In Chapter 3, The Fairshake Files uncovers the moment COINTELPRO stopped hiding behind pretext.

The threat was no longer violence. It was unity.

We examine how the FBI expanded from monitoring dissidents to actively sabotaging peace groups, student organizers, clergy networks, and community coalitions — anyone capable of turning protest into political force.

At the center of this shift was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose moral authority the Bureau viewed as a national risk. But King was only one node in a broader effort.

We investigate the state’s campaign against the Black Panther Party, revealing internal memos that identified their Free Breakfast for Children program, not their militancy, as one of the greatest dangers to federal objectives.

We trace the devastating smear operation against actress Jean Seberg, whose support for Panther community programs made her a symbolic target.

And finally, we return to Chicago, December 1969, where a pre-dawn raid killed 21-year-old organizer Fred Hampton, a man building a multiracial working-class alliance the government considered intolerable.

This chapter is not just about surveillance.

It’s about the machinery built to prevent a coalition before it began.

IN THIS EPISODE

- The Pivot: How influence, not violence, became COINTELPRO’s primary concern. 
- Targeting King: Internal directives aimed at neutralizing a unifying national figure. 
- The Panthers & Community Power: Why breakfast programs triggered federal alarm. The Seberg - - Operation: A Hollywood smear campaign with tragic consequences.
- Chicago 1969: The killing of Fred Hampton and the destruction of an emerging coalition.

SOURCES & CITATIONS

• Church Committee Report, Book II (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)
• COINTELPRO Internal Memos & Directives
• Black Panther Party Community Program Records
• Testimony & Legal Findings from the December 4, 1969 Raid
• Seberg Case Files and Press Analysis

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