Confidential Informant Quotes & Sayings

Hoover's growing obsession with what he believed was communism's malignant influence on African Americans stands out in his August 3, 1943, letter to the White House, which he filled with unsubstantiated rumors about racial unrest in the nation's capital. Quoting several confidential informants, Hoover warned of a marked uptick in communist-inspired agitation among Washington's "less desirable colored element." These included, one informant claimed, "younger negroes between the ages of 16 and 18 years old who are not in the Army and who have shown an insolent attitude that they will take nothing from anyone. — Mark A. Bradley