Federal Bureau of Intimidation, by Howard Zinn

Martin Luther King Jr Memorial

Image by Henk Sijgers via Flickr

by Howard Zinn
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Previously published August 2, 2010
April 2, 2022

I thought it would be good to talk about the FBI because they talk about us. They don’t like to be talked about. They don’t even like the fact that you’re listening to them being talked about. They are very sensitive people. If you look into the history of the FBI and Martin Luther King—which now has become notorious in that totally notorious history of the FBI—the FBI attempted to neutralize, perhaps kill him, perhaps get him to commit suicide, certainly to destroy him as a leader of black people in the United States. And if you follow the progression of that treatment of King, it starts, not even with the Montgomery Bus Boycott; it starts when King begins to criticize the FBI. You see, then suddenly Hoover’s ears, all four of them, perk up. And he says, okay, we have to start working on King.

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