FBI Surveillance of James Forman and SNCC
Born to a poor sharecropper family in 1928, James Forman was raised on his grandmother's Mississippi farm and as an adolescent moved to Chicago with his mother. In the summer of 1961, Forman was recruited to work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Atlanta, Georgia. SNCC was active in voter registration for disenfranchised black populations throughout the South. Forman acted as Executive Secretary of SNCC until 1966, arranging transportation, food, housing for volunteers, and raising funds. From 1967-1969, Forman served as SNCC's International Affairs Director and became involved with linking SNCC to the black power movement. This collection of FBI reports comprises the Bureau's investigative and surveillance efforts primarily during the 1961-1976 period, when James Foreman was percieved as a threat to the international security of the United States. The collected materials also include Foreman's involvement with the 'Black Manifeso' and the Bureau's 'COINTELPRO' investigations into 'Black Nationalist- Hate Groups/Internal Security', which include information on the activities of SNCC.