Seeing Red

"Seeing Red" is a gripping, painstakingly documented account of a neglected chapter in the history of American political intelligence. From 1918 into the early twenties, any African American 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. The 'crime' that justified such surveillance was almost always the ideas they 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 prosecutions, all because these agents disapproved of their beliefs. A young J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that black militancy - included 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 1970s. In the months after the end of World War I, whites all across the country confronted a flood of black militancy spilling out of northern black ghettos. African American socialists and communists dared to claim the right to armed self-defence against lynching and mob violence full political, economic, even social equality and solidarity with radical labour unions. The proud racial chauvinism of Marcus Garvey's Pan African movement seemed 'anti-white' to many individuals who took their own supremacy for granted. Black newspapers and magazines, outspoken in advocating civil rights, appeared to be dangerously infected with a bold 'New Negro' spirit. Many whites in and out of government, unwilling to acknowledge that such views represented genuine black aspirations and anger, could only conclude that the new black ferment was the work of sinister, un-American forces. Fearing that 'Bolshevism' was spreading to America, the federal government's political intelligence network helped create a nation-wide anti-radical panic, the first Red Scare. In addition to targeting 'alien anarchists' and other real and alleged subversives, it launched a broad attack on black militancy. This latter story, reconstructed through an examination of 25,000 pages of government documents, many never before seen by scholars, is told here for the first time in its entirety. The Bureau of Investigation, as the FBI was then known, in partnership with army and navy intelligence and the State and Post Office departments, used surveillance, break-ins, infiltration, agents provocateurs, and prosecution to try to destroy black movements, publications, and leaders. Black agents and undercover informants played key roles in these efforts. The Bureau's anti-radical campaign was led by young J. Edgar Hoover, who became 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 guide the FBI into the 1970s.