Records
A Fragment of the Prison Experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
Pamphlet documenting Goldman and Berkman's imprisonment at Jefferson City and Atlanta for anti-conscription organizing. Directly about two of the most famous U.S. political prisoners; both convicted under the 1917 Espionage Act and deported in 1919.
COINTELPRO 101 Trailer
Cointelpro 101 exposes illegal surveillance, disruption, and outright murder committed by the US government in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Cointelpro refers to the official FBI COunter INTELigence PROgram carried out to surveil, imprison, and eliminate leaders of social justice movements and to disrupt, divide, and destroy the movements as well. Many of the gov...
COINTELPRO Black Extremists — Part 08
FBI HQ COINTELPRO file Part 8, including memoranda authorizing Director-level disruption ops against Black Panther figures who became political prisoners (Geronimo Pratt, Huey Newton, Panther 21).
COINTELPRO Puerto Rican Groups — Part 1 of 11
FBI HQ COINTELPRO file on 'Groups Seeking Independence for Puerto Rico.' Surveillance file underlying prosecutions of Nationalist Party members and FALN/Macheteros prisoners including Oscar López Rivera.
Church Committee Final Report — Book II
Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. Lays out the FBI's domestic intelligence and disruption programs against civil rights and antiwar movements; named source for many political-prisoner wrongful-conviction claims.
Church Committee Hearings Vol. 2 — Huston Plan
Senate hearings on the Huston Plan for expanded domestic intelligence. Documents the Nixon-era plan that authorized illegal surveillance against Weather Underground, BPP, and antiwar-movement prisoners.
Church Committee Hearings Vol. 6 — Federal Bureau of Investigation
Senate hearings on FBI intelligence activities. Testimony documenting FBI operations against political prisoners (King, BPP, SDS); foundational for COINTELPRO-era PP cases.
Eugene V. Debs — Canton Speech (1918)
Debs's June 16, 1918 antiwar speech and trial record under the Espionage Act. Debs is the foundational U.S. Espionage Act political prisoner (10-year sentence, Atlanta federal pen); he ran for president from prison in 1920.
FBI File on Russell Means
FBI file on AIM co-founder Russell Means. Surveillance file on Means around Wounded Knee 1973; directly tied to AIM political-prisoner cases including Leonard Peltier.
Form Letter to Judge Kathleen Parker
Form letter urging Judge Kathleen Parker to release Geronimo Pratt from prison
Free Geronimo Pratt!
Flyer urging support for Geronimo Pratt, imprisoned as a result of COINTELPRO activities.
Human Rights in the US: The Unfinished Story of Political Prisoners/Victims
This pamphlet was adapted from the transcript of the September 14, 2000 forum that Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga) hosted during the Congressional Black Caucus's legislative weekend in Washington DC. It could not have been published without the expert editorial work of Laura Whitehorn and Susie Day.
Join a Day of Action to Free All Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War!
Flyer for demonstration in Manhattan, NYC, to free political prisoners and stop FBI/Police Terror.
Jose Lopez COINTELPRO 101 Extra Footage
José López is the executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. Under his leadership, the PRCC has developed a number of initiatives in the Humboldt Park community, including an alternative high school, a parent child learning center and day care, a museum and cultural institution, a youth drop-in center and an HIV education and advocacy organizati...
Judgment of the Grand Jury
An essay by Carlos Noya, a leading member of the Liga Socialista Puertorriqueña (LSP), a public revolutionary organization in Puerto Rico that argued for a protracted people's war to achieve independence and socialism. Noya was exiled and imprisoned in the United States for refusing to collaborate with a federal grand jury investigating the Puerto Rican arme...
Kathleen Cleaver COINTELPRO 101 Extra Footage
Kathleen Cleaver became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1967 she left college to work full-time for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The following year she met Eldridge Cleaver and moved from New York to San Francisco to join the Black Panther Party (BPP). Kathleen Cleaver became the BPP's National Communications Secretary and...
Laura Whitehorn COINTELPRO 101 Extra Footage
Radical activist and former political prisoner/WUO member who was targeted by the federal government.
MOVE — FBI File
FBI file on the MOVE organization, Philadelphia. Surveillance file on MOVE — whose members (MOVE 9, Mumia Abu-Jamal supporters) are core U.S. political prisoners — covering the period of the 1978 Powelton Village confrontation.
Murdered by the U.S. Government: Ángel Rodríguez Cristóbal
A movement solidarity flyer protesting the November 1979 death of Puerto Rican independence and socialist activist Ángel Rodríguez Cristóbal in the federal prison at Tallahassee, Florida. It condemns his death — officially ruled a suicide — as a political killing by the U.S. government, and ties it to the Vieques struggle and the wider movement for Puerto Ri...
Paul Avrich Anarchism Collection — Finding Aid
Finding aid to the Paul Avrich anarchism collection at the Library of Congress, listing imprisoned anarchists' pamphlets. Index to LoC holdings on Sacco-Vanzetti, Berkman, Goldman, Haymarket Martyrs and other anarchist political prisoners.
President to President: On the question of human rights
Imari Abubakari Obadele, President of the Provisional Government of New Afrika (named a political prisoner by Amnesty International) Challenges US President Jimmy Carter On Oppression of Blacks, Indians, & Others; Genocide, Slave Labor in Prisons, Prisoner Exchange and the US Silence on the Vicious Anti-Black COINTELPRO. Virtual copy available through The In...
Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW
Oral history interviews with IWW members including Espionage-Act-era veterans by Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer. Firsthand accounts from IWW prisoners and defendants of the 1917-1919 federal raids and trials.
Tip of the Iceberg (Summer 1980)
Formerly Update. Cover Story: Government Moves to Consolidate COINTELPRO Cover-Up: Nixon Granted Stay - FBI Trial Postponed. Also: Movement to Exonerate Assata Grows as COINTELPRO Attacks Grow; The Pressure is Mounting to Free Geronimo Pratt; The Puerto Rican Prisoners of War Speak to the People; FOIA Files Reveal Insidious FBI Methods; Updates on RNA-11; Dh...