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Friday, December 18, 2009

FOIA Request Shows FBI Scrutinized John Hope Franklin

TPMmuckraker obtained the FBI file for the late John Hope Franklin, which reveal the FBI scrutinized the historian in the 1960s for supposed ties to communists, his opposition to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and his support for W.E.B. Du Bois. Franklin was 94 when he died in May. Franklin authored the classic work From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans.

The FBI file is comprised mainly of background checks when he was up for presidential appointments. The FBI withheld 18 pages of the 515-page file.

For more information and an excerpt of the historian's file, click here.

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