It detailed the FBI's use of Ernest Withers as an informant within the Civil Rights Movement, including his code names and the legal battle to obtain his FBI files.
A Spy in Canaan, how the FBI used a famous photographer to infiltrate the civil rights movement.
— Episode: CLASSIC: Ernest Withers: Civil Rights He...
Episode: CLASSIC: Ernest Withers: Civil Rights Hero, FBI Sp...
It detailed the FBI's use of Ernest Withers as an informant within the Civil Rights Movement, including his code names and the legal battle to obtain his FBI files.
A Spy in Canaan, how the FBI used a famous photographer to infiltrate the civil rights movement.
It's fascinating to imagine him inside Martin Luther King's hotel room. There's a picture of MLK sitting on the bed holding up newspaper and just imagine Ernest being in there and just that close with him at all times.
I don't think anything he did for the FBI eclipses the good that he did for the movement. His pictures are just overwhelming and very powerful and they were powerful in their time and they are now.
Honestly, the three of us have read A Spy in Canaan by Mark Pereschia and honestly would highly recommend it because the events in the book actually paint such a vivid story of surveillance by the FBI on people who are just trying to express themselves with our constitutional rights.
I think it's an incredibly timely book, you know, with what's going on right now. I think it's a really fascinating read and can't recommend it highly enough.
Episode: CLASSIC: Ernest Withers: Civil Rights Hero, FBI Sp...
It detailed the FBI's use of Ernest Withers as an informant during the Civil Rights Movement, revealing his secret life as a photographer and his cooperation with the FBI.
And you, sir, have a quite amazing thing going in your new book, A Spy in Canaan, how the FBI used a famous photographer to infiltrate the civil rights movement.
It all started back in 1997 when I was covering James Earl Ray's hearings at that time.
And it was in exploring these stories that I started interviewing former police officers in Memphis, former FBI men, military intelligence.
It was only years later after Ernest died that I filed a Freedom of Information Act request and in the process of getting records back, I found that the FBI had left his code number ME338R, which is a unique identifier.
And that led to this mediated settlement where we got all these records, you know, that really spelled out what he did over the course of 18 years and is the foundation for the book.