COINTELPRO 101 (pt 1)

In the midst of police shooting community members and gunmen shooting police, and as the republican and democratic conventions wrap up, we look back at the history of secret surveillance and disruption of organizations dissenting and struggling against all odds.

COINTELPRO, the secret FBI project to infiltrate and disrupt domestic organizations thought to be “subversive,” targeted many African-American, Native-American, and other movements for self-determination by people of color in the U.S.. Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted more than 2,000 COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) operations.  Over the next two weeks, we’ll be broadcasting the documentary film “COINTELPRO 101.” Today we hear the first half of the film, produced by the Freedom Archives.

Special thanks to The Freedom Archives.

Featuring:

• Liz Derias, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
• Bob Boyle, attorney
• Jose Lopez, Puerto Rican Cultural Center executive director
• Lucy Rodriguez, Puerto Rico Independence movement leader and former political prisoner
• Ward Churchill, Native American activist and author
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Native American activist and author
• Leonard Peltier, political prisoner
• Ricardo Romero, Al Frente de Lucha co-founder
• Priscilla Falcon, University of Northern Colorado Hispanic Studies professor
• Francisco Martinez, Chicano/Mejicano activist and attorney.

  CORRECTION: Making Contact staff inadvertently misstated attorney Bob Boyle’s name as Bob Doyle in the audioversion of the COINTELPRO 101 documentary (Part 1). We apologize for the mistake.