Council on African Affairs/Freedom of Information Act collection, 1949-1972 (bulk 1952-1954)

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Council on African Affairs/Freedom of Information Act collection, 1949-1972 (bulk 1952-1954)

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/668455300

The Council on African Affairs/Freedom of Information Act (CAA/FOIA) collection consists of photocopies of the FBI file on the CAA obtained through a FOIA request. The FBI surveilled activities of CAA branches across the United States but the collection most frequently mentions the Los Angeles and Philadelphia branches, monitoring the growth, or lack thereof, of those branches. The collection contains reports, communications from field agents to the FBI directorate about the organization they considered "substantially directed, dominated or controlled by the Communist Party," and interviews with former members of the CAA being considered as potential witnesses before the Subversive Activities Control Board. Alleging that the Communist Party USA's (CPUSA) support of the CAA was in the form of personnel, the FBI kept a close eye on the officers of the CAA. Included in the files are a summary of Robeson, W. E. B DuBois, and W. Alphaeus Hunton's alleged Communist Party affiliations and a letter regarding DuBois from J. Edgar Hoover to the CIA. There is also a report juxtaposing CPUSA and CAA policies as "evidence of the extent to which the positions taken or advanced by the CAA in matters of policy do not deviate from those of the CPUSA." The CAA files also contain records of the organization's internal activities as well as extracts from several publications, including the organ's newsletter "Spotlight on Africa" and the CPUSA's National Negro Commission's "Negro Affairs." Subjects covered in these newsletters include colonialism, neo-colonialism in Africa, and critiques of American and European involvement in Africa, particularly in South Africa and Kenya.The material also documents the split that developed between Max Yergan and Paul Robeson and includes communications from Robeson to the membership detailing Yergan's "disruptive activities."

.4 lin. ft. (1 archival box)

New York Public Library System, NYPL

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7962383

New York Public Library System, NYPL

Related Entities

There are 6 Entities related to this resource.

Council on African Affairs

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sn458p (corporateBody)

Robeson, Paula

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p56cjr (person)

Hunton, Alphaeus, 1903-1970

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6417krz (person)

William Alphaeus Hunton was an expert on Africa, political activist, administrator of the Council on African Affairs, 1943-1955, and the Encyclopedia Africana Project in Ghana, 1962-1966. From the description of William Alphaeus Hunton papers, 1926-1967. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122580347 Born in Atlanta, Georgia on September 18, 1903, William Alphaeus Hunton, Jr. was a scholar and a political activist. His grandfather, Stanton Hunton, a former slave, migr...

United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6mw65wc (corporateBody)

The FBI established this classification when it assumed responsibility for ascertaining the protection capabilities and weaknesses of defense plants. Each plant survey was a separate case file, with the survey, supplemental surveys, and all communications dealing with a plant insofar as plant protection was concerned, filed together. On June 1, 1941, and January 5, 1942, the Navy and Army, respectively, assumed responsibility for surveying defense plants in which they had interests. Thereafter, ...

Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gk06z2 (person)

W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Educated at Fisk University, he did graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. Du Bois became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Due to his contributions in the African-American community he was seen as a member of a Black elite that supported some aspects ...

Yergan, Max, 1892-1975

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62v2hwp (person)