Jonathan Zimmerman: Movement Harassed by the FBI
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author, most recently, of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.]
So it turns out that Martin Luther King Jr.'s most trusted photographer was actually a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, passing along material about King and other civil rights leaders. Why did he do it?
That's the wrong question. Nobody will ever know why Ernest C. Withers - who was in King's motel room on the night of his murder - informed for the FBI, as a Memphis newspaper reported last week. Withers died in 2007, following a brilliant career that earned him the nickname of "Original Civil Rights Photographer." He had secrets, and he took them to the grave.
Instead, we should be asking why the FBI was paying people to spy on King. And, most of all, we should be asking why our kids don't know it.
Open up your son's or daughter's American history textbook, and try to find any reference to the FBI's decade-long effort to harass and discredit King. You'll search in vain. In our official version of history, it never happened.
Read entire article at Philadelphia Inquirer
So it turns out that Martin Luther King Jr.'s most trusted photographer was actually a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, passing along material about King and other civil rights leaders. Why did he do it?
That's the wrong question. Nobody will ever know why Ernest C. Withers - who was in King's motel room on the night of his murder - informed for the FBI, as a Memphis newspaper reported last week. Withers died in 2007, following a brilliant career that earned him the nickname of "Original Civil Rights Photographer." He had secrets, and he took them to the grave.
Instead, we should be asking why the FBI was paying people to spy on King. And, most of all, we should be asking why our kids don't know it.
Open up your son's or daughter's American history textbook, and try to find any reference to the FBI's decade-long effort to harass and discredit King. You'll search in vain. In our official version of history, it never happened.