Seeing Shadows: The FBI Surveillance of Louise Thompson Patterson

Kiara Sample

doi:10.31261/rias.12448

Published: 2022-06-15

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2022)

Seeing Shadows: The FBI Surveillance of Louise Thompson Patterson

Kiara Sample

Section: FEATURES

https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.12448

Abstract

This article explores the ways gender and race influenced the FBI’s surveillance of Black women activists. Previous scholarship has covered the role of surveillance in repressing revolutionary movements and neutralizing radical organizations. Historically, within many social movements, Black women have been marginalized, silenced, or reduced to only their gender because of patriarchal leadership. As a result, the persistence of sexism within these Black movements has affected Black women’s visibility within movement organizations. This piece asks, how does gendered marginalization impact their surveillance by and visibility to the FBI? It seeks to understand the influence of race and gender on the FBI’s surveillance of Louise Thompson Patterson. By examining the language and narrative components of her FBI file, the article provides an analysis across gender and across time to theorize the dynamics of surveillance, race, and gender. Based on a close analysis of Patterson’s FBI file, I argue that the tension between hypervisibility and invisibility deriving from gendered stereotypes resulted in the Bureau’s vague understanding of her personal life and political ideology.

Keywords:

Black women's history , FBI surveillance , Black communism , Black women's activism

Download files

Download PDF

Citation rules

Sample, K. (2022). Seeing Shadows: The FBI Surveillance of Louise Thompson Patterson. Review of International American Studies, 15(1), 89–106. https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.12448

Cited by / Share

Kiara Sample

kiara_sample@berkeley.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5004-8836

Affiliation:

University of California at Berkeley United States

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

Kiara Sample is a Master’s student in the African American Studies and African Diaspora Studies department at University of California at Berkeley. She received her BA from Washington University in St. Louis in African and African-American Studies and Psychology. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, she conducted research on gender’s influence on the FBI’s surveillance of Black women activists in the 20th century. Her research interests include Black Feminism(s); Black women’s history; Surveillance; and 20th-century Black social movements.

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2022)
Published: 2022-06-12

eISSN: 1991-2773

10.31261/RIAS

Publisher

University of Silesia Press

Submit

Seeing Shadows: The FBI Surveillance of Louise Thompson Patterson

Abstract

Keywords:

Kiara Sample

Developed By