[News] Cointelpro 101 - Wed, April 4 - CSU Pueblo

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Documentary features controversial FBI program

Chicano activists to hold discussion after Wednesday's viewing

Posted: Monday, April 2, 2012 12:00 am
http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/documentary-features-controversial-fbi-program/article_f7d7414e-7c5f-11e1-a29d-0019bb2963f4.html

By GAYLE PEREZ

  A history of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program will be the 
focus of a documentary and panel discussion Wednesday night at 
Colorado State University-Pueblo.

  The Counter Intelligence Program, more popularly known as 
COINTELPRO, was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects 
conducted by the FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting 
and disrupting domestic political organizations.

   The political organizations targeted by COINTELPRO were those 
associated with civil rights, socialists, communists and anti-war 
movements. The aim of the program was to destroy movements for 
self-determination and liberation for blacks, Hispanics/Chicanos, 
Asian and indigenous people.

   CSU-Pueblo's University Archives is hosting the showing of the 
documentary COINTELPRO 101 followed by a discussion from three 
well-known Chicano activists who are featured in the film.

   The event is scheduled to begin with a reception at 6 p.m. 
followed by the showing of the documentary at 7 p.m.

   The panel discussion with Chicano activists Priscilla Falcon, 
Francisco "Kiko" Martinez and Richard Romero will follow at 8 p.m.

   All activities will be in room 109 of the Library and Academic 
Resource Center.

   Falcon is a Chicana activist and professor of Hispanic studies at 
the University of Northern Colorado.

   Her husband, Ricardo Falcon, was killed in a racially motivated 
altercation with a gas station attendant in Oro Grande, N.M., in 1972 
while en route to the La Raza Unida convention in El Paso.

   Martinez is a civil rights attorney in Alamosa. He was the target 
of law enforcement and FBI surveillance in the early 1970s because of 
his Chicano and leftist political views expressed through his legal 
and community work.

   Martinez was indicted in 1973 for mailing three package bombs in 
Denver and after a long series of court battles, he was exonerated.

   Romero is a Chicano activist active in immigrants rights. In 1981, 
he refused to testify before a grand jury, along with other 
activists, in providing information on activities of political 
activist organizations.

   Falcon, Martinez and Romero were all interviewed as part of the documentary.

   The 56-minute film will provide a glimpse of understanding a 
history of COINTELPRO during the social justice movements of the 
1960s and 1970s.

   In addition to Romero, Martinez and Falcon, other activists 
appearing in the film are:

    Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford), founder of Revolutionary Action 
Movement and a professor at Temple University.

    Bob Boyle, an attorney representing many activists and political 
prisoners targeted by COINTELPRO.

     Kathleen Cleaver, former leader of the Black Panther Party and 
now a law professor at Emory and Yale universities and an expert on COINTELPRO.

     Ward Churchill, removed professor at the University of Colorado 
who has written extensively about COINTELPRO.

     Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a longtime Native American activist and educator.

     Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, former leader of the Black Panther Party 
who was falsely imprisoned for 27 years in COINTELPRO case.

     Jose Lopez, director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in 
Chicago and a longtime advocate of Puerto Rican independence.

     Lucy Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican Independentista and former 
political prisoner.

     Akinyele Umoja, an African American history scholar at Georgia 
State University.

     Laura Whitehorn, a radical activist and former political 
prisoner who was targeted by the federal government.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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