John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri. This interview is based on his new book, The Hijacking of American Flight 119: How D.B. Cooper Inspired a Skyjacking Craze and the FBI’s Battle to Stop It (Oxford...
Lerone Martin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Chair and Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. This interview is based on his new book, The...
Nina Corcoran and Jazz Monroe explain at Pitchfork: The FBI has declassified its file on the late Aretha Franklin. The document, which spans 270 pages and includes reports from more than a dozen states, shows that the FBI extensively tracked Franklin’s civil...
From The Washington Post:...
Yesterday Franklin Graham appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network to offer his opinion on the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Watch: Let’s break this down. 00:40ff: The host, Doug McKelway, describes how the execution of...
The FBI exercised a search warrant at Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago last night. The New York Times has some ongoing coverage here. Here is a taste of Trump’s message to followers: My “favorite” line in this statement is “especially based...
It looks like there is an evangelical Christian version of the “deep state” staging a secret revolution to overthrow Jerry Falwell Jr. at Liberty University. Here is The Hill: Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. told Hill.TV on Tuesday that...
Jason Miller, an English professor at North Carolina State University and a King scholar, defends David Garrow’s controversial article on MLK’s moral indiscretions. (See our coverage of Garrow’s article here). Here is a taste of Miller’s article at The Conversation: It’s...
Historian Trevor Griffey of UCLA puts the Garrow article on Martin Luther King Jr. in the larger context of the FBI investigation of the civil rights icon. Here is a taste of his piece at The Conversation: “J. Edgar Hoover’s...
We are starting to hear from historians and others on today’s David Garrow’s Standpoint piece on Martin Luther’s King’s moral indiscretions. I linked to the article here and blogged about it last night. Here is some news/commentary on Garrow’s piece that we...
David Garrow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Martin Luther King Jr., will drop a bombshell tomorrow (Thursday) when Standpoint magazine will publish an article, based on memos that discuss FBI tapes, that paints the Civil Rights icon in a very unflattering...
This is a fascinating piece. Over at Religion & Politics, Washington University professor Lerone Martin shows how the FBI used Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, a popular black radio preacher and televangelist, to discredit Martin Luther King and the civil rights...
How might a historian interpret the now-famous Nunes memo? Mark Byrnes, chair of the Department of History at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, breaks it down for us. Here is a taste of his History News Network piece: “The...
Conservative politicians and pundits believe that the FBI is secretly working to undermine the Donald Trump’s presidency. This, of course, is why Trump released the Nunes memo yesterday. Here is Iowa Congressman Steve King: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQujubX__v8&w=560&h=315] “This is earth-shaking and...
Vox has collected nine historians to reflect on the Donald Trump’s belief that the FBI is plotting against him. Sean Illing has gathered responses from Douglas Charles (Penn State), Rhodri-Jeffryss Jones (Edinburgh), Meg Jacobs (Princeton), Carol Anderson (Emory), Ivan Greenberg, Morton...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHu-2vyvaQY&w=560&h=315]...
Historians Brian Balogh and Nathan Connolly talk about the context on WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station. Listen here. A summary: President Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey has drawn historical comparisons to the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre” in...
FBI Director James Comey wrote his senior thesis at the College of William and Mary on Reinhold Niebuhr. It is also likely that he is tweeting under Niebuhr’s name. It is also interesting, as we learn from Martin Doblmeier in...
