Lessons Learned from More Than a Thousand FOIA Requests By Michael Ravnitzky and Phil Lapsley This is an excellent presentation on Freedom of Information Act requests. It can be downloaded from govermentattic.org.
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July 4, 1964
July 4, 1964 was the last time Julia Dobbins saw her brother, JoEd Edwards. Eight days later, he went missing. Rumors were that the Klan took away the 21-year-old Black man and murdered him. His mother died in 1990 never having learned what truly happened to her son. July 4, 1964 was the thirteenth day [...]
Freedom of Information furthering investigative journalism
Somerville Voices » Freedom of Information furthering investigative journalism These are Melissa McWhinney’s notes from the Boston Globe’s Freedom of Information conference back in May. I wish I’d known it was happening and could have gone. Lots of great advice and resources in the notes.
Get My FBI File
This website will help you generate a letter to request your FBI file under the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts. Brought to you by the same folks who set up Get Grandpa’s FBI File.
Get Grandpa’s FBI File
Get Grandpa’s FBI File is a great new website that makes easy the process of requesting FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act. You just fill out and submit a simple web form, and then you are practically done. The website generates the request letter(s) for you to print out, which you send to [...]
ACLU Seeks Information on the Fate of 6,500 New Orleans Prisoners
While most of the press sleeps and the Department of Justice makes us wonder how what the department has to do with justice, the ACLU is on the case. ACLU Seeks Information on the Fate of 6,500 New Orleans Prisoners September 28, 2005 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: media@aclu.org Locked Prisoners Were Abandoned by Guards When [...]
FOX Unleashes Vile McCarthyite Smear Campaign Against Cindy and the Peace Movement
Headline is from Bob Fertig at Democrats.com. He writes: In order to trash Cindy, [FOX's John] Gibson called on Ira Stoll, editor of the rightwing New York Sun and author of “Cindy Sheehan’s Crowd.” Stoll attacked Cindy for working with “extreme groups and individuals”: Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and Military Families Speak Out all [...]
Delmar to Bombingham (6) — COMING FORWARD I
On Saturday morning, June 22, 1963, at around 9:00 a.m., A. D. King answered his front door and found Roosevelt Tatum. He was crying and saying he had something in his heart he wanted to tell. Tatum came inside and immediately noticed Paul Greenberg, the only white man among the dozen or more people in the house. Tatum had overcome his fear and wanted to say what he saw. When Tatum explained what he’d seen six weeks earlier, King asked him to talk to the FBI. Tatum agreed and King called the FBI office to say that a man was at his home who saw persons responsible for the bombing.
From Delmar to Bombingham (5) — THE BOMBING
From where he sat on the steps, Tatum could see Birmingham Police Car 49 coming down Avenue H from 13th Street towards 12th Street. The patrol car turned left onto 12th Street, cut its headlights and rolled to a stop across the street at 721 12th Street Ensley, the residence of A. D. and Naomi King. From where she sat, behind one of the porch posts, Miller couldn’t see the car pull up. Tatum whispered not to move or speak. To the officers he was invisible on the shadowy steps. (RT, 15-16, 24-25; AGM1, 17-19, 20)
From the passenger side, a police officer got out from Car 49, walked around the back of the car and across the Kings’ lawn. He seemed to be tossing something near the porch. The officer ran back to the passenger door and got back into Car 49. As the car pulled away the driver tossed something out of his window and onto the Kings’ lawn. The officers weren’t yet three houses away, when the first bomb exploded. (RTD, 3; RT, 15-16, 24-25)
From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (update)
When I found my second set of FBI documents on Roosevelt Tatum, I saw that they would allow me to fill in some of the narrative of what happened to Roosevelt Tatum after the bombing of A. D. and Naomi King’s house. I had intended for my next post in this series to tell some of that story. As I studied the second set of documents and then went back and forth between them and the first set of documents, I began finding more and more of the story of the bombing, dispersed among the details of the two sets of documents.
Get Those FOIPA Requests Out Now
ISOO REPORTS A 25% RISE IN CLASSIFICATION ACTIVITY
More And Yet Still More
Last Thursday I had the honor and the pleasure of receiving and email from Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. As I mentioned in Part 3 of From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama, her excellent book contains one of the only published accounts of the Roosevelt Tatum episode which I have been writing about. Her book had been extremely important for me as I try to understand the the Tatum story.
From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 4)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 On July 3, 1963, Roosevelt Tatum was interviewed another time by FBI Agents in Birmingham, Alabama. In this meeting Tatum signed a statement recanting his previous allegations regarding the role of the Birmingham Police in the bombing of A. D. and Naomi King’s home. Here is an excerpt from [...]
From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 3)
. . . on June 22, 1963 at around 9:00 AM, Roosevelt Tatum appeared at A. D. and Naomi King’s house. By Tatum’s own account, “I was crying and I told Rev. King that I had something in my heart and I wanted to tell somebody. . . . I have had this thing on my conscience since the date it happened, and I wanted to tell somebody about it so I would feel better”
The Following Description Was Obtained From Personal Observation and Interrogation
Name: ROOSEVELT TATUM
Race: Negro
Sex: Male
Address: 1109 Avenue J, Ensley, Birmingham, Alabama
Date of Birth: February 18, 1924
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