Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Description

1. .4 lin. ft. (1 archival box)

Summary

1. The Council on African Affairs/Freedom of Information Act (CAA/FOIA) collection consists of photocopies of the FBI file on the CAA obtained through a FOIA request. The FBI surveilled activities of CAA branches across the United States but the collection most frequently mentions the Los Angeles and Philadelphia branches, monitoring the growth, or lack thereof, of those branches.
2. The collection contains reports, communications from field agents to the FBI directorate about the organization they considered "substantially directed, dominated or controlled by the Communist Party," and interviews with former members of the CAA being considered as potential witnesses before the Subversive Activities Control Board. Alleging that the Communist Party USA's (CPUSA) support of the CAA was in the form of personnel, the FBI kept a close eye on the officers of the CAA. Included in the files are a summary of Paul Robeson, W. E. B DuBois, and W. Alphaeus Hunton's alleged Communist Party affiliations and a letter regarding DuBois from J. Edgar Hoover to the CIA. There is also a report juxtaposing CPUSA and CAA policies as "evidence of the extent to which the positions taken or advanced by the CAA in matters of policy do not deviate from those of the CPUSA."
3. The CAA files also contain records of the organization's internal activities as well as extracts from several publications, including the organ's newsletter "Spotlight on Africa" and the CPUSA's National Negro Commission's "Negro Affairs." Subjects covered in these newsletters include colonialism, neo-colonialism in Africa, and critiques of American and European involvement in Africa, particularly in South Africa and Kenya.The material also documents the split that developed between Max Yergan and Paul Robeson and includes communications from Robeson to the membership detailing Yergan's "disruptive activities."

Subject

1. Yergan, Max, 1892-1975
2. African Americans > Relations with Africans
3. Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance files
4. African American intellectuals
5. Hunton, Alphaeus, 1903-1970
6. Communism > United States
7. African Americans > Civil rights > History > Sources
8. Council on African Affairs
9. Subversive activities > United States > History > 20th century
10. African Americans > Political activity
11. Du Bois, W. E. B (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963
12. Robeson, Paul, 1898-1976

Call number

1. Sc MG 732

Reproduction (note)

1. Photocopies.

Source (note)

1. Marika Sherwood

Location of other archival materials (note)

1. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library.

Biography (note)

1. Founded in 1937 by Max Yergan and Paul Robeson, the Council on African Affairs (CAA) was an independent, non-profit organization "dedicated to serving the interests of the peoples of Africa" and had a self-described unique "full-time and year-round job of providing Americans with the truth about Africa." This was achieved through the monthly "Spotlight on Africa" newsletter and other publications. The Council's other major function was to act as the channel of concrete assistance from Americans to Africans, sending money to aid the South African people's struggle against Malan's apartheid government.

Author

1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Title

1. Council on African Affairs/Freedom of Information Act collection, 1949-1972 (bulk 1952-1954).

Biography

1. Founded in 1937 by Max Yergan and Paul Robeson, the Council on African Affairs (CAA) was an independent, non-profit organization "dedicated to serving the interests of the peoples of Africa" and had a self-described unique "full-time and year-round job of providing Americans with the truth about Africa." This was achieved through the monthly "Spotlight on Africa" newsletter and other publications. The Council's other major function was to act as the channel of concrete assistance from Americans to Africans, sending money to aid the South African people's struggle against Malan's apartheid government.

Location of other archival materials

1. FBI File on Paul Robeson [microform]; Also located; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library.

Reproduction

1. Photocopies.

Connect to:

1. Finding Aid

Added author

1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Research call number

1. Sc MG 732