Tuesday, December 15, 2009
File under Unbelievable: John Hope Franklin's FBI file
Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover suspected John Hope Franklin had links to communists and scrutinized the esteemed educator for opposing the House Committee on Un-American Activities, according to Talking Points Memo, which filed a Freedom of Information Act for Franklin's FBI file.
It's unbelievable stuff; you can read the file at TPM's Web site. But here's a sampling:
In the 515-page file, a note dated Oct. 14 1963, says
"All persons interviewed reported favorable information concerning Franklin who is regarded as an outstanding educator in the field of American History. ... He reportedly praised a book concerning the history of the negro in this country written by Herbert Aptheker, admitted CP [Communist Party] member. In The New York Times, March 20, 1961, his name appeared with 250 educators signing a statement urging the abolition of HCUA [House Committee on Un-American Activities] by the American Civil Liberties Union."
Comments (3)
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@Is it really unbelievable? -- I suppose you also think that Sen. Joseph McCarthy was really a kitten and a victim of the well-known liberal bias inherent to reality, Barry Goldwater had some good ideas on constructive applications of nuclear weapons and that Glenn Beck's mental elevator goes all the way to the observation deck. According to the file... Dr. Franklin did very dangerous, insidious, no-good things like: attend and speak at an academic conference on the poetry of W.E.B. DuBois. And he said things (in Public!) that intimated that he thought black people should have the same rights as white people. And he had the gall to claim that students and faculty at the University of Chicago had the right to boycott classes, merely because they thought the city council was dragging its feet in enacting legislation which made it illegal to deny prospective residents the right to rent or purchase housing, solely on the basis of their skin color. (Outrageous! I'm sure he also opposed anti-miscegenation laws, too.) [/sarcasm] I own two cookbooks written by a man (an ordained minister, no less) who was later alleged to have been a pedophile, if I suggest that the recipes in book are delicious, does that mean I should be investigated by law enforcement agents for suspicions of having pedophiliac sympathies? You mentioned some "Communist" (pronounced: totalitarian) big-wigs in your message -- perhaps the FBI should be investigating you for the next 16 years?
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[...] leave a comment » * John Hope Franklin’s FBI file. Via Triangulator. [...]
What is so unbelievable about it? Plenty of people in this country do have sympathies to the Communist cause. Apparently the author of this piece is unaware of the Cold War which involved massive amounts of Communist infiltration and rabble rousing around the globe. While behind the Iron Curtain tens of millions perished under the "glorious" regimes of Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, etc.
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