The file also includes several credible threats against Franklin and a potential copyright infringement lawsuit stemming from a Yahoo! Group message board in 2005. The case, involving a self-proclaimed “anti-fanatic” who sold pirated CDs and DVDs of her performances, never went to trial. The file, requested through the Freedom of Information Act by journalist Jenn Dize, who posted excerpts in a lengthy Twitter thread and was reported by Pitchfork, includes intimate documentation of Franklin’s performances for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). , of which King was president. . The FBI characterized these broadcasts, held in Memphis and Atlanta in 1967 and 1968, as “Communist infiltration” events. The FBI also noted that Franklin reportedly participated in a “huge memorial concert” after King’s assassination in 1968, which one source claimed would “provide an emotional spark that could ignite racial unrest in this area.” The SCLC eventually canceled the memorial concert and instead held a march to Atlanta’s Morehouse College. The FBI also attended a performance by Franklin at a fundraiser for Davis in 1972 in Los Angeles. The file noted that Davis “is facing kidnapping charges in California” and that the concert’s sponsors, the National United Committee to Release Angela Davis, were “an organization founded by the Communist Party, United States of America.” On several occasions, the FBI identified Franklin as a possible performer at events they suspected she had not actually attended, including a benefit event for Davis in 1971 held by the Boston chapter of the Young Workers Liberation League and a Black Party event Panthers in Los Angeles. . A 1976 document linked Franklin to the Coordinating Council for the Liberation of Dominica (CCLD), which one source described as “a black extremist group aimed at disturbing the tranquility of the island of Dominica” that “may have created a base of operations in the New York area.’ The source identified Franklin as a friend of Roosevelt Bernard Douglas, a “black extremist of international stature” who became Prime Minister of Dominica. The bureau appears to have found no other evidence of a link between Franklin and CCLD. The three documented threats against Franklin included an inmate at the Cook County Jail in Chicago posing as an FBI agent to blackmail her for $1 million, threatening dire consequences if she didn’t pay. The file also records harassment at home, by letter and by telephone by an individual in 1979. The news comes after Mickey Dolentz, the last surviving member of the Monkees, revealed he is suing the FBI over a dossier he believes the agency is holding on him and his former bandmates.
