Government surveillance archives preserved key Black radical documents

Evidence

Until quite recently, the most serious work on the UNIA and other Black radical movements during the 1920s and 1930s was done by governmental agents: “There are two anthologies of black radical publications of the World War I period; ironically, they were both compiled by right-wing government agents. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s ‘Radicalism and Sedition among the Negroes as Reflected in Their Publications’ was published in 1919; and ‘Revolutionary Radicalism: A Report of the Joint Legislative Committee of New York Investigating Seditious Activities’ appeared in 1920.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2237

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: how state surveillance became the archive of subaltern radicalism - the repressive state as accidental historian of the movements it persecuted.