BIO

A highly ambitious and motivated student at Florida State University with knowledge and a passion for social sciences. Pursuing a dual degree in Political Science and Sociology, with a keen interest in political philosophy.

COINTELPRO and the Repression of Tallahassee's New Left

Abstract

A major catalyst of the American civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam war had been its convergence with a burgeoning student movement within university settings. As such, FBI opposition would orient itself toward the repression of America’s New Left, a broad, young, abstraction of Marxist ideology opposed to Soviet-stlye governance, rooting itself on American campuses. Directing against domestic threats, the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counterintellegiance Program) targeted New Left activity on university campuses throughout the nation. In order to properly detail the role that which COINTELPRO had in subverting New Left activities in and around the Tallahassee area researchers examined internal FBI documents and memorandums, university archives, and underground newspapers. Using a timeline of events researchers captured the blossoming/escalating social and political controversies in Tallahassee and its respective universities, Florida State University (FSU) and Flordia A&M University (FAMU)- as well as the FBI’s oversight in relation to the wide ranged dissent. Using these resources, researchers were able to establish a clear intention by the FBI to infiltrate and suppress New Left activities in Northern Florida-utilizing methods of espionage and federal oversight. Research is currently ongoing to precisely particularize and capture the full extent of FBI intervention, regarding COINTELPRO, in the Tallahasssee area.

Keywords: FBI, COINTELPRO, FSU, New Left, Tallahassee