Aretha Franklin Was Tracked By the FBI for 40 Years. Here's What's In Her File

[douglas9]

FROM 1967 TO 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation methodically collected information about Aretha Franklin using false phone calls, surveillance, infiltration, and highly-placed sources, according to the documents obtained earlier this month by Rolling Stone.

Franklin’s FBI file — first requested in via the Freedom of Information Act on Aug. 17, 2018 — is 270 pages long, peppered with phrases like “Black extremists,” “pro-communist,” “hate America,” “radical,” “racial violence,” and “militant Black power” and overflowing with suspicion about the singer, her work, and the other activists and entertainers with whom she she spent time. Some documents are heavily redacted and others indicate that there may be additional materials in the FBI’s possession. Rolling Stone has requested the FBI make available any and all additional records.

“I’m not really sure if my mother was aware that she was being targeted by the FBI and followed. I do know that she had absolutely nothing to hide though,” Aretha Franklin’s son, Kecalf Franklin, tells Rolling Stone.



https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/aretha-franklin-fbi-file-surveillance-1234602217/

[Turbineguy]

1. It must have been

the "RESPECT" thing that triggered it.

[Butterflylady]

2. Hoover, I would bet.

[mahina]

3. They've always been with us haven't they? Sickening.

Meanwhile in reality, her music will live on as long as we are a civilization and those evildoers are now just dust in the wind

[Otto_Harper]

4. OK, so let me get this straight

The FBI has the resources to closely follow and investigate a popular singer, but, doesn't seem to be able to investigate an openly corrupt candidate for high judicial office, nor one for high elective office, nor, be able to apprehend someone who has stolen numerous highly classified national security documents.

OK. very good. I guess they will just march around wearing their little "Junior G-Man" badges and their mommies will be so proud of them.

[Lonestarblue]

15. The FBI is mostly Republican. We should not tolerate surveillance like this of US citizens

simply because they’re black. Totally outrageous, and I wonder how much useless surveillance is still going on today.

[JustAnotherGen]

22. She was an African American woman

There are two sets of rules in America . . .

[onetexan]

24. +1 -K&R!!

[Genki Hikari]

26. They weren't any nicer to white liberal women

Cops took me in for being a bit too mouthy with them at an anti-El Salvador protest once, and hauled me in. That's when a FBI agent "intervened." Tried to bully me to become an informant. I was just smart enough to take whatever he dished out but not give up one word more than my basic name, age, address, like the Legal Aid guy told us to do. FBI boy started getting mad, nothing was working. I guess that's when he decided he could scare up a little 19 y/o by locking me up in a holding cell until I cooperated. Ha! Try again, bub!

I demanded and got my one call to have my mom's high-power attorney boyfriend spring me. Never heard from the feds again. Charges weren't ever filed, no magistrate appearance, so that wasn't on my record at all.

Still, the feebs don't talk to you without writing up everything they do. That means I have an FBI jacket, somewhere.

Everyone should have one, and wear it as a badge of honor.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. All she had to do was be black

And have an opinion.

You can't compare the two.

[spooky3]

5. Outrageous. Sexist and racist. Nt

[LenaBaby61]

8. REALLY THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[Sky Jewels]

12. And, sadly, not at all surprising.

[everyonematters]

6. Hoover was paranoid about the civil rights movement.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Means “equality.”

And that’s a threat to some in authority.

[orleans]

9. they had nothing better to fucking do? jeesh!

or maybe those agents really liked her songs?

here's one of my favorites:

[packman]

10. Been waiting to use this -

[SergeStorms]

18. You just couldn't wait until xmas, huh?

I love it though. First time I've ever seen it. Bring it back out at christmas time, alright?

[yardwork]

11. So disgusting. Our national shame.

[Martin68]

13. J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with communism and a racist to boot. He made anti-communism the FBI's

#1 priority, and it was African-Americans, college students, artists, and liberals he focused on.

[Shrike47]

14. And Martin Luther King, Jr.

[twodogsbarking]

16. And the Kennedys. He is high on my list of people I don't like.

[SergeStorms]

20. I hope they bury Trump...

right next to Hoover. It'll save me from having to make an extra trip to piss on their graves.

I absolutely loathed Hoover. He's on the same level of hell with Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Bin Laden, etc.

[ShazzieB]

21. And John Lennon.

Hoover did not approve of his anti-Vietnam War activism. To him, being opposed to that war = being communist and anti-American.

Iirc, he tried and failed to get Lennon deported. The bitter irony is, if John Lennon hadn't stayed in the gun happy USA, he would probably have lived a lot longer.

[Martin68]

25. All anti-war activists were targeted by the FBI. The Heritage Foundation

still has the FBI database of anti-war protestors that Congress ordered to be destroyed. My right-wing mother worked for the Heritage Foundation in the 70s to help them organize a library, and she told me they had that database.

[walkingman]

17. I don't know this as a fact, I just know it's true - America is a racist country.

[MiHale]

19. Great woman...

good client. When I was downstate, holy crap that was a long time ago.

Cleaned her carpets and a few pieces of upholstery for a few years, a couple decades or so ago.

Very memorable experiences.

[ananda]

23. I guess J Edgar thought she was a commie. They also..

harassed the great artist Irving Norman for yours.

It was nuts back then. Still is, but in a different way
and much more sinister now because it affects
voting rights and results.