The John Hope Franklin File:
FBI Looked At Esteemed Historian For Communist Ties
Justin Elliott | December 15, 2009
The celebrated historian John Hope Franklin was scrutinized by the FBI in the 1960s for supposed links to communists, particularly his opposition to the House Committee on Un-American Activities and his vocal support for W.E.B. Du Bois.
"Dr. Franklin is an apologist for the late Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent crusader for civil rights and a sponsor of communist fronts who joined the Communist Party at the age of 93," wrote an unidentified FBI official in a letter to the White House in July 1965.
Franklin's file, obtained by TPMmuckraker through the Freedom of Information Act, is mainly a collection of background checks conducted when he was up for presidential appointments (though the FBI withheld 18 pages of the 515-page file). The author of the classic From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, Franklin died in May at 94.
He was appointed by President Kennedy to the Board of Foreign Scholarships in 1962 and his background checks show universally glowing praise from friends, neighbors, and colleagues.
But that wasn't enough for J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Almost dripping off the pages are overheated Cold War suspicions about Franklin's links, even two or three degrees removed, to communists.
Read the Full Article @ TPMMuckraker
Read Excerpts of John Hope Franklin's File
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