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Interestingly, in the FBI documents I received there is very little on Harlem CORE in general and what was released in the 1964 collection of chapter reports was heavily redacted. Is the absence something in and of itself?
After the Fact
There were a number of cases of CORE members that became involved in conflicts with the FBI either after having left CORE or as members of other groups. It is still not clear whether Arthur Harris of the South Jamaica chapter and Mandola McPherson and Clarence Milton Ellis of the Queens chapter were still members of CORE in June 1967 when they were arrested with thirteen other members of the Jamaica Rifle and Pistol Club.
Along with Herman Ferguson who had been made the education chairman of South Jamaica CORE, they had been "charged with conspiracy to commit arson and anarchy as part of an alleged 'black revolutionary plot'". (11) The charges were eventually dismissed but both Harris and Ferguson were singled out for plotting to assassinate Roy Wilkins, head of the NAACP and Whitney Young, head of the Urban League.
While both Harris and Ferguson were most often noted in the press as members of the Revolutionary Action Movement, one should wonder if they first came to the attention of the local police and federal intelligence agencies as members of CORE since it was the beginning of their lives as activists.
The arrest of Harris, McPherson and Ellis seems to have much to do with their association with Ferguson who was according to the Amsterdam News initially put under surveillance because of his membership in the Organization of Afro-American Unity, the secular group founded by Malcolm X after he left the Nation of Islam. (12) As with Bronx CORE, one of Ferguson's groups, the Black Brotherhood Improvement Association, had been infiltrated by a Black undercover agent, police detective Edward Lee Howlette.
The same question could be asked of certain CORE members who went on to become part of the Weathermen. Brooklyn SCORE chairman Eleanor Stein, for example, stated when interviewed that according to her FBI file she was being monitored as early as high school.
Then there is the case of FBI and Reverend Al Sharpton.
In 1988 New York Newsday reported in a series of articles that Rev. Sharpton was secretly working for the FBI and informed on former CORE members city councilman Wendell Foster, Sonny Carson and Congressman Major Owens.
While Sharpton is quoted as admitting he informed on Owens, he consistently denied he informed on Carson.
Conclusion
While this piece does not ultimately answer the questions of how CORE was effected by the efforts of law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and how much they were responsible for its downfall, it will hopefully begin the much needed conversation.
Individual members were clearly effected but how much so is not known. The member that most questions have been asked about is Roy Innis and Innis has not exactly helped himself in this regard. More than any other member, his actions have effected the entire organization and clearly given it a black eye that it will probably never recover from. If it turns out he was not "flaking for the CIA" as reporter Les Payne out it, the consequences of his actions had just as negative an outcome.
For example, according to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, among the goals of the COINTELPRO program were to "prevent militant Black nationalist groups and their leaders from gaining respectability" and to "prevent the long range growth of militant Black nationalist organizations, especially among youth". (13) The program was part of a larger effort to discredit and neutralize the many organizations and leaders of the Black liberation movement which is something over time Innis, whether consciously or unconsciously, had a role in.
The release of whatever files exist may finally bring this issue to a final resolution.
Footnotes (limited)
1. memo, S.A.C., NYO to director, FBI, 2/20/1953, National Congress of Racial Equality, internal security, Bureau File 100-225892
2. O'Reilly, Kenneth, and David Gallen. Black Americans : the Fbi Files. 1st Carroll & Graf ed. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994.
3. O'Reilly, Kenneth, and David Gallen. Black Americans : the Fbi Files. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994., pages 44 - 48
4. Farmer, James. Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Arbor House, 1985. Pages 270-1
5. Marx, Gary T. Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: the Agent Provocateur and the Informant.
6. Marx, Gary T. Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: the Agent Provocateur and the Informant.
7. Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wail. The COINTELPRO Papers. Boston: South End Press, 1991. Page 93
8. Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wail. The COINTELPRO Papers. Boston: South End Press, 1991. Pages 136-7
9. Leader of CORE Loses Libel Suit; Newsday. Nov 26, 1985.
10. Leid, Utrice C. CORE Exec Makes secret Trip To South Africa. City Sun. Dec. 10-16, 1986
11. FERGUSON, GUILTY, IS FREED ON BAIL. New York Times, June 16, 1968
12. FBI ordered to make facts on Herman Ferguson public.
New York Amsterdam News ; May 11, 1991
13. airtel, SAC, Chicago to Director, FBI, April 22, 1968, Counterintelligence Program, Black Nationalist Hate Groups, Racial Intelligence
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