Thursday 24 October 2014
USA, 2010 | 56 mins
COINTELPRO 101 is an introduction to the little-known story of the FBI’s illegal wars of terror waged against the full spectrum of radical movements in America. The Counter Intelligence Program (CO INTEL PRO) was the State’s strategy to prevent movements and communities from overturning white supremacy and creating racial justice in the US. Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI conducted more than 2,000 COINTELPRO operations. Assassination, imprisonment, surveillance and the deliberate creation of internal strife were employed to forcibly dissolve these movements.
The film goes further than most histories of this phenomenon, looking at the brutal attacks on organisations like the Black Panther Party, but also exploring the State’s fear of, and attempt to crush – by any means necessary – the Puerto Rican and Chicano independence movements.
Powerfully depicting the frenzied need of those in power to try to suppress and ‘neutralize’ movements and individuals they don’t like, COINTELPRO 101 nevertheless reminds us that the State will never be able to control everyone. After the film there will be a discussion of COINTELPRO, led by two people involved in the Black Panther Party at the time (Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin and JoNina Abron-Ervin) who are in the UK for a national speaking tour.