There 'ain't no way' agents with the highest domestic law enforcement office in the country were keeping tabs on Aretha Franklin -- but they were.
There "ain't no way" agents with the highest domestic law enforcement office in the country were keeping tabs on Aretha Franklin -- but they were.&B and gospel hits, but her FBI file shows that her possible affiliation -- both real and perceived -- with Communist and Black liberation organizations was a regular focus for federal agents.
One document, stamped September 1976, issues several thinly backed allegations against Franklin, including: and an April 1973 review pertaining to the Black Liberation Army showing one document bore the address of Franklin's booking agency in New York City. The document described the BLA as "a quasi-military group ... employing the tactics of urban guerrilla warfare against the established order with a view toward achieving revolutionary change in America."
Days after King's assassination, the bureau expressed concern that Franklin, Sammy Davis Jr., Marlon Brando, Mahalia Jackson and The Supremes were scheduled to perform at a memorial concert and that some of the entertainers "have supported militant black power concept and most have been in forefront of various civil rights movements."
In following years, federal investigators would also look into: Franklin's and fellow singer Roberta Flack's contracts with Atlantic Records; an August 1968 "melee" that erupted at Denver's Red Rocks amphitheater after Franklin declined to perform; and her alleged connections to the BLA and Black Panther Party.
"In view of the fact there is no evidence of involvement by Miss Franklin in BLA activities and in view of her fame as a singer, it is felt that it would not be in the interests of the Bureau to attempt to interview her," explains the letter addressed from a New York FBI agent to then-acting Director William Ruckelshaus.
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