This month marks the 45th anniversary of a dramatic moment in U.S.
history. On March 8, 1971—while Muhammad Ali was fighting Joe Frazier at
Madison Square Garden, and as millions sat glued to their TVs watching
the bout unfold—a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole every document they could find.
Keith Forsyth, one of the people who broke in, explained on Democracy Now!:
I was spending as much time as I could
with organizing against the war, but I had become very frustrated with
legal protest. The war was escalating and not de-escalating. And I think
what really pushed me over the edge was, shortly after the invasion of
Cambodia, there were four students killed at Kent State and two more
killed at Jackson State. And that really pushed me over the edge, that
it was time to do more than just protest.
Delivered to the press, these documents revealed an FBI
conspiracy—known as COINTELPRO—to disrupt and destroy a wide range of
protest groups, including the Black freedom movement. The break-in, and
the government treachery it revealed, is a chapter of our not-so-distant
past that all high school students—and all the rest of us—should learn,
yet one that history textbooks continue to ignore.
Click here for the full article.
Source: Common Dreams
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