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Dhoruba Bin Wahad & Robert Boyle Collection of FBI Files Related to the Black Panther Party
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
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Dhoruba Bin Wahad, born Richard Moore, was born in the Bronx in 1944. As a youth he had several run-ins with the law and served time in prison. He began his political education in prison and when released in 1967 he became politically active on the street. Motivated in part by the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he joined the Harlem, New York chapter of the Black Panther Party in the summer of 1968. He quickly rose to the statewide position of Field Secretary and was responsible for organizing BPP chapters within New York State. On April 2, 1969 he was among 21 NY BPP members indicted and arrested on conspiracy charges (the "Panther 21" case). He was held in lieu of $100,000 bail. By March of 1970 the BPP had raised enough money to post bail for one of the Panther 21 defendants. National BPP leadership chose Bin Wahad for release due to his speaking ability. Thereafter, Bin Wahad traveled around the country speaking in support of his still-incarcerated co-defendants and the BPP's program. Because of that notoriety he became a target of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) counterintelligence program, known commonly as COINTELPRO. On May 13, 1971, the Panther 21, including Bin Wahad, were acquitted of all charges. Two weeks later Bin Wahad was arrested and charged with the May 19, 1971 attempted murder of two police officers. In 1973, after three trials and a case based entirely upon circumstantial evidence, he was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years to life imprisonment. In 1974, while incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, Bin Wahad became aware of hearings conducted by Congress into FBI misconduct, including illegal and/or unconstitutional acts committed against the Black Panther Party. As a result, Bin Wahad sued the FBI and NYPD (Bin Wahad v. FBI, et al., 75 Civ. 6203 [USDC/SDNY]). After many years of litigation, the lawsuit was successful and Bin Wahad's conviction was ultimately reversed in 1990. After his release, Bin Wahad moved to Ghana, where he founded the Campaign to Free Black and New African Political Prisoners. Bin Wahad currently lives in Africa and remains politically active.
BoyleRobert J. Boyle is a criminal defense attorney in New York City who has worked in appeals and post-conviction motions, and has also been involved in civil rights and police misconduct litigation. Boyle obtained the files in this collection pursuant to a court order in his legal case Bin Wahad v. FBI, et al. Dhoruba Bin Wahad, who had been convicted of the assault of two NYPD officers in 1973, was the first BPP member whose conviction was eventually overturned as the result of these FBI disclosures, particularly Cointelpro. Bin Wahad was released from prison in 1990 after 19 years. The case has been the subject of two documentaries, Framing The Panthers In Black And White and Passin' It On.
FinkElizabeth Marsha Fink was an American attorney specializing in civil rights and prisoner's rights cases. Fink graduated from Brooklyn Law School, and was best known for filing and ultimately settling a class action suit on behalf of incarcerated people killed and injured in the Attica Prison uprising of 1971. Fink, as co-counsel with attorney Robert Boyle, represented Dhoruba bin Wahad in Bin Wahad v. FBI, et al., winning his release from prison in 1990.
The collection consists of approximately 110,000 pages of redacted photocopies of FBI and NYPD investigatory documents about the Black Panther Party (BPP) and its top leaders. The content includes photocopies of BPP leaflets, bank records, phone transcripts, meetings, daily activities, speeches, travel records, and mainstream media articles. It documents the FBI's monitoring of the BPP, the FBI's efforts to stymie and break the organization, and COINTELPRO, the FBI's illegal and secret project to disrupt and discredit legitimate American political organizations.
By 1971, the FBI produced biweekly multi-page intelligence summaries on the BPP. Many of the FBI's memos start with the clause "The BPP is a violence-prone Black militant organization headquartered in Berkeley, California with chapters located throughout the United States."
Much of the FBI's efforts to disrupt the BPP involved exploiting the rift between Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, as well as creating dissension between the BPP on the East Coast and the BPP on the West Coast.
Through COINTELPRO, the FBI mailed dozens of anonymous letters to Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, and others. The letters often threatened the men, created discord (i.e. suggested that Huey Newton wasn't sharing all his speaking fees with the BPP), and gave them false information. The geographic scope of the collection includes Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, New Haven and Middletown, Connecticut. While the names of confidential informants are frequently redacted, very little of the COINTELPRO materials have been removed. Thus, the collection includes the fake letters mailed to the BPP leadership and the letters to the newspaper editors actually written by FBI agents.
The documents in the collection were disclosed during court-ordered discovery in a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by former Black Panther Party (BPP) leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad (formerly Richard Dhoruba Moore). The lawsuit, Bin Wahad v. FBI, et al., 75 Civ. 6203 (USDC/SDNY) was part of a decades-long effort to win freedom for Bin Wahad, who was wrongfully convicted of the 1971 attempted murder of two New York City Police officers. Among other things, the lawsuit charged that Bin Wahad was framed as part of COINTELPRO.
After many years of litigation the lawsuit was successful in proving that the government suppressed evidence of Bin Wahad's innocence. Bin Wahad was released from prison in 1990 after being incarcerated for nearly 19 years. The civil lawsuit continued. A monetary settlement with the FBI was reached in 1995 and a settlement with the New York City Police Department was reached in 2000.
Content Warning Many of the FBI and NYPD documents contained in this collection were created as part of its COINTELPRO, which actively engaged in a disinformation campaign to undermine and stymie American political organizations. Therefore not all of the information contained within the collection is true. For example, an FBI document may falsely state that an individual has committed a certain crime or was planning to commit a crime. Documents may also mischaracterize the BPP and its motives. Finally, some documents may make false assertions about BPP members' personal lives.
Purchased from Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Robert Boyle in 2022 (AM 2022-124)
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
This collection was processed by Will Clements in May 2022. Finding aid written by Will Clements in May 2022.
No materials were removed from the collection during 2022 processing beyond routine appraisal practices.
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Author
- Will Clements
- Finding Aid Date
- 2022 May 13
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research, except for the Wiretap Logs and Dhoruba Bin Wahad file groups which are restricted until March 1, 2032.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
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FBI files listing many wiretap logs. Per Mr. Boyle, these are the only known public records of these warrantless wiretaps. In addition, the pages contain press articles (i.e. The New York Post, The New York Times, The Amsterdam News); press clippings on the BPP; a 1971 listing of the leadership of the BPP; files on following Huey Newton, recorded BPP speeches; recorded BPP speeches; etc.
Physical Description6 boxes
FBI files listing many wiretap logs. There is news about the Students For A Democratic Society (SDS); a letter to Eldridge Cleaver in Africa; an investigation regarding Samuel Cooper; an investigation of a shooting of an officer on Riverside Drive; etc.
Physical Description2 boxes
FBI files with photocopies of many pieces of BPP literature and other assorted materials. There is a significant amount of material from the 1980s & 1990s with the Bin Wahad legal petition and work. There are also photocopies of 1969 confidential informant cards on BPP activities.
Physical Description2 boxes
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FBI files on an investigation into the shootings of NYPD officers in May 1971 that was linked to the Black Liberation Army. Per Robert J. Boyle, it was from these files that they obtained documents used to overturn Bin Wahad's conviction, and portions of these files have been released in other legal cases. Consists of materials related to Anthony Bottoms and Albert Washington; photocopies of mugshots; the Herman Bell bank robbery in San Francisco; fingerprint files; information on elementary schools; information on the Newkill shootings; etc.
Physical Description5 boxes
Includes content on the Black Liberation Army; possible urban guerilla activity; news that the Newark BPP office is defunct and various leaders of the BPP are jailed; the purchase of chemicals; travel to Africa to unite with the Cleaver front; photocopies of articles and much on the Republic of New Africa; etc.
Physical Description4 boxes
Concerns about BLA urban guerilla warfare; fingerprint files; photocopies of BPP literature; BPP crime reports about bank robberies; material about seeking information on the whereabouts of BPP leaders such as Jones, Gibson and Butler; information on BPP trials; finances; weapons; Attica; BPP shootouts with the LAPD; bank robbery suspects in the Bronx (including interviews with eyewitnesses).
Physical Description5 boxes
Photocopies of newspaper articles about the BPP; electronic spying on the BPP; materials on Elmer Geronimo Pratt; etc.
Physical Description3 boxes
Photocopies of BPP pamphlets (including ones from New Haven); New York Times articles on the BPP; other press articles on the BPP; international fugitive capture; police reports; Louisville, Kentucky BPP and the trial of SamNapier; etc.
Physical Description4 boxes
Includes the Moore file from the Philadelphia and Charlotte field offices; photocopies of the 1974 Weather Underground publication Prairie Fire; etc.
Physical Description3 boxes
2 boxes
Includes transcripts of a radio talk show; Newton speech transcriptions; a phone call from Newton to Cleaver in Algeria; information on Newton college speeches and fees; Newton meeting with retired basketball star Bill Russell; BPP bank records; press articles about Newton's murder trial; wire tapping transcripts; minute by minute tracking of Newton; wiretap conversations; materials on BPP member David Hilliard; etc.
Physical Description5 boxes
Materials related to the Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention organized by the BPP from September 4-7, 1970 in Philadelphia; photocopies of BPP literature on police harassment; the Malcolm X Liberation University; several affidavits about Philadelphia police harassment of Lafayette Burton; etc.
Physical Description2 boxes
Photocopies of NYPD index cards tracking people; information on a housing crimes trial put on by the BPP; information on a planned attack on a military installation near Los Angeles; materials on the Attica uprising; early BPP surveillance; photocopies of BPP literature; materials on H. Rap Brown; a boycott of Coney Island; material on the BPP shooting of NYPD officer James Howard in the Bronx; mentions of protests going on at Columbia University and other NYC protests; photocopies of BPP threats to Mayor Lindsay; daily reports of following BPP members; summaries of conversations and information on police shootings; an undercover officer report on being inside a BPP meeting; etc.
Physical Description5 boxes
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