Black History Month 2026: The FBI Targeted Civil Rights Activists
Day 12
Every year the FBI posts a warm message about Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), but what they don’t tell you is they labeled him the most dangerous man in America and tried to get him to unalive himself [1]. There are some who also believe they were involved in MLK’s eventual assassination. While the government denies any involvement with MLK’s death, a civil suit found local, state, and federal law enforcement liable for it [2].
What isn’t a conspiracy is the FBI’s assassination of Fred Hampton, the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers. The FBI believed Fred Hampton to be a threat and worked with local police to assassinate him. The FBI drugged Hampton and the Chicago police murdered him in his sleep [3].
The FBI also targeted Black women. Both Angela Davis and Assata Shakur were arrested and spent time in jail.
Davis was wrongfully convicted, spent a year in jail, and was eventually acquitted due to international pressure [4]. Today Davis is still alive and giving speeches about civil and human rights violations both in the US and worldwide. I would recommend “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” as a primer on what she believes.
Shakur was wrongfully convicted of killing a police officer and sent to a male prison [5]. She was broken free and escaped to Cuba, where she currently resides [6]. Even now she’s still on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
All of these actions were part of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, which was a program made to target Black and other civil rights activists under the guise of fighting communism [7]. At the time, most civil rights organizations were leftists. The FBI used this to brand them as Soviet assets and targeted them accordingly [8]. Like Davis and Shakur, many other activists were arrested and wrongfully convicted on trumped up charges. Sadly, some of them are still in jail.
Even now, civil rights activists who were active during the Ferguson protests in 2014 keep dying [9]. The police claim the deaths are unrelated, but I have my doubts.
Sources:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_letter
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyd_Jowers_trial
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
[4] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-4/angela-davis-acquitted
[6] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/assata-shakur-fugitive-black-activist-who-escaped-life-sentence-for-killing-police-officer-dies-in-cuba
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
[8] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/federal-bureau-investigation-fbi
[9] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puzzling-number-men-tied-ferguson-protests-have-died-n984261
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