Page 8
January 18, 1988
UNC to be a part of NABSEP
UNC is one ot the eighteen schools
selected to be iilliliuted with the National
Association of Black Students for Educational
Pursuits (NABSEP). The organization became
active this lall at Duke University.
Carl Foster, founder and president of
NABSEP. .said the organization is designed to
integrate minority students on highly selective
campuses.
"We are focusing on those campu.ses
which demonstrate needs and resources com
parable to those here at Duke.' said Foster.
Other schools participating include:
Brown, Columbia. Cornell. Dartmouth,
Emory, Harvard/Radcliffe. Johns Hopkins,
MIT. Northwestern, Penn, Princeton, Stan
ford, University of Rochester, Washington
University, Yale and Weslevan.
Despite the impressive list of schools,
Foster adds that NABSEP is not an "elitist"
organization, but that the group tried to link
schools with similar minority situations.
Black students attending historically black
colleges and students at predominantly white
colleges do not always hav e similar concerns,
he said.
For example, minority recruiters are
generally less likely lo tlock to campu.ses where
there are small numbers of potential applicants,
whereas attracting minority recruiters to
historically black colleges has not been a
problem.
■'We're not crying discrimination. We are
simply saying that there are some common pro
blems best addressed by tho.se closest to them
— namely black students," Foster said.
Minority recruitment and increasing black
faculty are also concerns of NABSEP. To help
combat the problem of recruitment of black
students, Foster, executive president Christina
Murphy and others are already at work to pro
duce a “resume bank" of members’ resumes
that would be distributed yearly to 700 top na
tional corporations. The list includes several
hundred black companies.
The first edition, expected to be complete
and ready for use in early 1989, will include
the resumes of qualified black students at
Duke, Stanford and UNC.
Other useful data bases will be developed,
including lists of prt)spective black faculty, cor
porations and businesses actively seeking
minority students, graduate programs in need
of qualified minority applicants and colleges
interested in improving their minority
perspectives.
A resume drive will be held here on cam
pus to encourage black students in all classes
and graduate schtKil to submit their resumes
for the book.
Other goals of NABSEP include
establishing merit-based scholarships for
blacks and a tutoring and counseling .service.
Near the top of its list of issues. NABSEP
also lists great concerns about the morale of
black students across the nation. Foster said.
The organization, which has already
received support from several black businesses
and Duke administration, is also seeking cor
porate support from black alumni, national
grants and Greek foundations.
NABSEP will hold its first national con
ference in February at Duke University.
Minority admissions, corporate recruitment of
black students and minority resources on its
member campu.ses will be the topics of
di.scussion.
Foster said that NABSEP will not be a
negative militant lorce. but a group that will
help to create a more diverse envirimment for
higher education.
"We want lo generate more excitement
among black students . . . It's important to
understand that black students have different
personal and educational histories than white
students. A white student may have a father
who is the tilth lawyer in a line of lawyers that
goes back to a signer of the Constitution .
. black students also have a rich history, but
it s a history ot struggle as opposed to a history
ol massive achievement."
Turn your dreams
into reality. . .you
just might change
the world.
Hoover vs. King (continued from page 5)
Sullivan, head of the Intelligence Division of
the FBI in 1961. indicated that from the
wiretapped phone conversations between King
and Levison. "one could reason that he was
devoted to King and nonviolence."
O'Dell remained of only moderate interest
to the Bureau until Levison recommended him
as an executive assistant to King. The FBI saw
O'Dell as the infiltrated "Communist plant"
whom Levison had placed in the SCLC.
O'Dell, who had first become involved with
the Communist Parly while working as a mer
chant marine seaman, had served as a Party
tirgani/.er in New Orleans and worked with the
Parly from the late I940's lo the late 19.‘'0's.
He had even appeared before the Senate In
ternal Security Subcommittee in April 1956 for
his involvement with the Parly. On October
24, 1962, the Crime Records Division of the
FBI circulated this information, as well as their
suspicions that secretly he was still a member
ol the national committee of the Communist
Party, to five daily newspapers as part of the
Bureau's counterintelligence program against
the Communist Party. At this point. King asked
O'Dell to resign, but later rehired him because
he had found no indication that O'Dell was still
working with the Party. King was to deny that
O'Dell had been rehired, which the Crime
Records Division passed on lo the
News on June 30. 1963. which published that
O'Dell was still on the payroll of the SCLC
and was working out of the New York office.
The paper also reported on his background ol
Parly ties and allegations that he was a secret
member of the national committee of the Com
munist Party. Finally. King was effectively
forced by Attorney General Robert Kennedy
and Assistant Attorney General Burke
Marshall to fire O'Dell although he had been
unable to discover any pre.senl connections bet
ween O'Dell and the Communist Party.
President John F. Kennedy persuaded
King to break ties with Levison but by the fall
of 1963, King began contacting Levison. which
caused Robert Kennedy to authorize a wiretap
on King and the SCLC office in Atlanta on Oc
tober 21. The FBI had found that by invoking
the specter of Communism, it could do prac
tically anthing it wanted to do. Special Agent
Arthur Murtagh worked with the two men who
were in charge of the laps on King: "They
wrote down every word that transpired over
the King telephone, and identified all of the
five or six thou.sand people that called him."
Murtagh said that the justification for the
wiretap on King was based on an investiga
tion that had been conducted before the wiretap
was begun. In addition to the wiretap on King,
the FBI implanted an informant. James A. Har
rison. who pas.sed secret SCLC documents to
the While "House. The FBI pul SCLC into its
group of Black Nationalist-Hate grtiups against
whom the FBI initiated counterintelligence pro
gram activities much like lho.se used against
Russia. The FBI leaked information about King
from its tapes and wiretaps to the press, a clear
violation of the law. And in May 1962. the FBI
included the name of Dr. King on Section A
of its Reserve Index as a person to be rounded
up and imprisoned in the event of a national
emergency. The top-ranked "Security Index."
where Levison was categorized, was reserv
ed for individuals whom the Bureau believed
to be actual members ol the Communist Party
or "similar ideological groups." such as the
Socialist Workers Party. The Bureau careful
ly retrained from instructing its agents on the
ideology of King or the SCLC and ctimplele-
ly ignored the tact that King adopted Chris
tian principles and the civil disobedience shown
by Gandhi.
King, who spoke on behalf of blacks and
the poor, drew a connection between the Viet
nam War and poor blacks. He said that more
blacks had been sent to fight and die than any
other racial or ethnic group. In a fiagrant
speech, which King as co-chairman of the
Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam
delivered at the Riverside Church in New York
on April 4. 1963. he said. "We are commit
ting atrocities equal lo any perpetrated by the
Vietcong. The bombs in Vietnam explode at
home — they destroy the dream and possibili
ty fora decent America." The FBI and Presi
dent Johnson, who intended to have "cordial"
relations with King, viewed him as an enemy
when he spoke out against Vietnam. Accor
dingly, six days after his speech, the FBI .sent
a wiretap file damaging to King to the White
House and circulated it inside (and probably
outside) the government.,The FBI noted that
the remarks of King about Vietnam were "a
direct parallel of the Communist advisers." As
part of his strategy lo discredit King. Hoover
had an editorial from a black magazine criticiz
ing King for his stance on Vietnam distributed
to news sources in efforts to publicize King as
a traitor to his country and his race and to
"reduce his income." However, the new At
torney General Nicholas Katzenbach had
cancelled the wiretaps on King in 1965 due to
lack of evidence. William Sullivan, head of the
Intelligence Division, admitted that "no dam
ning information on him [King] had ever been
unearthed."
In addition to wiretapping. Hoover's
agents initiated counterintelligence
"dirty tricks" operations against King, plan
ting unauthorized and illegal microphones in
hotel rooms where he stayed in an attempt to
obtain information about his private activities
for u.se to discredit him completely. These tape
recordings were "doctored up" at the FBI
electronics laboratory and then played for
reporters as a technique to gel them to publish
derogatory information about King and to
discourage objective reporters from writing
fair stories about him. Hoover, who had a well-
known interest in sexual blackmail, secretly
briefed national political and religious leaders
about the personal conduct of King, and the
Bureau issued damaging wiretap files to the
Secretary of State. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ar
my and Navy commanders, and the entire in
telligence community. A recording of King
made at the Los Angeles Hyatt Motel reveal
ed that King supposedly told a Joke about the
sexual practices of John F. Kennedy. Another
recording from the Willard Hotel in
Washingtt)n. D.C.. where the FBI first
used a "bug" on King, taped King, some
SCLC colleagues and two black women hav
ing a party. FBI agents began spreading rimiors
that King engaged in group sex and claimed
that he had a mistress in California. Hoover
even had the tape from the Willard Hotel re
cording .mailed to the home of King on
November 21. 1965. According to
Andrew Young and Coretta King, both of
whom listened lo the tape, the recording was
"unintelligible" and ct)nlaincd nothing lo
discredit King. Attached to the tape was a note
which urged King lo kill himself within .34 days
or face being exposed with the material on the
tape. The note, which Hoover wrote lo seem
as though it had come from a black, also at
tacked King's character and suggested that a
new leader take his place. William Sullivan
later testified that the tape was intended to
break up King and his wife, which would
reduce his stature. King, however, knew right
away the tape was from Hoover and began tak
ing precautions to allude and foil the attempts
of the FBI.
When Bureau agents were not busy "bug
ging" the hotel rooms of King, they were
gathering his financial records and .sabotaging
his political plans. In 1961, Hoover wanted
proof that King had a relationship with the
Soviets and evidence that would prove King
was embezzling or misusing large sums of
money. So the FBI accu.sed King of transferr
ing SCLC funds into private bank accounts in
Switzerland. In 1964. Bureau agents gathered
financial returns from King and the SCLC
from the Internal Revenue Service to examine
them for "possible violations of the law" and
for material that could be used to embarrass
King publicly. But later that year, the IRS
reported that despite careful scrutiny, it had
been unable to locale any violations in either
the returns of King or SCLC. To turn the
followers of King against him. the FBI wanted
to discredit him in tront of their eyes so it could
find a replacement who could be controlled.
The Bureau wanted to develop a new black
leader w ho could overshadow King. The FBI
was certain that the Poor Pei'ples' March in
Washington. D.C.. planned by King, would
result in "a massive bloodbath." and it set out
to sabotage the campaign by stirring up public
indignation against it. The Bureau used-14 field
offices to spread stories charging King with
violent and revolutionary intentions and con
nections with violent black militant groups. On
■March 28. 1968. what w'as to have been a
peaceful demonstration for striking black
sanitation workers, erupted into violence caus
ed by a militant group. The Invaders, among
whose most active members were FBI infor
mants. The FBI used lhe.se "agent pro
vocateurs" in the black movement to urge and
initiate violent acts, which in the case of the
■Memphis march, turned a nonv iolent march
into a riot which furthered the goal of the FBI
to discredit King.
While King never lived to see the trium
phant success of his Poor Peoples' March in
Washington. D.C.. he did live long enough to
make a lasting impression on every American.
He was not only the voice of black America,
but that of all Americans who sought truth and
justice. However. Hoover and the FBI saw
King as a threat to the established order and
wanted to silence the voice that spoke of
change. Out of tear and hatred, they vowed
to destroy him personally and politically. In
deed their attempts failed miserably, for the
dream of King is still alive today.
have a
dream...’’
>