FBI monitored Aretha Franklin for years, file shows
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Wednesday, November 13, 2024


FBI monitored Aretha Franklin for years, file shows
Aretha Franklin performs at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 26, 1968. Franklin’s recently released FBI file reflects an era when the agency spied not only on civil rights leaders and political organizers, but also on popular Black entertainers involved in civil rights activism. Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times.

by Michael Levenson



NEW YORK, NY.- Four days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the Atlanta field office of the FBI directed a memo to a trusted adviser of J. Edgar Hoover, describing plans for a “huge memorial concert” at the Atlanta Braves’ stadium with Aretha Franklin, Sammy Davis Jr., Marlon Brando, Mahalia Jackson and the Supremes.

The memo, dated April 8, 1968, informed FBI leadership that some in the group supported “militant Black power” and most were in the “forefront of various civil rights movements.”

Citing an unnamed source, it said the concert by “these prominent performers” could create an “emotional spark which could ignite racial disturbance” in Atlanta.

The concert never took place, but the memo to Cartha D. DeLoach, a close aide to Hoover, is part of Franklin’s 270-page FBI file, which was released last month, four years after her death in 2018, at age 76.

The file, as previously reported by Rolling Stone, reveals that the FBI monitored the giant of soul and gospel music for years, collecting intelligence from sources on her involvement in the civil rights movement and what it suspected were her links to Black Panthers, Communists and those it deemed “Black extremists.”

Franklin’s name appears in documents concerning “possible racial violence,” the “Communist infiltration” of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and an “extremist matter” involving the Black Panther Party, which wanted to enlist her, Roberta Flack or Ike and Tina Turner for one of its events giving away free food in Los Angeles.

The file reflects an era when the FBI spied not only on civil rights leaders, political organizers and suspected Communists, but also on popular Black entertainers involved in civil rights activism such as singer Harry Belafonte and satirist Dick Gregory, who were also under FBI scrutiny.

“Picking up in 1967 and 1968 through the early 1970s, the FBI was keeping files on almost every major Black figure and particularly anyone who seemed to be, or was suspected of being, involved in civil rights or Black politics,” said Beverly Gage, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University and the author of a forthcoming biography, “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.”

Hoover, who molded the FBI as director from 1924 to 1972, was also suspicious of the sweeping cultural changes of the 1960s, Gage said, and he viewed “new forms of culture and dress and music as being symptomatic of a national cultural decline.” As a result, Franklin fell “into these very broad categories of suspicion that the FBI was gathering intelligence about on a very widespread scale,” Gage said.

Franklin was not only an enormously popular performer steeped in civil rights activism, but she also gave voice to the struggle for civil rights and women’s equality, with songs like “Respect,” “Think,” “People Get Ready,” and “Young, Gifted and Black.” And Franklin and her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, were both close to King, who was a target of FBI surveillance.

Daphne A. Brooks, a professor in Yale University’s African American studies department who wrote the liner notes for “Take a Look: Aretha Franklin Complete on Columbia,” said the file “allows us to once again think about the role that Black art plays in revolutionary ideas in this country and what a threat that poses to the edifices of power.”

The documents convey the FBI’s deep distrust of Franklin’s support for prominent civil rights groups of the 1960s and early 1970s, as they opposed the war in Vietnam and racial segregation in the United States.




A 1968 memo on “Communist infiltration” of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference quoted an unnamed “confidential source” who said the leaders of the conference “hate America” and were “pro-Communist.” The file mentions that Franklin performed at the conference’s “freedom banquet” that year in Memphis, Tennessee, where Coretta Scott King invoked the year 1776 in speaking about the country’s long history of racial injustice.

In 1972, the FBI heard from a “confidential source abroad” who linked Franklin to Roosevelt Douglas, then a young leader of Dominica’s drive for independence from Britain who would one day serve as prime minister of the Caribbean nation. The file labeled him a “Black extremist of international note.”

The file noted that a Communist newspaper carried a story about Franklin in 1972, after she and Sammy Davis Jr. headlined a concert in Los Angeles that raised $38,000 for the legal defense fund of scholar and Communist activist Angela Davis, who was on trial on charges of kidnapping and murder.

Franklin had also offered to post bond for Angela Davis “not because I believe in communism but because she’s a Black woman and she wants freedom for Black people,” she told Jet magazine in 1970. (Davis was acquitted in 1972.)

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment on the file. Franklin’s son, KeCalf Franklin, told Rolling Stone: “I’m not really sure if my mother was aware that she was being targeted by the FBI and followed. I do know that she had absolutely nothing to hide, though.”

Even as the FBI monitored Franklin’s civil rights activities, the file shows the agency also investigated after she received death threats, harassing phone calls and an extortion letter.

Some of the threats clearly shook Franklin.

In 1974, when an agent went to her New York City home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to speak to her about a letter containing an apparent death threat, Franklin refused to read it, “stating the whole affair scared her and she did not want to know about it or what was contained in the letter,” the file states.

The documents do not indicate that the threats led to any arrests or charges. And the scrutiny of Franklin’s political activities never linked her to criminal activity of any sort.

For instance, after the FBI found a mailing address associated with Franklin in a 1973 review of documents obtained from the Black Liberation Army, an anti-capitalist group that embraced “armed struggle,” it stated: “The significance or association of Franklin to the BLA is not known to this bureau.”

“If you’re not used to FBI files, this stuff is shocking,” said Kenneth O’Reilly, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage and the author of “Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972,” which argues that the bureau viewed African Americans as second-class citizens with second-class loyalty to the country.

“But if you’re used to reading FBI files, it’s just normal,” he said. “It’s what they did back then: If you were famous they had a file on you, especially if you were African American.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

October 14, 2022

'3,000 years of history are literally just beneath our feet'

Angela Lansbury, star of film and stage and TV's favorite sleuth, dies at 96

Prince photo or just formerly known as one? Supreme Court weighs Warhol's art.

Lawsuit says Judd sculpture was disfigured by fingerprints

'Dino Mummy' reveals there may be more skin in the fossil game

At Frieze, shining a spotlight on women artists

Anita Kerr, an architect of the Nashville Sound, dies at 94

Bellmans off to a great start on first day of October auctions

Pasto works and Gehry chairs lead the California Living sale presented by John Moran Auctioneers

The Brooklyn Museum appoints Rachel Shechtman as its first Entrepreneur in Residence

Ignored in life, Bernice Bing is discovered as museums rewrite history

A London monument to equality, inspired by an act of defiance

'The Global Life of Design' opens at NGV International

'A Strange Loop,' which won best musical, will end Broadway run

Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to Boston, November 11-13

Trio of Warhol's Marilyns star in Bonhams New York Modern & Contemporary Prints & Multiples sale

Foujita's muse of muses inspires bidders at Bonhams Impressionist Sale in London

Morphy Auctions acquires Route 32 Auctions and Indy Ad Show

This fall, London is awash in sculpture

AstaGuru's upcoming auction pays a tribute to revolutionary Art Deco movement

FBI monitored Aretha Franklin for years, file shows

MacArthur Foundation announces 25 new 'genius' grant winners

'Brexit Festival' is under investigation over cost

The Most Common Fitbit Problems and How to fix Them

Best Colors for Business Brand Identity

How to Know If You Have a Slip and Fall Accident Lawsuit?

Expand Your Taxi Business Using These Six Effective Methods




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful