For decades, African-American writers were under constant FBI surveillance and scrutiny. From the Harlem Renaissance through the Black Power movement, the FBI obsessively read and analyzed black writing, and black writers, who understood that they were being watched, created new works of literature in response.
This bizarre, intertwined relationship culminated in the 1960s, when FBI agents began imitating African-American authors in order to create fraudulent, subversive publications. William J. Maxwell, associate professor of English, documents this unique literary history in his forthcoming book, FB Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African-American Literature.
Credits:
From the FBI file of W.E.B. Du Bois
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