New Film: FBI and KKK

ABOUT FBI - KKK



FBI KKK is a personal, one hour documentary about my father, Dargan Frierson, an FBI agent in Greensboro, NC, and his work with George Franklin Dorsett, the Imperial Kludd, or chaplain, of the United Klans of America. From 1964 to 1971, J. Edgar Hoover directed an FBI counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO: White Hate Groups whose goal was to neutralize the Ku Klux Klan.

The program targeted the national leadership of the Klan, and my father soon had Dorsett as his paid informant. As my father has said, “It was easy for me to recruit Klan informants. My grandfather was in the Klan, and I disliked Lyndon Johnson almost as much as they did.”

Dorsett was a housepainter who lived on Trogdon Street in the Glenwood neighborhood of Greensboro. A fiery Baptist preacher, Dorsett was one of the biggest draws at rallies organized by his friends, Catfish Cole, and J. R. Jones, the North Carolina Grand Dragon.

A national leader and one of the most visible faces of the Klan throughout the 1960s, Dorsett would denounce race mixing on the local radio, picket frequently at integrated schools, take the fifth before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington in 1965, counter demonstrate at civil rights marches, and fight a lawsuit by the City of Greensboro to take his house. He would also provide invaluable information to the FBI and build the largest Klan splinter group in the state.

When COINTELPRO and Dorsett were ultimately exposed by the Church Committee in 1975, my dad was retired from the FBI, but he was on the Greensboro City Council. The Greensboro News and Record reported that Senator Robert Morgan (D, NC) had confirmed that Dorsett was an FBI informant. Morgan was upset about Dorsett because, while he was on the FBI payroll, he had made inflammatory statements at a Raleigh Klan rally, including: "We' don't intend to have any violence if we have to kill every nigger in America."

After the Senate investigation, FBI agents were given clear directives in 1976 by Attorney General Edward Levi to investigate only specific criminal acts, rather than individuals' political views. These reforms would stand until the events of 9/11 brought an almost total lifting of restrictions on FBI intelligence gathering activities.

Yours truly appears in this film to discuss my findings regarding COINTELPRO-White Hate in North Carolina.

http://www.fbi-kkk.com/index.html

My book chapter

I just discovered that

Police detectives in history, 1750-1950
Chapter Ten ' A Negative and Unwise Approach': Private Detectives, Vigilantes and the FBI Counterintelligence, 1910-72

is available on google books.

My Publications


• Article, “`Fighting Black Power-New left coalitions: Covert FBI media campaigns and American cultural discourse, 1967-1971” European Journal of American Culture, 27:2, (2008): 65-91.

• Article, "The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE and the Decline Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama, 1964-1971," Alabama Review, 61, February 2008.

• Article, “From White Supremacy to White Power: The FBI’s COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE Operation and the “Nazification” of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s,” American Studies, 48:3 (Fall 2007): 49-74.

• Article, “The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE and the Decline of Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Mississippi, 1964-1971,” Journal of Mississippi History, 66:4 (Winter, 2004): 353-401.

• Article, John Drabble, "From Pinkerton to G-Man: The Transition from Private to State Political Repression, 1873-1956,” Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 20:3 (Fall 2004), 57-82.

• Article, "To Ensure Domestic Tranquility:” The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE, and Political Discourse, 1964-1971," Journal of American Studies, 38:2 (August, 2004): 297-328.


• Book Chapter, “‘A Negative and Unwise Approach’: Private Detectives,
Vigilantes and the FBI Counterintelligence, 1917-1971,” in Clive Emsley and Haia Shpayer-Makov ed., Police Detectives in History, 1750-1950, (Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2005], Chapter 10.


• Conference Proceeding, “‘Fidelity, Integrity, Bravery’: An Analysis of the FBI’s Campaign to Discredit the ‘Cowardly Jackals’ of the Ku Klux Klan, 1964-1971” in Matthew Sweney and Michal Peprnik eds. "America: Home of the Brave," The 11th American Studies Colloquium. (Olomouc: Palacky University Press, 2005), 103-136.


• Encyclopedia Entries, “COINTELPRO,” “Hoover, J. Edgar,” “Ku Klux Klan,” in Leslie Alexander & Walter Rucker, editors, The Encyclopedia of African American History, History (forthcoming, ABC-CLIO, 2009).

• Encyclopedia Entries, “Brown Scare,” “Ku Klux Klan,” “Nazis and Neo-Nazis,” in Peter Knight ed., Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003).


My Working Papers:

• Article, FBI Covert Operations, Inter-police Relations, and the Suppression of Ku Klux Klan Terrorism, 1964-1971, to be submitted to Terrorism and Political Violence by May 2009.

• Book, Even Paranoids Have Enemies: The FBI Covert Action Program Against White Hate Groups, 1964-1971.

My articles and working papers

Yahoo eliminated the free geocities webpage where I had posted my papers. Next time I leave Turkey and escape the censors, I will recreate that site on googlesites. Until then, please check the links from my cv at http://khas.academia.edu/JohnDrabble, or e-mail me at Drabbs@yahoo.com, for copies of my published articles and unpublished working papers.

John