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Roslyn Payne Collection of Black Panther Party FBI Files

Call Number

TAM.612

Dates

1968-2010, inclusive
; 1968-1971, bulk

Creator

Payne, Roz B. (Roz Berkman), 1940-
United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Payne, Roz B. (Roz Berkman), 1940- (Role: Donor)

Extent

21.5 Linear Feet in 21 record cartons, 1 manuscript box, and 1 oversize folder

Language of Materials

Materials are in English

Abstract

The Roslyn Payne Collection of Black Panther Party FBI Files (1968-2010, bulk 1968-1971) contains files on the Black Panther Party (BPP) created by the FBI's Nixon-era counterintelligence program COINTELPRO. These files consist of FBI reports and memoranda documenting the bureau's use of surveillance, wiretaps, and falsified information in its campaign against BPP. They contain documents collected by the FBI to track the activities of the Black Panthers, which include transcripts of speeches and phone conversations, surveillance reports, interviews, articles, drawings, and related ephemera. These documents were originally released to New York Black Panther Party leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad (formerly Richard Moore) and his attorneys Liz Fink and Bob Boyle following a civil suit they filed against the FBI for withholding evidence in a criminal trial. They were coded an indexed by filmmaker Roslyn (Roz) Payne, who produced a documentary on the Black Panthers and collected a large archive of material related to the history of the BPP. Payne's detailed index is included in the collection.

Historical Note

The documents in the Roslyn Payne Collection of Black Panther Party FBI Files (dated 1968-2010, bulk dates 1968-1971) were produced by the FBI's counterintelligence program COINTELPRO. The FBI officially implemented COINTELPRO in 1956 as a consolidated effort to disrupt subversive activities in the United States, focusing originally on the Communist Party of the United States. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover turned the program's attention to black nationalist and civil rights organizations in the summer of 1967, in what he described as an attempt to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate-type organizations." At that time, the Black Panthers had not gained national prominence, and the FBI instead directed its counterintelligence activities toward groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Congress (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), and the Nation of Islam (NOI).

The Black Panther Party (BPP) was formed in Oakland, CA in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. The Black Panthers grew out of the emerging Black Power movement of the mid-1960s, which contrasted the non-violent civil disobedience of earlier civil rights groups with a more confrontational approach to black activism. Following an ideology of militant self-defense, the BPP sought to promote revolutionary socialism through community-based initiatives. The Black Panthers gained attention for conducting patrols of Oakland neighborhoods, in which party members monitored police activity while openly carrying firearms. They also provided other community services like their Free Breakfast for School Children, which garnered support for the Panthers within urban black communities. The BPP remained a locally-based organization between 1966 and 1968, but began to expand nationally after a series of incidents, including the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 and the shooting of BPP member Bobby Hutton on April 6, heightened racial tensions in the United States and attracted more black youth to revolutionary politics. By the fall of 1968 the BPP had grown nationally, with offices in twenty cities from New York to Los Angeles. By 1970 the Black Panthers had offices in sixty-eight cities. By the spring of 1969, the BPP had become the primary concern of the FBI and the target of COINTELPRO activities. In an attempt to foster divisions within the party, the FBI sent forged letters, created incendiary propaganda, impersonated and surveilled party members, and wire tapped phones. These efforts resulted in numerous arrests and criminal cases against members of the BPP, some of which were based on dubious evidence. The FBI ceased COINTELPRO activities in 1971, and many of the tactics it employed were later declared unconstitutional.

The COINTELPRO files on the BPP were released to New York Black Panther Party leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad (formerly Richard Moore) and his attorneys Liz Fink and Bob Boyle over the course of several years between the late 1970s and the 1980s. Bin Wahad and his attorneys won the release of these documents following a civil suit they filed against the FBI in the US District Court Southern District of New York for withholding evidence in a criminal trial. Bin Wahad spent 19 years in prison for attempted murder of two New York City police officers, but was exonerated after evidence showed that the FBI withheld crucial information for his defense. Bin Wahad and his attorneys fought for many years to win the release of these documents and eventually used them as evidence to overturn his conviction.

The COINTELPRO files were later indexed by Roslyn Payne, who created a documentary film on the Black Panthers and included a set of these documents in her personal collection on the BPP.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in four series: Series I: FBI Documents; Series II: FBI Documents, Selected by Payne; Series III: Coding Sheets, Series IV: Roslyn Payne Personal Materials. Series I: FBI Documents has been further divided into two subseries, Subseries IA: Index, and Subseries IB: FBI Documents by Section and Serial Number. Subseries IA is arranged by index number and page number. Documents in subseries IB are arranged as they were received from the FBI, and are grouped by section and serial number. Documents in Series II: FBI Documents, Selected are arranged alphabetically by topic. New York COINTELPRO documents in this series were loose in a box and were not grouped topically by Payne. These items have been described as a single unit and maintained in their original order. Documents in Series III: Coding Sheets have not been arranged.

Scope and Content Note

The Roslyn Payne Collection of Black Panther Party FBI Files (dated 1968-2010, bulk dates 1968-1971) contains FBI files on the Black Panther Party (BPP) created by the bureau's Nixon-era counterintelligence program COINTELPRO. The files were released to New York Black Panther Party leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad and his attorneys Liz Fink and Bob Boyle, and consist of over 300,000 documents detailing COINTELPRO's attempts to undermine the reputation, unity, and alliances within the BPP. These files are comprised of FBI reports and memoranda detailing the bureau's use of surveillance, wiretaps, and dissemination of falsified correspondence and information. They also contain documents collected by the FBI, which were used to track the activities of BPP members and include transcripts of speeches and phone conversations, surveillance reports, interviews, articles, drawings, and related ephemera.

Because these files contain copies derived from original FBI documents, pages may be redacted and/or illegible. Notwithstanding these redactions and omissions, the documents provide an extensive record of the FBI's campaign against the Black Panthers. These files represent only one copy of the COINTELPRO files released by the FBI. In the mid-1980s, additional set of files were released to Bin Wahad's attorneys that did not contain redactions, but those files are not included in this collection.

The majority of the documents in these files have been coded and indexed by documentary filmmaker Roslyn (Roz) Payne. They come from FBI file number 100-161993, and are grouped by section and serial numbers. Payne's index and coding sheets are also included in the collection and indicate information about topics, groups, or individuals featured in the files, as well as information about regional offices where the documents were sent and received. The collection also includes a set of selected documents, which Payne photocopied from the original set of files received by Bin Wahad's attorneys and grouped by topic. These materials primarily consist of forged letters and propaganda created by the FBI and COINTELPRO documents from New York. A small amount of materials also relate to Payne's work to document the history of the Black Panther Party, and consist of event flyers and community newspaper articles.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive has no information about copyright ownership for this collection and is not authorized to grant permission to publish or reproduce materials from it. Materials in this collection, which were created in 1968-2010, are expected to enter the public domain in 2130.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Roslyn Payne Collection of Black Panther Party FBI Files; TAM 612; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Location of Materials

Materials stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to your research visit to coordinate access.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Roslyn Payne in 2012. The accession number associated with this gift is 2012.021.

Custodial History

FBI files in this collection were obtained by Dhoruba Bin Wahad and his attorneys Liz Fink and Bob Boyle following a civil suit they filed against the FBI in 1975. The FBI released the documents in stages over the course of several years between the 1970s and 1980s. Roslyn Payne, who worked breifly in the offices of Bin Wahad's lawyers, later indexed these files and included them in her personal archive on the Black Panthers.

Collection processed by

Heather Mulliner

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:38:49 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: English

Processing Information

The FBI files were originally housed in packets bound by metal clasps to cardboard backings. These packets contained numerous slips of paper, used by Payne to identify topics within documents. Files have been removed from their original binding and placed in archival folders. The slips of paper have been discarded, because much of the information they contained is duplicated in the index. FBI files have been maintained in the order in which they were received.

Several documents related to the indexing of the FBI files that were duplicates or of little research value have been removed from the collection. These items consisted of start and end pages produced in the printing process, duplicates of various sections, uncategorized data printouts, and incomplete versions of the index. Additionally, several folders of duplicate documents in Series II, FBI Documents, Selected by Payne were removed. These folders were labeled "DUPE" by Payne and contained no information that was not already present in other folders grouped by topic.

A large portion of this collection has been vacuumed for mold.

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012