Charles Trudeau

Ernest Withers and the FBI Charles Trudeau

In September of 2010, the Memphis Commercial Appeal published an article written by journalist Marc Perrusquia, breaking open a dam of long held government secrets. Hidden in a seemingly insignificant declassified report that had been insufficiently redacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Perrusquia discovered that Ernest Withers had been a confidential informant for the FBI. But what made the revelation extraordinary within the humid enclaves of Memphis and the Deep South was that Withers was also a nationally-renowned civil rights photographer. As a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent civil rights leaders, Withers had intimate access to the kind of highly sensitive information the FBI coveted. Believing that the black civil rights movement took its cues from communist influences, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sanctioned regular cash payments to be distributed amongst a select group of black informants who were willing to spy on fellow demonstrators. Withers was one of them. Using his position as an African American insider and professional cameraman, the typically affable Withers covertly provided the FBI with countless photos of civil rights activists along with intelligence outlining their associations, movements, and future strategies. Conferring often with his FBI handler in Memphis, TN, Special Agent William H. Lawrence, Withers was regularly paid to infiltrate the meetings and organizations led by his closest allies. The following pages contain exact copies of the declassified documents that Marc Perrusquia, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and their team of attorneys obtained in 2012 through the Federal Court system. These documents have been organized based on the FBI's own notated filing dates. Undeniably, there are additional documents that did not make it into this book, either because the FBI failed to declassify them or because they have not yet been obtained from the National Archives in Washington D. C. However, every effort was made as of this book's publication date to include all currently available FBI records related to Withers. Furthermore, the editors worked tirelessly to include the least redacted versions of several duplicate documents. It is the editors' hope that the following pages inform, inspire, and empower the citizenry to form their own opinions regarding this historically significant collaboration between Ernest Columbus Withers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.