TPMmuckraker, via a FOIA request, has obtained most of the FBI file of the late black historian John Hope Franklin. His “ties” to communists and the Communist Party were of great interest to the J. Edgar Hoover-era FBI, including a 1965 memo from the FBI director instructing agents on how to conduct a background check on Franklin: “Appropriate informants familiar with CP and communist front activities should be contacted during the investigation.”
Justin Elliott did the digging and posted documents from the file here.
