1976 by the findings of the Church Committee . During
14934-506: The sociologist Hamza Alvi . Lawyer Richard Small served as CARD's press officer. This article about an organisation in the United Kingdom is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Martin Luther King Jr. Campaigns Death and memorial Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr. ; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist , and political philosopher who
15065-429: The targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black". Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist "Hate Group". Furthermore,
15196-460: The targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a "potential" for violence—and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave "aid and comfort" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause. The imprecision of
15327-420: The tears would run down, and he'd never cry." Once, when Martin Jr. witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked A.D. unconscious with it. When Martin Jr. and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit Jennie, causing her to fall unresponsive. Martin Jr. believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide by jumping from
15458-412: The time it got through, I won't run through the whole story, it was aimed at the entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as political assassination. According to the Church Committee : While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the "national security" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of
15589-581: The timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations that
15720-507: The university's tuition, housing, and fees. On weekdays King and the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco from 7:00am to at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F , to earn roughly USD$ 4 per day. On Friday evenings, the students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, and on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut , to see theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants. On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at
15851-525: The year, Director J. Edgar Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future counterintelligence operations would be handled case by case. Additional documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by NBC correspondent Carl Stern, the Socialist Workers Party , and a number of other groups. In 1976 the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of
15982-405: Was a minister in rural Georgia , moved to Atlanta in 1893, and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the following year. Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks. Michael Sr. was born to sharecroppers James Albert and Delia King of Stockbridge, Georgia ; he was of African- Irish descent. As an adolescent, Michael Sr. left his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta, where he attained
16113-429: Was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. The two incidents led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was urged and planned by Edgar Nixon and led by King. The other ministers asked him to take a leadership role because his relative newness to community leadership made it easier for him to speak out. King was hesitant but decided to do so if no one else wanted it. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and
16244-492: Was cited for "driving without a license" because he had not yet been issued a Georgia license. King's Alabama license was still valid, and Georgia law did not mandate any time limit for issuing a local license. King paid a fine but was unaware that his lawyer agreed to a plea deal that included probation . Meanwhile, the Atlanta Student Movement had been acting to desegregate businesses and public spaces, organizing
16375-519: Was conspiring against her with communists—stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, which nearly impinged on the aorta. King received first aid by police officers Al Howard and Philip Romano. King underwent emergency surgery by Aubre de Lambert Maynard , Emil Naclerio and John W. V. Cordice ; he remained hospitalized for several weeks. Curry was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial. In December 1959, after being based in Montgomery for five years, King announced his return to Atlanta at
16506-636: Was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed in 1986. The Martin Luther King ;Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011. Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta ; he was the second of three children born to Michael King Sr. and Alberta King ( née Williams ). Alberta's father, Adam Daniel Williams,
16637-447: Was given the option of forty-five days in jail or a $ 178 fine (equivalent to $ 1,800 in 2023); he chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Police Chief Laurie Pritchett discreetly arranged for King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. "We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail." It
16768-459: Was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In 1964, the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter , which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide . On October 14, 1964 , King won
16899-494: Was later acknowledged by the King Center that Billy Graham was the one who bailed King out. After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote nonviolence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts. Though
17030-405: Was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination . A black church leader, King participated in and led marches for
17161-645: Was secret until March 8, 1971, when the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI burgled an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania , took several dossiers, and exposed the program by passing this material to news agencies. The boxing match known as the Fight of the Century between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in March 1971 provided cover for the activist group to successfully pull off
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