June 2, 2023 • 49 mins
55 years ago, the American Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His legacy lives on in recorded speeches, memorials across the country, photographs by legendary photojournalist Ernest C. Withers and more. Withers remains a hero in his hometown of Memphis, and his career is inextricably intertwined with the Civil Rights era. However, there may be much more to the story of Withers than the public originally believed. Join the guys as they sit down with veteran investigative journalist Marc Perrusquia to learn about his explosive discoveries regarding Withers, revelations that would take him all the way to Federal Court in his quest to finally answer the question: Was Ernest Withers a mole for the FBI?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now this is a deep cut. Our classic today is
about a civil rights hero that has an entirely different
story behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah, I kind of don't want to spoil any of it.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yeah, it's kind of better that you just go in
cold or knowing what you already know and let us
sort of add a little more depth to the story
of mister Ernest Withers.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
In an interview with an amazing person, Mark Periskia, that
we spoke with about this. If it's worth your time,
we hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We are joined with our super producer Casey Pegram today.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. We'd
like to start today's episode with a quote.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Men may be without restraints upon their liberty. They must
pass to and fro at pleasure, but if their steps
are tracked by spies and informers, their words noted down
for crimination, their associates watched as conspirators. Who shall say
that they are free? And that's a quote from Thomas
Erskine May from the work Constitutional History of England.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And you may be wondering, friends and neighbors, why we're
opening today's episode with this quotation. Today, you see, we're
delving into a story of deception, of subterfuge, the struggle
for equality, the ethical dilemmas of espionage, and the life
of one Earnest Columbus Withers Senior.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Withers was born on August seventh, nineteen twenty two. I
spent sixty years of his life working as a photojournalist,
docum mensing the African American experience in the American South,
with the most well known work occurring during the Civil
Rights movement, and over the course of his career he
took some of the most iconic photographs in American history.
These are completely fantastic time and place. They take you
(02:16):
right to it. No one else took photographs quite like this.
He traveled with doctor Martin Luther King and other civil
rights leaders. He was a trusted friend and associate, a
member of the Inner Circle. He even sat in on
strategy meetings.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And after his death in two thousand and seven, his
legacy lived on as newspapers across the country and The
Globe published his work. Today, he is remembered, as an
ol said, as an iconic photographer, a loving family man,
a hometown hero in Memphis, Tennessee, and in a very
real way, the eye of the civil rights movement. It
(02:52):
turns out he was also working in secret for another organization.
This is a story that remained buried and may well
have been lost to history, where not for the efforts
of a veteran Memphis journalist working at the Commercial Appeal.
Through laborious research, Mark Periskia bought this story from the
murky world of domestic intelligence into the light of the
(03:13):
public sphere. And here's the thing, folks, We always, as
you know, want to go directly to the source whenever possible,
and by golly, by gum by gosh, today we succeeded.
We'd like to welcome Mark Periskia to the show. Thank
you for coming, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We're really excited to talk to you about this, not
only for the work alone, but the work that you
do in general. You're an investigative journalist.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Sir, Yeah, there's a few of us still left.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I can't. I mean, that was the path that I
personally wanted to take, but as I was getting through college,
kind of made the realization that it probably won't happen
for me.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Well, you probably made a good, wise career choice there,
because it seems like you got a good thing going
on here.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, honestly, so personally very excited to have you on
the show. And as we all are.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yes here here, 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. A deep dive into the story we
briefly just set up.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Well, it all started back in nineteen ninety seven when
I was covering James Earl Ray's hearings. At that time,
James Earl Ray was the assassin of Martin Luther King Junior.
He was in the last year of his life. He
had liver disease and was trying to get out of prison,
and he was floating all kinds of pleadings in the
criminal court in Shelby County, Tennessee. Conspiracy stories. His lawyer
(04:39):
was coming up with these things, and they actually got
the King family here in Atlanta to endorse many of
these stories, and Dexter King, Martin's younger son, actually came
up and visited Ray in prison, shook his hand and said, you.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Know, we believe you.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
We'll do everything in our power to get you out.
I mean, it was just a very surreal moment. And
the the news traction around this story was just huge,
became an international story. So I got a lot of
latitude from the paper. But at that time, i'd been
there about eight years to really explore some of these
conspiracy stories. And you know, one of the things that
(05:15):
I found is that, I mean a lot of people
think that, you know, the FBI others had a hand
in killing doctor King, but that really wasn't the case.
I mean, they were definitely trying to destroy him politically,
but Ray shot him. And but it was in exploring
these stories that I started interviewing former police officers in Memphis,
former FBI men, military intelligence. And I ran into this
(05:37):
agent in Memphis, former a retired agent who told me,
you know, giving me the background about what was going
on when doctor King was in Memphis at that time.
And you know, he said I had asked him if
they ever did electronic surveillance on King there, and he said, no,
we had no need to do that, and he said
we had a great informant coverage. And it was in
this context that he mentioned that Ernest Withers had been
(05:59):
an informed for the FBI, which, you know, when he
told me, that kind of blew me away in the beginning,
because you know, Wow, Withers, you know, he's so closely
identified with the movement, you know, as you said, kind
of the eye of the movement, and it was pretty startling.
The agent never wanted to go on the record, he said,
he denied if I if I ever wrote that. So
(06:20):
I just kind of let it alone. You know, there's
in the news business, there's a lot of things that
wind up on the cutting room floor. I moved on
when it back into covering a lot of political corruption,
which was rife in Memphis at that time. It was
only years later, after Ernest died that I filed a
Freedom of Information Act request and in the process of
(06:40):
getting records back, I found that the FBI had left
his code number ME three thirty eight R, which is
a unique identifier in the In FBI jargon, they call
it a source symbol number. But it said in a report,
a background report on him from nineteen seventy seven, that
he had been formally identified designated as ME three thirty
(07:02):
eight R. And so it was a kind of a
Eureka moment, you know, like, you know, Wow, this is
true what this guy was telling me before. And so
but trying to figure out how what do I do
with that, you know, because it really didn't tell you
much of anything. I got more records from the FBI
that had been released from the from in the Night
late nineteen seventies, covering that sixties period in Memphis, and
(07:24):
I found that they made the same mistake over and
over again again. You know that with that sore symbol
number being a unique identifier, you could say you substitute
in Ernest Wither's name and say that he did X,
Y and Z for the FBI. So I did some
initial stories, and then I met the daughter of the
agent who had ran Withers William H. Lawrence, and she
(07:48):
and he was he was dead by then, but she
had saved a number of his records that she found
after actually her mother passed away after her father, and
there were handwritten notes that he had that referred to
Ernest by name, by code number. So I did more
stories and then the newspaper this was a newspaper investigation.
We tried to get his FBI file and they just
(08:09):
totally denied everything and said, you know, wouldn't cooperate. We
sued him in court. They you know, they fought us
for quite a while. In the end we wound up winning,
getting a mediated settlement and they had to pay all
our legal fees. We'd spent like two hundred thousand dollars
pursuing this. Yeah, they relied on a law that allows
them to lie, and they did. They lied about it.
(08:29):
They you know, the law exempts informant records from the
Freedom of Information Act, and they can pretend like certain
records don't even exist. But that would be exclusion to
see as that got right, Yeah, from it was passed
as part of the Anti Drug Abuse Act in nineteen
eighty six under the Reagan administration.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
The whole idea was that was.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
To try to try to keep you know, these corrupt
drug cartels from trying to root out informants in their ranks.
You know, try by through doing a FOIA freedom of
information AGRID question discovering somebody. So the government said, you know,
in that law that unless they first officially confirmed somebody
as an informant, they don't have to release anything, they
don't have to admit anything. They can lie about it.
(09:11):
And that's what they did until it didn't work anymore,
and then they had to admit in court that hey,
this is what we were doing. He was an informant.
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 eighteen years and is
the foundation for the book.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Was it almost like they were kind of abusing that
we felt they did.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean we felt that they, you know, this
law was set up for a certain purpose to you know,
to keep these you know, drug cartels where you know,
their whole business is murder and whatnot, you know, and
that's what it was set up for. And we felt
that they were hiding this whole these political informants from
the sixties and seventies period where all they had all
(09:51):
these insidious political investigations going on.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And what's fascinating about this book is that in this work,
we're learning worries concurrently, both the legal fight that that
you and your team at the paper had to had
to go into against the FBI, as well as Ernest
Withers as a human being.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Well. Ernest. Ernest was born and raised in Memphis, and
he was he fought in World War Two in the
Pacific Theater. And actually that's where he learned to become
a photographer. He he was he was trained with the
Army photography school there and started shooting out in the Pacific,
shooting pictures of h of servicemen, you know, and they'd
sell them, you know, for two dollars apiece, or trade
(10:33):
a canna beer, you know, to get more film to
shoot more pictures. He really learned that that the trade there.
And when he came back to Memphis, of course, he
wants to start out in a business and he launches
a small studio there and he starts shooting pictures documenting
life in the African American community in Memphis. And he
goes shoots the Negro League's baseball games, you know, the
(10:54):
Memphis Red Sox, and he meets a lot of you know,
big stars, Satchel Page, you know, and and and Jackie Robbinson,
all these these guys who went on to become you know,
huge in America. He knew you before nobody, nobody knew
them well.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And he couldn't get access to a lot of the
white versions of what he was photographing at that time.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
And absolutely not right. I mean, you know, it was segregated.
Memphis was, you know, like the rest of the South
was segregated at that time. But you know, Ernest was
very enterprising. So he opens a studio on Beal Street.
At the same time that he you know, this is
the late forties, he also became one of the first
African American police officers for the city of Memphis. They
had a lot of police brutality in that town and
(11:34):
they still do to this day. But that was kind
of the the impetus for the city decided we need
to recruit some black officers because they would have better
rapport with a lot of the citizens. In Ernest was
becoming one of the you know, in that first recruit
class nineteen forty eight. He's one of what they called
the original nine. And so he's working all these jobs.
He's working a beat a beat down on Beal Street,
(11:55):
as a cop, you know, and at night he's down
on Beal Street hustling foe, you know, taking pictures of
BB King and Howling Wolf and others who you know again,
you know, they would become household names, but back then
they were just guys on Beal Street playing, you know,
playing down there, and he would sell pictures to tourists
and fans and whatnot. He wound up that the police
(12:17):
thing didn't work out for him. I mean, he got
hooked up in the city's you know corruption, there's a
lot of corruption in the police department. Was he was
working with a bootlegger selling selling whiskey, was petty, petty corruption.
Wound up losing his job. But I mean that really
was the best thing that ever happened to him, because
you know that nineteen fifty one he starts going to
(12:37):
work for as a freelancer for the Tri State Defender,
which was the satellite operation for the Chicago Defender. And
after a few years, all things start happening. I mean,
the civil rights movement starts blossoming, you know, and at
till Is killed down in Mississippi, and he goes down
and covers that, and you know, then there's the Montgomery
bus boycott. He's covering that too, So his career, you know,
(12:59):
just really mirrored what was going on at that time.
It was perfect timing, and he always had that perfect
timing the access and everything.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
As we're tracing the evolution of his career, his multiple careers,
we do see that corruption is a larger theme or
overarching and when we're looking at the beginning of his
involvement with the FBI, it seems that it may have
(13:37):
started around nineteen fifty eight or so.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
It did, yeah, I mean the first records in his
file that show him cooperating with the FBI were from
nineteen fifty eight. It's very sketchy about that three year
period about what he was doing at that time. But
the very first incident that we know of that he
acted in an informant role is in Little Rock, Arkansas,
(14:00):
during the aftermath of the school crisis. There he comes
into the field office with Simeon Booker. This is very
interesting because these were still the movement's early days. Simon
Booker is a huge journalist. He worked for Jet magazine.
You know, he just recently passed away. But Ernest through
you know, working with a Defender and Jet Magazine got
to know Simon and really trailed him, you know, throughout
(14:22):
the South, and the two of them come into the
field office there and they're they're informing on James Foreman,
you know, another movement icon, you know, and back at
that time, James Foreman was just a school teacher who
in the time part time that he had would come
down and start showing up at all these civil rights skirmishes.
And of course the FBI, which is picking up this
(14:42):
and he's showing up on the radar, is you know,
views him very dimly. He's associated with people with you know,
communist credentials. He's viewed as a suspected communist. They're very suspicious.
So Simeon Booker and Withers are they're kicking back information
about you know, they're dim view of James Foruman and uh.
(15:03):
But you know, Booker had his own controversy as an informer.
I mean, he was never paid, but he had a
relationship with the FBI. And he explained that when he
was interviewed by the Washington Post late in his life
and said that that you know, back in those days
and when I went down South, I wanted to come
back alive, and he very much feared the local yocles
down there, you know, the police departments, they were racist,
(15:25):
you know, But the FBI had a little bit different reputation.
I mean, this was the before all this stuff came
out about Hoover and how he tried to destroy King
and really you know, tried to tried to infiltrate the
movement as he did. And so, you know, Booker looked
at the FBI as a friend, as an ally, and
he did some puff pieces for them, you know, and
(15:46):
they they helped him out at times. There's no evidence
that I know of that he ever named names like
some like you know, Ernest eventually got into but it
really seems, you know, the best, the best information is
that that relationship was initially cultivated somehow through Simon Booker.
Ernest gets this idea that these are good guys. Sketchy
(16:09):
from what he was doing fifty eight to sixty one,
but in nineteen sixty one, the whole landscape down their changes.
In Memphis, you have what they call the tent city
operations where in the metro area, their rural Fayette County,
all these sharecroppers were trying to register to vote and
they were being kicked off their land for doing that.
(16:30):
And so they they start living in these encampments kind
of like an Oakie encampment where they're living in tents,
and all these relief agencies from the north start coming
into a system. The Congress und Racial Equality was one
of them. Again, the FBI saying, wait a minute. You know,
they're looking at these guys outside agitators, people with left credentials, communists.
(16:51):
They want to know who these guys are. They want
to monitor them. And so and Ernest is out there
shooting pictures. So Bill Lawrence, the FBI agent who ran
the domestic intelligence operations in Memphis for the better part
of a quarter century, they start crossing paths and they
start a relationship and hit it off pretty famously. They
(17:13):
had a lot in common. I mean, Lawrence was you know, religious,
he was he was raised Baptists. Withers was raised Baptist.
They both liked music. Lawrence, Bill Lawrence had a huge
jazz collection, you know, records, and so he would use
that as a as a tool in his trade to
you know, build rapport with people. He recruited a member
(17:35):
of the NCAA leadership in Memphis because of that relationship.
They both had big jazz collector. They'd swapped records back
and forth. So he was a Lawrence was a guy
who could, who could really he had a big personality,
affable guy, very much like Withers, you know. Uh, he
knew how to work it. And and these guys hit
it off. And so they're they're starting to send Ernest
out to the tense city operations. At the same time
(17:57):
nineteen sixty one, Freedom Writer are starting to come home.
They're coming back from Jackson and whatnot. And some of
these guys don't fit the the old school mold. I
mean they're they're more militant. I mean, they're not militant
and the think of the sense of the late sixties,
you know, black power and that. But these guys are
more into direct action kind of you know, we're not
going to wait, We're not going to let you resolve
(18:19):
this through the slow wheels of justice in court. We
want it now kind of thing. And they were very
the FBI, very suspicious that sort of thing. But Ernest,
because he'd been a beat cop for all those years,
a studio photographer, freelance news and he knew all these
people and he could. He that's a great thing that
he could do. He could he could tell them who
they were. He knew their relatives, he could tell the
home addresses. As they were building these dossier's, you know,
(18:41):
he could get an identification picture because he was a photographer.
He was very valuable to them. And you know, at
the same time, nineteen sixty one, the Nation of Islam
starts appearing in rural the rural South and really makes
its first appearance in Memphis. They open a mosque on
Beal Street, and you know, the FBI, course they're intent
is up on them too, very suspicious, and again, Ernest
(19:01):
he knows them all. He actually, you know, goes into
their operations and takes you know, what are posed portraits
and they you know, gives them to the FBI. The
FBI cuts up all the portraits, so they start building
these dossiers where they're they're cutting the individual individual images
into face shots that are you know, then you know
(19:22):
they're building all these dossiers. So he was immensely helpful
to him. And you know, Lawrence knew he had a
good thing from the very get go.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
You mentioned one of the first pieces of evidence that
you came across was this code number that he had,
and I believe you said initially it was three thirty
eight R, right, But then he kind of got upgraded,
right or not maybe to upgrade with a different type
of informant are being He was meant to be like
a racial informant.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
So you know, the the R was for designated a
racial informant. And there's kind of a lot of you know,
arcane history and all that. But initially, when Lawrence got
ahold of him, he wanted to make him a confidential informant.
His ernest's history has with the Memphis Police Department came
back to haunt him at that point, because you know,
(20:06):
anybody who becomes a paid informant for the FBI has
to be approved by Washington, and so the Memphis Field
Office is trying to get approval there, and Lawrence senses
some hesitancy. You know, he goes to interview the police
chief of the Memphis Police and J. C.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
MacDonald.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
He had a very dim view of whether its game
a really bad recommendation. So Lawrence kind of hedges it
and he says, you know, we're not going to make
him a confidential informant at this time. But he has
so much information in what they call racial matters in
the racial field that he made him a potential confidential informant,
was a kind of a probationary status that they kept
him in for two years, which is a long time
(20:46):
to be a PCI. And would you know, it was
kind of a dubious situation because you know, they would
they would direct him going out into the field. But
a couple of years later, you know, the movement in
Memphis is really slow than through the mid to late sixties,
and so they downgraded Ernest at that time to a
confidential source, which is kind of like a reference desk
(21:07):
kind of guy like that.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
I was just okaying, So not.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
The same deal as police officers getting street informants. A
much more significant vetting process and you have to meet
a certain criteria.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
They didn't want the control from the FBI. The bureau
would be looking over their shoulder, and he wanted to
be able to use Withers, you know, it has some
freedom to use him. And so when he he met
for about four years, they made him a confidential source,
which is sort of a lesser informant, but he was
doing kind of the really the same same thing for
them for four years was kind of like you the
(21:41):
answer man in the in the black community for them.
And then finally he didn't get the code number E
three thirty eight R until nineteen sixty seven. And by then,
you know, you had the unrest is really blossoming through
the country. You know, you had the riots and Watts
and then and then Newerk in Detroit, and the government
is really really paranoid at that point, and they started
(22:04):
something called the Ghetto Informant Program and they swung Ernest
into that game.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
The code number.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
He worked under that code number for about four years
and then they tweaked it in nineteen seventy one. He
became ME three thirty eight E for Extremist Informant and
had a lot of his investigations at that point were
focused pretty much on black power. But you know, what
they considered extremist. Although you know what they considered extremists.
You know, we we just probably look at somebody who's
(22:30):
just an activist, who's you know, trying to trying to
stand up for civil rights.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And one important point to establish about Lawrence's background here,
which you provide in the context of the relationship with
Withers is that Lawrence is in his later forties right
when this begins, and he's already made his name, yes,
busting communist threats specifically right, and it seems that one
(22:56):
of his primary motivating factors is the fear on the
part of the Bureau that these groups that fuel disenfranchised
or left out would swing to the communist's sides.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Absolutely absolutely, And that was the thing is that the FBI,
you know, Bill Lawrence was very much a cold warrior.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
I mean his his career.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
He cut his teeth right after he got in the
bureau right after World War Two, you know, in the
late forties, you know, when when when the Chinese and
the Soviets get the atomic bomb like forty nine, and
that this is when he's really going at it an
internal security and in the early fifties, they they just
eviscerate the Communist party in Memphis. James Eastland, the well
(23:39):
known segregationist senator from Mississippi, had hearings in Memphis and
his work product was largely Bill Lawrence's investigations. And they,
you know, ran all these communists out of town, people
who are involved in the labor movement there Lawrence and
arrest Junius Scales, who you know, was a Communist Party
leader down there was a very famous case. He's he's
(24:02):
seen viewed today as the only man to go to
prison for being simply for being a member of the
Communist Party or a political party. I mean, they prosecuted
him under the Smith Act. But there was all this
paranoia and in Memphis, is in a lot of places
across the country, the FBI went hard after the FBI,
and they basically wiped them out. And so, you know,
(24:23):
by the time the sixties come around and there's you
know that the movement, the civil rights moment starts blossoming.
They're they're very much worried about communist influences, you know,
and a lot of this stuff is like red baiting.
You know, this really a version of racism. You know that,
you know, you guys are troublemakers, agitators. A lot of
this trickled down from the top from Hoover. You know
that anybody who was involved in that sort of thing
(24:44):
what had to be some kind of communists. And so
they went after these these outside agitators, these groups very zealously.
They wanted they wanted to contain them, they wanted to
you know, keep them, keep them from influencing the movement there.
And the thing too, the n double ACP in Memphis,
so that they did a lot of good work, you know,
on behalf of civil rights on the whole. They were
(25:07):
pretty conservative organization. They they wanted to move slowly and cautiously.
They believed in litigating in court to get your rights
versus you know, kind of the Martin Luther King thing
of direct action, getting in the street, the sit ins
and whatnot and protesting and so and he had, you know,
developed good sources within the NAACP leadership. He had at
least three key figures there who were informants who were
(25:29):
kicking back information to him, and they you know, he
would influence them and they wouldn't, you know, try to
go along with a lot of things that you know
that he and the larger society were saying they didn't
go for a lot of this stuff, and they because
they didn't. It was a lot of it was preserving
the status quo they wanted. They thought they were protecting
the country's internal stability by keeping law and order, keeping
(25:51):
things peaceful. You get your rights, but you can get
them later, but you're gonna you're gonna have to slow
walk this wow.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And then the question becomes, what next? Are they successful?
How far did this conflict go in Memphis, Tennessee and
later the United States? We'll find out after a word
from our sponsors, and we're back to focus on the
(26:21):
scene as it's playing out. So Withers is working with Lawrence,
and Lawrence's primary concern is ultimately the rise of communism.
Did Withers share this concern? Was he ideologically motivated to
function as an informant?
Speaker 5 (26:39):
I think he was ideologically motivated, certainly when it came
to the war. I mean him being a World War
Two veteran, and by the time the sixties, you know,
mid sixties, he's heavily invested in the military. He's got
three kids, and the military's got one in the front
lines in Vietnam. So certainly when it came to, you know,
the war, I think he was heavily invested in, invested
(27:00):
in that that ideology. I think a lot of his
motivation came from the need for money. I mean, he
had eight kids, he was always hustling up a living.
He could never really make it out of the kind
of the middle lower middle class life that he had,
so that was a big factor for him as well,
and ideologically too. Again he was a Memphis man and
(27:24):
the influence of the NAACP was great. They didn't go
for a lot of this confrontational stuff, you know, the
agitators that those are the folks that were really viewed suspiciously.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
You do mention the financial motivation, which I think Noel,
Matt and I collectively found very interesting. As as you
established earlier, many of the informants were unpaid, right right,
and Withers himself is an exception to this rule. And
you were actually able to discover the total amount of
(27:54):
money that he received his compensation.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Is that correct? That's right.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Well, the reason we did that is because I made
sure that when we saw with the FBI, they stipulated
how much he got paid. Because the thing was is
that when we did this deal, they said they wanted
to save face. They did not want to have to
reach into an informant file and bring out informant records
that would show things like how much he got paid,
how he's recruited, you know, how he was directed and
(28:17):
what not.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Well, the other informants are going to want to get
paid the.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Same well, yeah, right, I mean there's I guess there's
you know, a negotiation thing issue there, but but yeah,
I'm so we stipulated in there that they would tell
us the amount, and what it was was twenty thousand
dollars over those eighteen years. Now, that doesn't sound like
a whole lot of money, but when you think about it,
you got to think about inflation. You know, that money
(28:40):
today would be about one hundred and forty or one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So if he's getting paid
that kind of money over eighteen years, that's about maybe
six to eight thousand dollars a year. I mean, that
would get you. That would put food on the table,
You got eight kids to feed, You get gas for
your vehicles, and help you pay him mortgage. I mean,
it's nothing to sneeze at. So the financial thing, I
think weighs into this heavily more so than the ideological part.
(29:06):
And as a matter of fact, my initial source told
me point blank and his view, he said, Ernest was
in it for the money.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
But I mean, you know, given the situation with his
career as a police officer, he obviously didn't have scruples
about you know, doing things under the table, or doing
things that weren't necessarily legal.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Right well.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
I mean the thing too is that, you know, I
try not to judge Ernest. I mean, he was a
man of his times. That police department was very corrupt,
and there were a lot of guys who were doing
the same sorts of thing, And there's a strong arrient
to be made that they rooted him out because he
was black. I think racism does play a role in
into it, although I don't think it excuses him in
that regard. But yeah, I mean there was a lot
of corruption in Memphis.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Still is, and the extent of his work with Lawrence
and the FBI was not the kind of James Bond
stuff we would imagine with a secret agent. It was,
as we said, it was almost entirely surveillance and reporting.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Is that correct? Right well?
Speaker 5 (30:03):
I mean a lot of people think, you know, when
somebody's an informant, they think, you know, somebody covertly working undercover,
playing a role infiltrating a criminal organization, which is kind
of the classic you know informant that you'd have. These
operations didn't work like that. I mean, he was an
intelligence informant and what they were trying to do. I mean,
the FBI, they weren't trying to prosecute most of these
(30:26):
people because they couldn't. They'd had their wings clipped in
so many rulings that you know, a lot of these
operations were actually technically illegal, you know, especially when you
get into the co intel pro stuff. They never had
authorization from Congress or any law or anything.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
They just did it.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
But you know what these intelligence informants would do, they
were trying to collect wide swaths of personal and political
information that the FBI could use to monitor people, to
help contain them, and sometimes to act against them. And
so that's what he was doing. He had no need
to be you know, cloak and dag or undercover. All
the all Ernest had to do was be earnest to
(31:00):
get the information they needed because he had incredible access.
He'd show up with his cameras. Everybody let him in,
whether it was meetings, marches, and beloved right, and it
was he still is beloved, and you know, and if
I haven't said this yet, I should. I mean, he
is a legitimate civil rights hero. I've said this many times.
I don't think anything he did for the FBI eclipses
(31:21):
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. But I do
think this hidden history rivals what he was doing. I mean,
it's it's a history that's very instructive for you know, us,
if you know, if we want to live in a
true democracy. You know, a lot of stuff that they
were doing, building files on people, it was it really
was crazy stuff. I mean it was a lot of
(31:43):
it was illegal.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, 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 you just imagine Earnest being
in there and just that close with him at all
times as much as possible.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
He was.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
He was very trusted.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
You know. I do think that the connection between Ernest
and Martin Luther King has been hyped a bit. Yeah,
you know, King was you know, based in Atlanta and
Withers was in Memphis. King didn't come to Memphis a
whole lot, and Withers was an informant for Bill Lawrence
in the Memphis Field office. So even though you know
(32:23):
he would go out to these various civil rights events.
It would take him down into Alabama and Mississippi, Arkansas,
you know, kind of a lot of places, but the
bulk of his operations was right there in Memphis, and
so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity. King came
to Memphis, you know, in the late fifties. He came
there in nineteen sixty six for the March Against Fear,
(32:45):
and then he came there three times in the spring
of nineteen sixty eight. So you know, even that said,
I mean, yeah, I mean King's staff loved Ernest every
time they came there that you know, he and Ernest
had that big personality.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
I mean, he would.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Joke and they really liked him, trusted him. You know,
I mentioned in these pictures that you're talking about, you know,
you know who could have got pictures like that exactly?
You know, you know, doctor King, you know, just relaxing
totally on his bed and not seemingly not a care
in the world. You know, it's they really are amazing pictures.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Now, Withers had over the course of his work with
the FBI several we'd call him close calls, right, yeah, yeah,
and one of the questions that we had was a
what if scenario? What would have happened had he been
caught or exposed, Because in the book, there are several
instances where someone hears him talking on the phone to
(33:39):
someone yes, or where activists who have been questioned or
targeted by the FBI come to him and say what's
going on? So, what would have happened had the had
he reached that jiggers up situation?
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Well, if it had happened, I think in in the
the heat of nineteen sixty eight, during the volatile sanitation strike,
I think that he quite possibly could have his reputation
could have been severely damaged, and I think he would
have been viewed quite possibly as a trader at that point.
You know, there were a number of people were who
(34:14):
were working with the Memphis Police Department, which worked close,
very closely with the FBI. There and a lot of
these investigations and they were found out and you know,
there's a report of one instance where an officer who's
there undercover is literally dragged up onto the stage in
front of all these people. They scrip him of his
gun and his mace can and they basically were going
(34:37):
to you know, rough him up, and it was only
because some women came and intervened that that they let
him go. And you know, one of one of the
big pastors there, h t Raelph Jackson, who became a
movement leader during the sanitation strike. You know, at one
point during the strike, there were so many so much
pressure to you know, from the police to provide information.
(34:57):
He's there the pulpit and you know, in the crowd
and he's telling him if there are any police ninchers here,
he says, I won't stop you from being beaten up.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
They're just tired of all this, you know. So I
think that Ernest things could have been much different for
him had this come out at that time. It's interesting
he did have a number of close calls. I do
think some people did find out in various ways they
knew this and that and whatnot.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
You know, he was called to.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Testify before Congress in secret in nineteen seventy eight when
they're reinvestigating Martin Luther King's murder, and that was another
close call. That was probably the biggest closest.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Call of all.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
And they when you read these reports, the public reports,
they never refer to Ernest by name, but they do
say that they asked him if he would be willing
to go public and he didn't want to do it.
Interesting too, That was around November of nineteen seventy eight.
In January of nineteen seventy nine, Ernest is indicted in
(35:56):
Memphis as part of this clemency for cash scandal. I mean,
he's into this huge corruption scandal up to his eyeballs
where the you know, the very corrupt regime, the Ray
Blanton administration. They're letting inmates out of prison for cash murders, robbers.
He'd paid ten twenty thousand, as much as eighty thousand
dollars a year out on the street. Was it was,
you know, he's indicted in all of that. His defense
(36:19):
attorney I interviewed him. He didn't know that Ernest was
an informant, and he told me, you.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Know, wow, I could have really used that. I think
I could have.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
Even though Ernest got a great deal there, he wound
up he turned state's evidence and wound up testifying in
two trials and they gave him one year for extortion
with six months suspended.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
He got a hell of a deal, but he could
have got I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
If I can say that, yeah, yeah, please, he got
a hell of a deal, but he could have gotten
off maybe completely. But you know, why didn't he tell
his own defense attorney? That's an interesting question. I think
he was still you know, the heat of that, you know,
so close to that being called to Congress, to Washington
and nineteen November nineteen seventy eight, this is just months later.
(37:02):
I think it just unnerved him to the point where
he didn't feel he could say anything.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, and in your book you say that his last
report to the FBI had only occurred a few years
prior to that.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah, I think it was seventy four, seventy five.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I mean, he's still pretty close to the people that
he's just been informing on, and at this point he's
informing on the Black Panthers, on a lot of some
of the more militant groups.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
And you think he was in danger of bodily harm, I.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Mean, quite possibly, although you know, I think Hoover and
the FBI really hyped that the threat of black power
and in in Memphis too, because I mean they did
have a small contingent of Black Panthers there, but they
were no threat to anybody's public safety. What they were
doing was they were they tried to start a breakfast
(37:49):
program for poor children, and they were trying to put
awareness on sickle cell anemia. At one point in the
early seventies, by one of the FBI reports, there are
like seven people in this black panther, yeah unit, and
one of them's earnest. They list the names, and one
of them's Earnest, and the other is an undercover cop
for the Memphis Police Department. So and you know, it's
(38:12):
interesting too there, Okay, they weren't. Their reputation was much
more threatening than what they actually were.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
But they took.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
This thing very seriously. And it's interesting too that Ernest
at one point takes pictures at the instruction of the
FBI of the outside of their headquarters, their home. It's
a two frame house. This one picture shot way across
and kind of through branches, and it's kind of, you know, sick,
secretive and mysterious looking. And then he gets a picture
of the front door and goes around and gets a
(38:41):
picture of the back door, and you know, it's quite
clearly they're trying to identify the points of ingress and
egress out of this place in the contingency that they
might have to raid this place. And they also get
information from Earnest about what weapons are inside. And so
what he tells him is there's a twenty two pistol
next to the bed, and there's a shotgun. You know,
kind of just the kind of the weapons that an
average Memphion or you know, Southerner would have, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
But like who's sleeping in which rooms? Which room has
the gun? Like it's exactly what you would need to
enter that home.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Absolutely, And it's interesting too, you know, that could have
been a huge fiasco because if you know the story
of Fred Hampton, remember the Black Panther party in Chicago,
who a lot of people believe was a police murder
of him. You know, they had a bureau informant sketch
out the layout of that apartment and the police come
in the middle of the night and shoot like the
scores around through there and kill them. I mean, I mean,
(39:32):
who knows, maybe something like that could have happened here.
But it's kind of a very similar situation.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yes, So let's let's look at some of the aftermath
with with this, with this report. When you when you
release the initial story, when the story first breaks, How
did people react both in the Memphis community where Withers is.
(39:58):
I believe, as you established, he has street named after him.
He's got a blue note, he's got he's got.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
A Blues note on Beale Street, which is the equivalent
of the Hollywood Star. He's got a building named after him.
This is twenty ten. He's got a street named after him.
Since then, he's got a museum, and he's got a
historical marker outside his home.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
And what was the reaction both in today's activist community
with withers surviving relatives and with Memphis at large.
Speaker 5 (40:28):
Well, I mean there was a lot of disbelief ernest
family and a circle of followers. Initially it was said that,
you know, I made this up. That position has morphed
over time as more information has come out. At one
time it was said that, you know, the FBI might
have called him an informant, but all he did was
sell pictures to the FBI, just like he did a
(40:48):
lot of clients.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Which is not in and of itself illegal.
Speaker 5 (40:52):
No it's not, and it is something that he did.
The thing is that he did a lot more than
just that. I mean, he was given him a lot
of oral intel and really infiltrating a lot of these groups.
But yeah, I mean there was a whole spectrum of reaction.
Dick Gregory, the famous comedian activist you know, labeled Ernest
judas that's what he called them. He said he betrayed
the movement. That was a rather harsh critique, judged the
(41:15):
Army Bailey, another longtime civil rights activists he's also passed on,
did feel that Ernest betrayed the movement. But then you
had people like Andrew Young, who you know, said that
you know, look, we were a transparent movement. You know,
he really couldn't hurt us in any way. I don't
see what the harm is of that. I don't think
doctor King would have, you know, found anything wrong with that.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
But you can't deny that he ruined some people's lives.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
Well that's the thing that he got that. That's the
thing is that the individual abuses. And that's why, you know,
when Congress, you know, when the Church Committee in the
nineteen seventies looked at a lot of these operations, I
mean they found just rife with abuse. I mean, the
thing is is that they were collecting data on people
who weren't doing anything illegal. They were standing up, you know,
marching in the street, exercising First Amendment rights, standing up
(41:59):
again the Vietnam War, you know, standing up against Jim Crow.
And but they were treated as enemies and all this
personal data. You know, one of the things that Ernest
did is he'd give them auto tag numbers, he'd give
them phone numbers, and the FBI would use those to
do warrantless searches of targets, you know, phone records they'd
(42:19):
go through. They'd have a source at the phone department
and they'd go and you know, get them find out
who they're toll charges or who they're talking to, because
they want to figure out who their associates were.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
On and on.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
And there were a number of incidents like that that
would the FBI very strongly in Memphis in the late
sixties tried to undercut the Black Power movement. And it's
very similar and the way they went about it to
the whole McCarthyism era of the fifties in that they
went after sympathizers, supporters, associates in addition to the actual
(42:51):
activists and so and again people got hurt in that
there was there was there's a man who actually is
going to be speaking with me tonight. Bobby Doctor, who
was a longtime activist in the movement, who by the
late sixties was working for the US Civil Rights Commission
as a field representative in Memphis. He went on to
become the Southeast Regional director here in Atlanta, where he
(43:12):
worked for the organization for more than forty years, but
early on he nearly lost his job because of these
FBI investigations. And Withers played a role in that. I mean,
he was deemed somebody, you know, Withers and other informers
kick backed information that hey, look this guy, he's he's
at some Black Power oriented meetings. He's he's at social
gatherings with these with these activists. And at one point
(43:34):
Ernest even passed on a picture. He tells his handler,
Bill Lawrence, you know, I was covering this march and
Bobby Doctor was there, and he was holding hands with
this woman, you know, and Bobby's married and the women's married,
but they ain't married to each other, and so in Lawrence,
so I got to have the picture. He got the picture,
and you know, of course he puts it all in
the report, and so you know they're trying to undercut him.
(43:55):
He had a colleague there, Rosetta Miller, same kind of thing.
Withers gives some pictures, passes on rumors about her, and
tells them that she's the kind who will give aid
and comfort. Is how Laurence paraphrases Withers will give aid
and comfort to the Black Powa groups. So that's the
thing about this that I think Andrew Young in a
bless his heart didn't consider when he thinks, you know
(44:16):
that these were so innocent and what would it matter
to a transparent movement. It matters because they were going
after certain individuals and they were trying to hurt them.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Mark.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
It's one of our great regrets that we don't have
more time today for this interview, but we do want
to close on a note that we know our listeners
are going to be asking. You mentioned the surveillance techniques
of the sixties and into the seventies in the book.
(44:50):
How would you say government surveillance is different or similar today, because,
as many of our listeners know, Cohen Telpro is over.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah for sure, yep.
Speaker 5 (45:01):
Well, you know the hearings out of the seventies, they
you know, they talked about a lot of reform, and
the FBI, you know, when all this stuff came out,
reeled in these investigations. They had like something like at
one point, you know, fifty thousand different domestic intelligence operations
going on of American citizens and you know, in the
mid to early seventies and by seventy seven they're down
(45:22):
to virtually zero. So they really tried to reform the program,
you know, in the years that have passed since, you know,
they tried to focus more on actual crimes, terrorism, whatnot.
You know, you have, you get information, you do a
preliminary investigation, and then if that, you know, if there's
more probable cause, you launch a more full field investigation.
You know, there are a lot of people to this
(45:44):
day who believe, you know, like I think you've mentioned,
who don't really believe that they were also in you know, reformed.
In Memphis recently, there was a lawsuit filed on behalf
of a various Black Lives Matter activists.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
They are getting.
Speaker 5 (46:03):
Indications that the same sort of thing is going on today.
And it's interesting in Memphis because you know, the Bill
Lawrence helped set up the Memphis Police Department's Red Squad
there the Domestic Intelligence Unit. They worked very closely together,
and in the mid seventies, the ACLU filed a suit.
They found out that they were gathering all this political
intelligence and got a landmark decision, a consent decree that forever,
(46:26):
you know, forbids the Memphis Police Department from conducting illegal
political surveillance. Some people think it's still going on, and
it's kind of interesting that I wrote a story about,
you know, shortly after I did the first Ernest Withers
stories about that consent degree, and I asked the police
department for their manuals and their procedure manual, and in
(46:47):
it there was no mention of this consent decree, and
so then they didn't even know what I was talking about.
They very quickly amended that and put it in there.
You know, It's just but you know, there's a lot
of people who think this sort of thing is going
on today, and this is what this suit in Memphis
last year was filed about. There were several individuals who
were put on a blacklist where they said, like several
of them were Black Lives Matters activists and others who
(47:10):
are politically active in in town there and the list said,
if these individuals show up to city Hall, they're going
to need an escort. Well, how do you know who
these guys are unless you've done some addresses and whatnot
and you know what they've been doing. This is the
kind of thing that people think, you know, there's these
secret operations to some degree are still going on.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
It.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Sure, it feels like full circle to me in terms
of the political climate that we're in right now compared
to you know, the period described in your book.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Well, you know, the sixties was a period of high
paranoia and polarization, and I mean, yeah, I mean we
have a lot of that here today too. And you know,
it's been said that it was so easy for certain informants,
perhaps in earnest too, you know, to do what they did,
for the government to do, to go after these individuals
so strongly, because there was very much this we versus
(47:59):
they they mentality. You know that they're the bad guys,
they're evil, you know, they're they're communists controlled, which is
a big thing you've seen in a lot of these
FBI reports, particularly when it comes to the war.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
So yeah, I mean, I think.
Speaker 5 (48:10):
Periods like this, you know, they're right for abuse and
this is why I think there's this need to be
ever vigilant on these matters.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Well, guys, I'm afraid we're not going to be able
to hit everything in this book. But the good thing
is all you have to do is pick it up
recommend doing so. Honestly, the three of us have read
A Spy in Canaan by Mark Periskia and honestly would
highly recommend it because the events in the book actually
paint such a vivid story of surveillance by the FBI
(48:42):
on people who are just trying to express themselves with
our constitutional rights.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yes, friends and neighbors, the book is A Spy in Canaan. Mark.
Thank you again so very much for coming on our show,
and we hope, if possible, we could interview you in
the future as things develop.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
I'd love to do it. That's all for us.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of The best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. If you
don't want to do that, you can send us a
good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Now this is a deep cut. Our classic today is
about a civil rights hero that has an entirely different
story behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah, I kind of don't want to spoil any of it.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yeah, it's kind of better that you just go in
cold or knowing what you already know and let us
sort of add a little more depth to the story
of mister Ernest Withers.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
In an interview with an amazing person, Mark Periskia, that
we spoke with about this. If it's worth your time,
we hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We are joined with our super producer Casey Pegram today.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. We'd
like to start today's episode with a quote.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Men may be without restraints upon their liberty. They must
pass to and fro at pleasure, but if their steps
are tracked by spies and informers, their words noted down
for crimination, their associates watched as conspirators. Who shall say
that they are free? And that's a quote from Thomas
Erskine May from the work Constitutional History of England.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And you may be wondering, friends and neighbors, why we're
opening today's episode with this quotation. Today, you see, we're
delving into a story of deception, of subterfuge, the struggle
for equality, the ethical dilemmas of espionage, and the life
of one Earnest Columbus Withers Senior.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Withers was born on August seventh, nineteen twenty two. I
spent sixty years of his life working as a photojournalist,
docum mensing the African American experience in the American South,
with the most well known work occurring during the Civil
Rights movement, and over the course of his career he
took some of the most iconic photographs in American history.
These are completely fantastic time and place. They take you
(02:16):
right to it. No one else took photographs quite like this.
He traveled with doctor Martin Luther King and other civil
rights leaders. He was a trusted friend and associate, a
member of the Inner Circle. He even sat in on
strategy meetings.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And after his death in two thousand and seven, his
legacy lived on as newspapers across the country and The
Globe published his work. Today, he is remembered, as an
ol said, as an iconic photographer, a loving family man,
a hometown hero in Memphis, Tennessee, and in a very
real way, the eye of the civil rights movement. It
(02:52):
turns out he was also working in secret for another organization.
This is a story that remained buried and may well
have been lost to history, where not for the efforts
of a veteran Memphis journalist working at the Commercial Appeal.
Through laborious research, Mark Periskia bought this story from the
murky world of domestic intelligence into the light of the
(03:13):
public sphere. And here's the thing, folks, We always, as
you know, want to go directly to the source whenever possible,
and by golly, by gum by gosh, today we succeeded.
We'd like to welcome Mark Periskia to the show. Thank
you for coming, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We're really excited to talk to you about this, not
only for the work alone, but the work that you
do in general. You're an investigative journalist.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Sir, Yeah, there's a few of us still left.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I can't. I mean, that was the path that I
personally wanted to take, but as I was getting through college,
kind of made the realization that it probably won't happen
for me.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Well, you probably made a good, wise career choice there,
because it seems like you got a good thing going
on here.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, honestly, so personally very excited to have you on
the show. And as we all are.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yes here here, 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. A deep dive into the story we
briefly just set up.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Well, it all started back in nineteen ninety seven when
I was covering James Earl Ray's hearings. At that time,
James Earl Ray was the assassin of Martin Luther King Junior.
He was in the last year of his life. He
had liver disease and was trying to get out of prison,
and he was floating all kinds of pleadings in the
criminal court in Shelby County, Tennessee. Conspiracy stories. His lawyer
(04:39):
was coming up with these things, and they actually got
the King family here in Atlanta to endorse many of
these stories, and Dexter King, Martin's younger son, actually came
up and visited Ray in prison, shook his hand and said, you.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Know, we believe you.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
We'll do everything in our power to get you out.
I mean, it was just a very surreal moment. And
the the news traction around this story was just huge,
became an international story. So I got a lot of
latitude from the paper. But at that time, i'd been
there about eight years to really explore some of these
conspiracy stories. And you know, one of the things that
(05:15):
I found is that, I mean a lot of people
think that, you know, the FBI others had a hand
in killing doctor King, but that really wasn't the case.
I mean, they were definitely trying to destroy him politically,
but Ray shot him. And but it was in exploring
these stories that I started interviewing former police officers in Memphis,
former FBI men, military intelligence. And I ran into this
(05:37):
agent in Memphis, former a retired agent who told me,
you know, giving me the background about what was going
on when doctor King was in Memphis at that time.
And you know, he said I had asked him if
they ever did electronic surveillance on King there, and he said, no,
we had no need to do that, and he said
we had a great informant coverage. And it was in
this context that he mentioned that Ernest Withers had been
(05:59):
an informed for the FBI, which, you know, when he
told me, that kind of blew me away in the beginning,
because you know, Wow, Withers, you know, he's so closely
identified with the movement, you know, as you said, kind
of the eye of the movement, and it was pretty startling.
The agent never wanted to go on the record, he said,
he denied if I if I ever wrote that. So
(06:20):
I just kind of let it alone. You know, there's
in the news business, there's a lot of things that
wind up on the cutting room floor. I moved on
when it back into covering a lot of political corruption,
which was rife in Memphis at that time. It was
only years later, after Ernest died that I filed a
Freedom of Information Act request and in the process of
(06:40):
getting records back, I found that the FBI had left
his code number ME three thirty eight R, which is
a unique identifier in the In FBI jargon, they call
it a source symbol number. But it said in a report,
a background report on him from nineteen seventy seven, that
he had been formally identified designated as ME three thirty
(07:02):
eight R. And so it was a kind of a
Eureka moment, you know, like, you know, Wow, this is
true what this guy was telling me before. And so
but trying to figure out how what do I do
with that, you know, because it really didn't tell you
much of anything. I got more records from the FBI
that had been released from the from in the Night
late nineteen seventies, covering that sixties period in Memphis, and
(07:24):
I found that they made the same mistake over and
over again again. You know that with that sore symbol
number being a unique identifier, you could say you substitute
in Ernest Wither's name and say that he did X,
Y and Z for the FBI. So I did some
initial stories, and then I met the daughter of the
agent who had ran Withers William H. Lawrence, and she
(07:48):
and he was he was dead by then, but she
had saved a number of his records that she found
after actually her mother passed away after her father, and
there were handwritten notes that he had that referred to
Ernest by name, by code number. So I did more
stories and then the newspaper this was a newspaper investigation.
We tried to get his FBI file and they just
(08:09):
totally denied everything and said, you know, wouldn't cooperate. We
sued him in court. They you know, they fought us
for quite a while. In the end we wound up winning,
getting a mediated settlement and they had to pay all
our legal fees. We'd spent like two hundred thousand dollars
pursuing this. Yeah, they relied on a law that allows
them to lie, and they did. They lied about it.
(08:29):
They you know, the law exempts informant records from the
Freedom of Information Act, and they can pretend like certain
records don't even exist. But that would be exclusion to
see as that got right, Yeah, from it was passed
as part of the Anti Drug Abuse Act in nineteen
eighty six under the Reagan administration.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
The whole idea was that was.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
To try to try to keep you know, these corrupt
drug cartels from trying to root out informants in their ranks.
You know, try by through doing a FOIA freedom of
information AGRID question discovering somebody. So the government said, you know,
in that law that unless they first officially confirmed somebody
as an informant, they don't have to release anything, they
don't have to admit anything. They can lie about it.
(09:11):
And that's what they did until it didn't work anymore,
and then they had to admit in court that hey,
this is what we were doing. He was an informant.
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 eighteen years and is
the foundation for the book.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Was it almost like they were kind of abusing that
we felt they did.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean we felt that they, you know, this
law was set up for a certain purpose to you know,
to keep these you know, drug cartels where you know,
their whole business is murder and whatnot, you know, and
that's what it was set up for. And we felt
that they were hiding this whole these political informants from
the sixties and seventies period where all they had all
(09:51):
these insidious political investigations going on.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And what's fascinating about this book is that in this work,
we're learning worries concurrently, both the legal fight that that
you and your team at the paper had to had
to go into against the FBI, as well as Ernest
Withers as a human being.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Well. Ernest. Ernest was born and raised in Memphis, and
he was he fought in World War Two in the
Pacific Theater. And actually that's where he learned to become
a photographer. He he was he was trained with the
Army photography school there and started shooting out in the Pacific,
shooting pictures of h of servicemen, you know, and they'd
sell them, you know, for two dollars apiece, or trade
(10:33):
a canna beer, you know, to get more film to
shoot more pictures. He really learned that that the trade there.
And when he came back to Memphis, of course, he
wants to start out in a business and he launches
a small studio there and he starts shooting pictures documenting
life in the African American community in Memphis. And he
goes shoots the Negro League's baseball games, you know, the
(10:54):
Memphis Red Sox, and he meets a lot of you know,
big stars, Satchel Page, you know, and and and Jackie Robbinson,
all these these guys who went on to become you know,
huge in America. He knew you before nobody, nobody knew
them well.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And he couldn't get access to a lot of the
white versions of what he was photographing at that time.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
And absolutely not right. I mean, you know, it was segregated.
Memphis was, you know, like the rest of the South
was segregated at that time. But you know, Ernest was
very enterprising. So he opens a studio on Beal Street.
At the same time that he you know, this is
the late forties, he also became one of the first
African American police officers for the city of Memphis. They
had a lot of police brutality in that town and
(11:34):
they still do to this day. But that was kind
of the the impetus for the city decided we need
to recruit some black officers because they would have better
rapport with a lot of the citizens. In Ernest was
becoming one of the you know, in that first recruit
class nineteen forty eight. He's one of what they called
the original nine. And so he's working all these jobs.
He's working a beat a beat down on Beal Street,
(11:55):
as a cop, you know, and at night he's down
on Beal Street hustling foe, you know, taking pictures of
BB King and Howling Wolf and others who you know again,
you know, they would become household names, but back then
they were just guys on Beal Street playing, you know,
playing down there, and he would sell pictures to tourists
and fans and whatnot. He wound up that the police
(12:17):
thing didn't work out for him. I mean, he got
hooked up in the city's you know corruption, there's a
lot of corruption in the police department. Was he was
working with a bootlegger selling selling whiskey, was petty, petty corruption.
Wound up losing his job. But I mean that really
was the best thing that ever happened to him, because
you know that nineteen fifty one he starts going to
(12:37):
work for as a freelancer for the Tri State Defender,
which was the satellite operation for the Chicago Defender. And
after a few years, all things start happening. I mean,
the civil rights movement starts blossoming, you know, and at
till Is killed down in Mississippi, and he goes down
and covers that, and you know, then there's the Montgomery
bus boycott. He's covering that too, So his career, you know,
(12:59):
just really mirrored what was going on at that time.
It was perfect timing, and he always had that perfect
timing the access and everything.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
As we're tracing the evolution of his career, his multiple careers,
we do see that corruption is a larger theme or
overarching and when we're looking at the beginning of his
involvement with the FBI, it seems that it may have
(13:37):
started around nineteen fifty eight or so.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
It did, yeah, I mean the first records in his
file that show him cooperating with the FBI were from
nineteen fifty eight. It's very sketchy about that three year
period about what he was doing at that time. But
the very first incident that we know of that he
acted in an informant role is in Little Rock, Arkansas,
(14:00):
during the aftermath of the school crisis. There he comes
into the field office with Simeon Booker. This is very
interesting because these were still the movement's early days. Simon
Booker is a huge journalist. He worked for Jet magazine.
You know, he just recently passed away. But Ernest through
you know, working with a Defender and Jet Magazine got
to know Simon and really trailed him, you know, throughout
(14:22):
the South, and the two of them come into the
field office there and they're they're informing on James Foreman,
you know, another movement icon, you know, and back at
that time, James Foreman was just a school teacher who
in the time part time that he had would come
down and start showing up at all these civil rights skirmishes.
And of course the FBI, which is picking up this
(14:42):
and he's showing up on the radar, is you know,
views him very dimly. He's associated with people with you know,
communist credentials. He's viewed as a suspected communist. They're very suspicious.
So Simeon Booker and Withers are they're kicking back information
about you know, they're dim view of James Foruman and uh.
(15:03):
But you know, Booker had his own controversy as an informer.
I mean, he was never paid, but he had a
relationship with the FBI. And he explained that when he
was interviewed by the Washington Post late in his life
and said that that you know, back in those days
and when I went down South, I wanted to come
back alive, and he very much feared the local yocles
down there, you know, the police departments, they were racist,
(15:25):
you know, But the FBI had a little bit different reputation.
I mean, this was the before all this stuff came
out about Hoover and how he tried to destroy King
and really you know, tried to tried to infiltrate the
movement as he did. And so, you know, Booker looked
at the FBI as a friend, as an ally, and
he did some puff pieces for them, you know, and
(15:46):
they they helped him out at times. There's no evidence
that I know of that he ever named names like
some like you know, Ernest eventually got into but it
really seems, you know, the best, the best information is
that that relationship was initially cultivated somehow through Simon Booker.
Ernest gets this idea that these are good guys. Sketchy
(16:09):
from what he was doing fifty eight to sixty one,
but in nineteen sixty one, the whole landscape down their changes.
In Memphis, you have what they call the tent city
operations where in the metro area, their rural Fayette County,
all these sharecroppers were trying to register to vote and
they were being kicked off their land for doing that.
(16:30):
And so they they start living in these encampments kind
of like an Oakie encampment where they're living in tents,
and all these relief agencies from the north start coming
into a system. The Congress und Racial Equality was one
of them. Again, the FBI saying, wait a minute. You know,
they're looking at these guys outside agitators, people with left credentials, communists.
(16:51):
They want to know who these guys are. They want
to monitor them. And so and Ernest is out there
shooting pictures. So Bill Lawrence, the FBI agent who ran
the domestic intelligence operations in Memphis for the better part
of a quarter century, they start crossing paths and they
start a relationship and hit it off pretty famously. They
(17:13):
had a lot in common. I mean, Lawrence was you know, religious,
he was he was raised Baptists. Withers was raised Baptist.
They both liked music. Lawrence, Bill Lawrence had a huge
jazz collection, you know, records, and so he would use
that as a as a tool in his trade to
you know, build rapport with people. He recruited a member
(17:35):
of the NCAA leadership in Memphis because of that relationship.
They both had big jazz collector. They'd swapped records back
and forth. So he was a Lawrence was a guy
who could, who could really he had a big personality,
affable guy, very much like Withers, you know. Uh, he
knew how to work it. And and these guys hit
it off. And so they're they're starting to send Ernest
out to the tense city operations. At the same time
(17:57):
nineteen sixty one, Freedom Writer are starting to come home.
They're coming back from Jackson and whatnot. And some of
these guys don't fit the the old school mold. I
mean they're they're more militant. I mean, they're not militant
and the think of the sense of the late sixties,
you know, black power and that. But these guys are
more into direct action kind of you know, we're not
going to wait, We're not going to let you resolve
(18:19):
this through the slow wheels of justice in court. We
want it now kind of thing. And they were very
the FBI, very suspicious that sort of thing. But Ernest,
because he'd been a beat cop for all those years,
a studio photographer, freelance news and he knew all these
people and he could. He that's a great thing that
he could do. He could he could tell them who
they were. He knew their relatives, he could tell the
home addresses. As they were building these dossier's, you know,
(18:41):
he could get an identification picture because he was a photographer.
He was very valuable to them. And you know, at
the same time, nineteen sixty one, the Nation of Islam
starts appearing in rural the rural South and really makes
its first appearance in Memphis. They open a mosque on
Beal Street, and you know, the FBI, course they're intent
is up on them too, very suspicious, and again, Ernest
(19:01):
he knows them all. He actually, you know, goes into
their operations and takes you know, what are posed portraits
and they you know, gives them to the FBI. The
FBI cuts up all the portraits, so they start building
these dossiers where they're they're cutting the individual individual images
into face shots that are you know, then you know
(19:22):
they're building all these dossiers. So he was immensely helpful
to him. And you know, Lawrence knew he had a
good thing from the very get go.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
You mentioned one of the first pieces of evidence that
you came across was this code number that he had,
and I believe you said initially it was three thirty
eight R, right, But then he kind of got upgraded,
right or not maybe to upgrade with a different type
of informant are being He was meant to be like
a racial informant.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
So you know, the the R was for designated a
racial informant. And there's kind of a lot of you know,
arcane history and all that. But initially, when Lawrence got
ahold of him, he wanted to make him a confidential informant.
His ernest's history has with the Memphis Police Department came
back to haunt him at that point, because you know,
(20:06):
anybody who becomes a paid informant for the FBI has
to be approved by Washington, and so the Memphis Field
Office is trying to get approval there, and Lawrence senses
some hesitancy. You know, he goes to interview the police
chief of the Memphis Police and J. C.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
MacDonald.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
He had a very dim view of whether its game
a really bad recommendation. So Lawrence kind of hedges it
and he says, you know, we're not going to make
him a confidential informant at this time. But he has
so much information in what they call racial matters in
the racial field that he made him a potential confidential informant,
was a kind of a probationary status that they kept
him in for two years, which is a long time
(20:46):
to be a PCI. And would you know, it was
kind of a dubious situation because you know, they would
they would direct him going out into the field. But
a couple of years later, you know, the movement in
Memphis is really slow than through the mid to late sixties,
and so they downgraded Ernest at that time to a
confidential source, which is kind of like a reference desk
(21:07):
kind of guy like that.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
I was just okaying, So not.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
The same deal as police officers getting street informants. A
much more significant vetting process and you have to meet
a certain criteria.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
They didn't want the control from the FBI. The bureau
would be looking over their shoulder, and he wanted to
be able to use Withers, you know, it has some
freedom to use him. And so when he he met
for about four years, they made him a confidential source,
which is sort of a lesser informant, but he was
doing kind of the really the same same thing for
them for four years was kind of like you the
(21:41):
answer man in the in the black community for them.
And then finally he didn't get the code number E
three thirty eight R until nineteen sixty seven. And by then,
you know, you had the unrest is really blossoming through
the country. You know, you had the riots and Watts
and then and then Newerk in Detroit, and the government
is really really paranoid at that point, and they started
(22:04):
something called the Ghetto Informant Program and they swung Ernest
into that game.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
The code number.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
He worked under that code number for about four years
and then they tweaked it in nineteen seventy one. He
became ME three thirty eight E for Extremist Informant and
had a lot of his investigations at that point were
focused pretty much on black power. But you know, what
they considered extremist. Although you know what they considered extremists.
You know, we we just probably look at somebody who's
(22:30):
just an activist, who's you know, trying to trying to
stand up for civil rights.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And one important point to establish about Lawrence's background here,
which you provide in the context of the relationship with
Withers is that Lawrence is in his later forties right
when this begins, and he's already made his name, yes,
busting communist threats specifically right, and it seems that one
(22:56):
of his primary motivating factors is the fear on the
part of the Bureau that these groups that fuel disenfranchised
or left out would swing to the communist's sides.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Absolutely absolutely, And that was the thing is that the FBI,
you know, Bill Lawrence was very much a cold warrior.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
I mean his his career.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
He cut his teeth right after he got in the
bureau right after World War Two, you know, in the
late forties, you know, when when when the Chinese and
the Soviets get the atomic bomb like forty nine, and
that this is when he's really going at it an
internal security and in the early fifties, they they just
eviscerate the Communist party in Memphis. James Eastland, the well
(23:39):
known segregationist senator from Mississippi, had hearings in Memphis and
his work product was largely Bill Lawrence's investigations. And they,
you know, ran all these communists out of town, people
who are involved in the labor movement there Lawrence and
arrest Junius Scales, who you know, was a Communist Party
leader down there was a very famous case. He's he's
(24:02):
seen viewed today as the only man to go to
prison for being simply for being a member of the
Communist Party or a political party. I mean, they prosecuted
him under the Smith Act. But there was all this
paranoia and in Memphis, is in a lot of places
across the country, the FBI went hard after the FBI,
and they basically wiped them out. And so, you know,
(24:23):
by the time the sixties come around and there's you
know that the movement, the civil rights moment starts blossoming.
They're they're very much worried about communist influences, you know,
and a lot of this stuff is like red baiting.
You know, this really a version of racism. You know that,
you know, you guys are troublemakers, agitators. A lot of
this trickled down from the top from Hoover. You know
that anybody who was involved in that sort of thing
(24:44):
what had to be some kind of communists. And so
they went after these these outside agitators, these groups very zealously.
They wanted they wanted to contain them, they wanted to
you know, keep them, keep them from influencing the movement there.
And the thing too, the n double ACP in Memphis,
so that they did a lot of good work, you know,
on behalf of civil rights on the whole. They were
(25:07):
pretty conservative organization. They they wanted to move slowly and cautiously.
They believed in litigating in court to get your rights
versus you know, kind of the Martin Luther King thing
of direct action, getting in the street, the sit ins
and whatnot and protesting and so and he had, you know,
developed good sources within the NAACP leadership. He had at
least three key figures there who were informants who were
(25:29):
kicking back information to him, and they you know, he
would influence them and they wouldn't, you know, try to
go along with a lot of things that you know
that he and the larger society were saying they didn't
go for a lot of this stuff, and they because
they didn't. It was a lot of it was preserving
the status quo they wanted. They thought they were protecting
the country's internal stability by keeping law and order, keeping
(25:51):
things peaceful. You get your rights, but you can get
them later, but you're gonna you're gonna have to slow
walk this wow.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And then the question becomes, what next? Are they successful?
How far did this conflict go in Memphis, Tennessee and
later the United States? We'll find out after a word
from our sponsors, and we're back to focus on the
(26:21):
scene as it's playing out. So Withers is working with Lawrence,
and Lawrence's primary concern is ultimately the rise of communism.
Did Withers share this concern? Was he ideologically motivated to
function as an informant?
Speaker 5 (26:39):
I think he was ideologically motivated, certainly when it came
to the war. I mean him being a World War
Two veteran, and by the time the sixties, you know,
mid sixties, he's heavily invested in the military. He's got
three kids, and the military's got one in the front
lines in Vietnam. So certainly when it came to, you know,
the war, I think he was heavily invested in, invested
(27:00):
in that that ideology. I think a lot of his
motivation came from the need for money. I mean, he
had eight kids, he was always hustling up a living.
He could never really make it out of the kind
of the middle lower middle class life that he had,
so that was a big factor for him as well,
and ideologically too. Again he was a Memphis man and
(27:24):
the influence of the NAACP was great. They didn't go
for a lot of this confrontational stuff, you know, the
agitators that those are the folks that were really viewed suspiciously.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
You do mention the financial motivation, which I think Noel,
Matt and I collectively found very interesting. As as you
established earlier, many of the informants were unpaid, right right,
and Withers himself is an exception to this rule. And
you were actually able to discover the total amount of
(27:54):
money that he received his compensation.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Is that correct? That's right.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Well, the reason we did that is because I made
sure that when we saw with the FBI, they stipulated
how much he got paid. Because the thing was is
that when we did this deal, they said they wanted
to save face. They did not want to have to
reach into an informant file and bring out informant records
that would show things like how much he got paid,
how he's recruited, you know, how he was directed and
(28:17):
what not.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Well, the other informants are going to want to get
paid the.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Same well, yeah, right, I mean there's I guess there's
you know, a negotiation thing issue there, but but yeah,
I'm so we stipulated in there that they would tell
us the amount, and what it was was twenty thousand
dollars over those eighteen years. Now, that doesn't sound like
a whole lot of money, but when you think about it,
you got to think about inflation. You know, that money
(28:40):
today would be about one hundred and forty or one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So if he's getting paid
that kind of money over eighteen years, that's about maybe
six to eight thousand dollars a year. I mean, that
would get you. That would put food on the table,
You got eight kids to feed, You get gas for
your vehicles, and help you pay him mortgage. I mean,
it's nothing to sneeze at. So the financial thing, I
think weighs into this heavily more so than the ideological part.
(29:06):
And as a matter of fact, my initial source told
me point blank and his view, he said, Ernest was
in it for the money.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
But I mean, you know, given the situation with his
career as a police officer, he obviously didn't have scruples
about you know, doing things under the table, or doing
things that weren't necessarily legal.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Right well.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
I mean the thing too is that, you know, I
try not to judge Ernest. I mean, he was a
man of his times. That police department was very corrupt,
and there were a lot of guys who were doing
the same sorts of thing, And there's a strong arrient
to be made that they rooted him out because he
was black. I think racism does play a role in
into it, although I don't think it excuses him in
that regard. But yeah, I mean there was a lot
of corruption in Memphis.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Still is, and the extent of his work with Lawrence
and the FBI was not the kind of James Bond
stuff we would imagine with a secret agent. It was,
as we said, it was almost entirely surveillance and reporting.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Is that correct? Right well?
Speaker 5 (30:03):
I mean a lot of people think, you know, when
somebody's an informant, they think, you know, somebody covertly working undercover,
playing a role infiltrating a criminal organization, which is kind
of the classic you know informant that you'd have. These
operations didn't work like that. I mean, he was an
intelligence informant and what they were trying to do. I mean,
the FBI, they weren't trying to prosecute most of these
(30:26):
people because they couldn't. They'd had their wings clipped in
so many rulings that you know, a lot of these
operations were actually technically illegal, you know, especially when you
get into the co intel pro stuff. They never had
authorization from Congress or any law or anything.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
They just did it.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
But you know what these intelligence informants would do, they
were trying to collect wide swaths of personal and political
information that the FBI could use to monitor people, to
help contain them, and sometimes to act against them. And
so that's what he was doing. He had no need
to be you know, cloak and dag or undercover. All
the all Ernest had to do was be earnest to
(31:00):
get the information they needed because he had incredible access.
He'd show up with his cameras. Everybody let him in,
whether it was meetings, marches, and beloved right, and it
was he still is beloved, and you know, and if
I haven't said this yet, I should. I mean, he
is a legitimate civil rights hero. I've said this many times.
I don't think anything he did for the FBI eclipses
(31:21):
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. But I do
think this hidden history rivals what he was doing. I mean,
it's it's a history that's very instructive for you know, us,
if you know, if we want to live in a
true democracy. You know, a lot of stuff that they
were doing, building files on people, it was it really
was crazy stuff. I mean it was a lot of
(31:43):
it was illegal.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, 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 you just imagine Earnest being
in there and just that close with him at all
times as much as possible.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
He was.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
He was very trusted.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
You know. I do think that the connection between Ernest
and Martin Luther King has been hyped a bit. Yeah,
you know, King was you know, based in Atlanta and
Withers was in Memphis. King didn't come to Memphis a
whole lot, and Withers was an informant for Bill Lawrence
in the Memphis Field office. So even though you know
(32:23):
he would go out to these various civil rights events.
It would take him down into Alabama and Mississippi, Arkansas,
you know, kind of a lot of places, but the
bulk of his operations was right there in Memphis, and
so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity. King came
to Memphis, you know, in the late fifties. He came
there in nineteen sixty six for the March Against Fear,
(32:45):
and then he came there three times in the spring
of nineteen sixty eight. So you know, even that said,
I mean, yeah, I mean King's staff loved Ernest every
time they came there that you know, he and Ernest
had that big personality.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
I mean, he would.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Joke and they really liked him, trusted him. You know,
I mentioned in these pictures that you're talking about, you know,
you know who could have got pictures like that exactly?
You know, you know, doctor King, you know, just relaxing
totally on his bed and not seemingly not a care
in the world. You know, it's they really are amazing pictures.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Now, Withers had over the course of his work with
the FBI several we'd call him close calls, right, yeah, yeah,
and one of the questions that we had was a
what if scenario? What would have happened had he been
caught or exposed, Because in the book, there are several
instances where someone hears him talking on the phone to
(33:39):
someone yes, or where activists who have been questioned or
targeted by the FBI come to him and say what's
going on? So, what would have happened had the had
he reached that jiggers up situation?
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Well, if it had happened, I think in in the
the heat of nineteen sixty eight, during the volatile sanitation strike,
I think that he quite possibly could have his reputation
could have been severely damaged, and I think he would
have been viewed quite possibly as a trader at that point.
You know, there were a number of people were who
(34:14):
were working with the Memphis Police Department, which worked close,
very closely with the FBI. There and a lot of
these investigations and they were found out and you know,
there's a report of one instance where an officer who's
there undercover is literally dragged up onto the stage in
front of all these people. They scrip him of his
gun and his mace can and they basically were going
(34:37):
to you know, rough him up, and it was only
because some women came and intervened that that they let
him go. And you know, one of one of the
big pastors there, h t Raelph Jackson, who became a
movement leader during the sanitation strike. You know, at one
point during the strike, there were so many so much
pressure to you know, from the police to provide information.
(34:57):
He's there the pulpit and you know, in the crowd
and he's telling him if there are any police ninchers here,
he says, I won't stop you from being beaten up.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
They're just tired of all this, you know. So I
think that Ernest things could have been much different for
him had this come out at that time. It's interesting
he did have a number of close calls. I do
think some people did find out in various ways they
knew this and that and whatnot.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
You know, he was called to.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Testify before Congress in secret in nineteen seventy eight when
they're reinvestigating Martin Luther King's murder, and that was another
close call. That was probably the biggest closest.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Call of all.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
And they when you read these reports, the public reports,
they never refer to Ernest by name, but they do
say that they asked him if he would be willing
to go public and he didn't want to do it.
Interesting too, That was around November of nineteen seventy eight.
In January of nineteen seventy nine, Ernest is indicted in
(35:56):
Memphis as part of this clemency for cash scandal. I mean,
he's into this huge corruption scandal up to his eyeballs
where the you know, the very corrupt regime, the Ray
Blanton administration. They're letting inmates out of prison for cash murders, robbers.
He'd paid ten twenty thousand, as much as eighty thousand
dollars a year out on the street. Was it was,
you know, he's indicted in all of that. His defense
(36:19):
attorney I interviewed him. He didn't know that Ernest was
an informant, and he told me, you.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Know, wow, I could have really used that. I think
I could have.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
Even though Ernest got a great deal there, he wound
up he turned state's evidence and wound up testifying in
two trials and they gave him one year for extortion
with six months suspended.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
He got a hell of a deal, but he could
have got I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
If I can say that, yeah, yeah, please, he got
a hell of a deal, but he could have gotten
off maybe completely. But you know, why didn't he tell
his own defense attorney? That's an interesting question. I think
he was still you know, the heat of that, you know,
so close to that being called to Congress, to Washington
and nineteen November nineteen seventy eight, this is just months later.
(37:02):
I think it just unnerved him to the point where
he didn't feel he could say anything.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, and in your book you say that his last
report to the FBI had only occurred a few years
prior to that.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah, I think it was seventy four, seventy five.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I mean, he's still pretty close to the people that
he's just been informing on, and at this point he's
informing on the Black Panthers, on a lot of some
of the more militant groups.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
And you think he was in danger of bodily harm, I.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Mean, quite possibly, although you know, I think Hoover and
the FBI really hyped that the threat of black power
and in in Memphis too, because I mean they did
have a small contingent of Black Panthers there, but they
were no threat to anybody's public safety. What they were
doing was they were they tried to start a breakfast
(37:49):
program for poor children, and they were trying to put
awareness on sickle cell anemia. At one point in the
early seventies, by one of the FBI reports, there are
like seven people in this black panther, yeah unit, and
one of them's earnest. They list the names, and one
of them's Earnest, and the other is an undercover cop
for the Memphis Police Department. So and you know, it's
(38:12):
interesting too there, Okay, they weren't. Their reputation was much
more threatening than what they actually were.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
But they took.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
This thing very seriously. And it's interesting too that Ernest
at one point takes pictures at the instruction of the
FBI of the outside of their headquarters, their home. It's
a two frame house. This one picture shot way across
and kind of through branches, and it's kind of, you know, sick,
secretive and mysterious looking. And then he gets a picture
of the front door and goes around and gets a
(38:41):
picture of the back door, and you know, it's quite
clearly they're trying to identify the points of ingress and
egress out of this place in the contingency that they
might have to raid this place. And they also get
information from Earnest about what weapons are inside. And so
what he tells him is there's a twenty two pistol
next to the bed, and there's a shotgun. You know,
kind of just the kind of the weapons that an
average Memphion or you know, Southerner would have, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
But like who's sleeping in which rooms? Which room has
the gun? Like it's exactly what you would need to
enter that home.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Absolutely, And it's interesting too, you know, that could have
been a huge fiasco because if you know the story
of Fred Hampton, remember the Black Panther party in Chicago,
who a lot of people believe was a police murder
of him. You know, they had a bureau informant sketch
out the layout of that apartment and the police come
in the middle of the night and shoot like the
scores around through there and kill them. I mean, I mean,
(39:32):
who knows, maybe something like that could have happened here.
But it's kind of a very similar situation.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yes, So let's let's look at some of the aftermath
with with this, with this report. When you when you
release the initial story, when the story first breaks, How
did people react both in the Memphis community where Withers is.
(39:58):
I believe, as you established, he has street named after him.
He's got a blue note, he's got he's got.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
A Blues note on Beale Street, which is the equivalent
of the Hollywood Star. He's got a building named after him.
This is twenty ten. He's got a street named after him.
Since then, he's got a museum, and he's got a
historical marker outside his home.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
And what was the reaction both in today's activist community
with withers surviving relatives and with Memphis at large.
Speaker 5 (40:28):
Well, I mean there was a lot of disbelief ernest
family and a circle of followers. Initially it was said that,
you know, I made this up. That position has morphed
over time as more information has come out. At one
time it was said that, you know, the FBI might
have called him an informant, but all he did was
sell pictures to the FBI, just like he did a
(40:48):
lot of clients.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Which is not in and of itself illegal.
Speaker 5 (40:52):
No it's not, and it is something that he did.
The thing is that he did a lot more than
just that. I mean, he was given him a lot
of oral intel and really infiltrating a lot of these groups.
But yeah, I mean there was a whole spectrum of reaction.
Dick Gregory, the famous comedian activist you know, labeled Ernest
judas that's what he called them. He said he betrayed
the movement. That was a rather harsh critique, judged the
(41:15):
Army Bailey, another longtime civil rights activists he's also passed on,
did feel that Ernest betrayed the movement. But then you
had people like Andrew Young, who you know, said that
you know, look, we were a transparent movement. You know,
he really couldn't hurt us in any way. I don't
see what the harm is of that. I don't think
doctor King would have, you know, found anything wrong with that.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
But you can't deny that he ruined some people's lives.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
Well that's the thing that he got that. That's the
thing is that the individual abuses. And that's why, you know,
when Congress, you know, when the Church Committee in the
nineteen seventies looked at a lot of these operations, I
mean they found just rife with abuse. I mean, the
thing is is that they were collecting data on people
who weren't doing anything illegal. They were standing up, you know,
marching in the street, exercising First Amendment rights, standing up
(41:59):
again the Vietnam War, you know, standing up against Jim Crow.
And but they were treated as enemies and all this
personal data. You know, one of the things that Ernest
did is he'd give them auto tag numbers, he'd give
them phone numbers, and the FBI would use those to
do warrantless searches of targets, you know, phone records they'd
(42:19):
go through. They'd have a source at the phone department
and they'd go and you know, get them find out
who they're toll charges or who they're talking to, because
they want to figure out who their associates were.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
On and on.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
And there were a number of incidents like that that
would the FBI very strongly in Memphis in the late
sixties tried to undercut the Black Power movement. And it's
very similar and the way they went about it to
the whole McCarthyism era of the fifties in that they
went after sympathizers, supporters, associates in addition to the actual
(42:51):
activists and so and again people got hurt in that
there was there was there's a man who actually is
going to be speaking with me tonight. Bobby Doctor, who
was a longtime activist in the movement, who by the
late sixties was working for the US Civil Rights Commission
as a field representative in Memphis. He went on to
become the Southeast Regional director here in Atlanta, where he
(43:12):
worked for the organization for more than forty years, but
early on he nearly lost his job because of these
FBI investigations. And Withers played a role in that. I mean,
he was deemed somebody, you know, Withers and other informers
kick backed information that hey, look this guy, he's he's
at some Black Power oriented meetings. He's he's at social
gatherings with these with these activists. And at one point
(43:34):
Ernest even passed on a picture. He tells his handler,
Bill Lawrence, you know, I was covering this march and
Bobby Doctor was there, and he was holding hands with
this woman, you know, and Bobby's married and the women's married,
but they ain't married to each other, and so in Lawrence,
so I got to have the picture. He got the picture,
and you know, of course he puts it all in
the report, and so you know they're trying to undercut him.
(43:55):
He had a colleague there, Rosetta Miller, same kind of thing.
Withers gives some pictures, passes on rumors about her, and
tells them that she's the kind who will give aid
and comfort. Is how Laurence paraphrases Withers will give aid
and comfort to the Black Powa groups. So that's the
thing about this that I think Andrew Young in a
bless his heart didn't consider when he thinks, you know
(44:16):
that these were so innocent and what would it matter
to a transparent movement. It matters because they were going
after certain individuals and they were trying to hurt them.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Mark.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
It's one of our great regrets that we don't have
more time today for this interview, but we do want
to close on a note that we know our listeners
are going to be asking. You mentioned the surveillance techniques
of the sixties and into the seventies in the book.
(44:50):
How would you say government surveillance is different or similar today, because,
as many of our listeners know, Cohen Telpro is over.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah for sure, yep.
Speaker 5 (45:01):
Well, you know the hearings out of the seventies, they
you know, they talked about a lot of reform, and
the FBI, you know, when all this stuff came out,
reeled in these investigations. They had like something like at
one point, you know, fifty thousand different domestic intelligence operations
going on of American citizens and you know, in the
mid to early seventies and by seventy seven they're down
(45:22):
to virtually zero. So they really tried to reform the program,
you know, in the years that have passed since, you know,
they tried to focus more on actual crimes, terrorism, whatnot.
You know, you have, you get information, you do a
preliminary investigation, and then if that, you know, if there's
more probable cause, you launch a more full field investigation.
You know, there are a lot of people to this
(45:44):
day who believe, you know, like I think you've mentioned,
who don't really believe that they were also in you know, reformed.
In Memphis recently, there was a lawsuit filed on behalf
of a various Black Lives Matter activists.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
They are getting.
Speaker 5 (46:03):
Indications that the same sort of thing is going on today.
And it's interesting in Memphis because you know, the Bill
Lawrence helped set up the Memphis Police Department's Red Squad
there the Domestic Intelligence Unit. They worked very closely together,
and in the mid seventies, the ACLU filed a suit.
They found out that they were gathering all this political
intelligence and got a landmark decision, a consent decree that forever,
(46:26):
you know, forbids the Memphis Police Department from conducting illegal
political surveillance. Some people think it's still going on, and
it's kind of interesting that I wrote a story about,
you know, shortly after I did the first Ernest Withers
stories about that consent degree, and I asked the police
department for their manuals and their procedure manual, and in
(46:47):
it there was no mention of this consent decree, and
so then they didn't even know what I was talking about.
They very quickly amended that and put it in there.
You know, It's just but you know, there's a lot
of people who think this sort of thing is going
on today, and this is what this suit in Memphis
last year was filed about. There were several individuals who
were put on a blacklist where they said, like several
of them were Black Lives Matters activists and others who
(47:10):
are politically active in in town there and the list said,
if these individuals show up to city Hall, they're going
to need an escort. Well, how do you know who
these guys are unless you've done some addresses and whatnot
and you know what they've been doing. This is the
kind of thing that people think, you know, there's these
secret operations to some degree are still going on.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
It.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Sure, it feels like full circle to me in terms
of the political climate that we're in right now compared
to you know, the period described in your book.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Well, you know, the sixties was a period of high
paranoia and polarization, and I mean, yeah, I mean we
have a lot of that here today too. And you know,
it's been said that it was so easy for certain informants,
perhaps in earnest too, you know, to do what they did,
for the government to do, to go after these individuals
so strongly, because there was very much this we versus
(47:59):
they they mentality. You know that they're the bad guys,
they're evil, you know, they're they're communists controlled, which is
a big thing you've seen in a lot of these
FBI reports, particularly when it comes to the war.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
So yeah, I mean, I think.
Speaker 5 (48:10):
Periods like this, you know, they're right for abuse and
this is why I think there's this need to be
ever vigilant on these matters.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Well, guys, I'm afraid we're not going to be able
to hit everything in this book. But the good thing
is all you have to do is pick it up
recommend doing so. Honestly, the three of us have read
A Spy in Canaan by Mark Periskia and honestly would
highly recommend it because the events in the book actually
paint such a vivid story of surveillance by the FBI
(48:42):
on people who are just trying to express themselves with
our constitutional rights.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yes, friends and neighbors, the book is A Spy in Canaan. Mark.
Thank you again so very much for coming on our show,
and we hope, if possible, we could interview you in
the future as things develop.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
I'd love to do it. That's all for us.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of The best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. If you
don't want to do that, you can send us a
good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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