Strom Thurmond Urged FBI to Go After MLK

[CrimsonTide4]

Intriguing


article excerpt:

On Monday, the FBI released a portion of Thurmond's FBI file - nearly 600 pages of sometimes heavily edited memos, letters and other documents. The file details a long, secret and mutually beneficial relationship between Thurmond and the FBI. Another 1,700 pages remain to be released. The documents were released in response to requests by The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.


Thurmond wasn't the only conservative politician who tried to paint the civil rights movement's leaders as "red." But the FBI memo plumbs the depths of Thurmond's aversion to desegregation. And with other pages in the now-public file, it shows how much of Thurmond's politics was dedicated to fighting the "Red Menace."


Thurmond, an iconic figure in Southern political history and an ardent segregationist who later publicly embraced his black constituents, was willing to go to great lengths to vilify King in the 1960s.