Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972

This book is very informative on just how treacherous white supremacy

Every black person should read about your country

I'm still reading but this is hidden history and it's not taught in schools. It's so much information and it's just like why would you go through so much trouble to tear down a group of people that just want justice and peace. If oppression is all the U.S. government is for their citizens then America will always be at war, if not with its own people then with other countries. Well do they do say peace, real justice and love aren't money making agendas.

Racial Matters was background for my research into the FBI's poor performance in investigations of early civil rights crimes. The introduction & Chapter 1, The Negro Question Origins of a Private War, were the parts of Racial Matters most relevant to my research, and they were great. Kenneth O'Reilly's research, documentation & prose are excellent. The author demonstrates that the FBI never enthusiastically investigated civil rights crimes, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the civil rights arena by men like John Doar, Nicolas Katzenbach and Bobby Kennedy. A big reason for the FBI's foot-dragging, the author reveals, was Director Hoover's personal racial, political agenda. In the 1940s, J. Edgar Hoover complained to his boss U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark about the time FBI agents wasted on civil rights murders, lynchings, and assaults, particularly in the South. The performance of FBI agents in the field reflected the Director's attitude. Racial Matters is the best history of the FBI and civil rights that I have read. Highly Recommend.

you have to read this.

Kenneth O'Reilly was terrific as usual

Just broke my heart and my soul to know how much hatred exists because of hue.

This book looks at part of American history that is difficult to delve into -- the FBI's counter-intelligence efforts against the civil rights movement. The FBI didn't just investigate the movement, but launched a secret program to destabilize it. This effort included sending anonymous poison-pen letters to create violence among black-nationalist groups and to break up the marriages of movement leaders. J. Edgar Hoover could not believe black Americans capable of producing a grassroots movement to gain legal rights; they could only be the puppets of a Communist conspiracy directed from abroad. In spite of all this, the book is an even-handed account. The FBI also directed secret campaigns against white-supremacy organizations. No one is spared in this history, including the Kennedy and Johnson administrations; the "good guys" were few and far between, but some of them were working honorably at the FBI. Hoover was also a product of his time, and his FBI operated within the context of American culture and history. Kenneth O'Reilly published the book in 1989 and may not have had the advantage of new material that has come to light; but more recent histories of the FBI that I've read have neither invalidated nor greatly augmented his conclusions.

Looking forward to reading this and updating my knowledge on the impact of the FBI I lives of Black peoples

Absolutely pleased with this book, very detailed and well written.