Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2014

 

The FBI's Monitoring of Civil Rights Organizations—Centering on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

(Abstract)

 

Xie Guorong

 

In the 1960s, in the name of "preventing Communist infiltration," the FBI carried out long-term surveillance of influential civil rights organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In the mid-60s, this organization had moved from fighting for civil rights to opposing the Vietnam War and calling for "black rights." It had also moved from nonviolent resistance to supporting the use of arms in self-defense. To the authorities, anti-war activities threatened America’s anti-Communist Cold War strategy, while "black rights" implied black nationalism, seen as a challenge to the state system and social stability. Under the banner of patriotism and national security, the FBI charged the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee with engaging in "un-American" and "anti-American" activities, and subjected it to relentless surveillance, defamation and attacks, in order to isolate it in American society and thence destroy the civil rights movement, especially its radical "black rights" movement.