Black Women Activists and the FBI

FAIN: FT-286071-22

Ashley Dawn Farmer
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)

Research and writing of a book that charts the rise and fall of the FBI’s twentieth-century Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) through surveillance records of Black women activists and allies.

The FBI’s targeting of Black male leaders such as Dr. King and Malcolm X is now the subject of scholarly and popular lore. Often overlooked, however, are the Black women who endured similar government repression. Gendering Surveillance: Black Women Activists and the FBI charts the rise and fall of the FBI’s twentieth-century Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) through surveillance records of Black women activists and allies. The book explains the intertwined histories of the Black Freedom Struggle and the FBI, explores the origins of COINTELPRO; its expansion at home and abroad; and agents’ targeting, jailing, and attempted murder of Black women. An investigation of Black women’s experiences with government surveillance further elucidates how marginalized groups define democracy and shape the contours of citizenship and civil rights. The project will help deepen discussions about the complicated relationships between rights, government protections, and federal surveillance.