Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover secretly kept an eye on a civil lawsuit filed by blacks against legendary Alabama head coach Bear Bryant starting in 1969.
From ESPN.com:
Documents released to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act show that for almost two years, agents tracked the suit filed by a prominent black lawyer against Bryant, the University of Alabama and others to make Bryant recruit black football players.
Building a file, agents followed the court docket and snipped stories from newspapers about the case, sending the findings to the agency’s office responsible for investigating civil rights crimes.
The FBI won’t explain why it was interested in a civil lawsuit by a black student organization against a prominent white football coach. The agency kept track of possible civil rights violations and often monitored public figures and civil rights leaders under Hoover.
But one of the FBI forms in the Bryant file is marked twice with a handwritten capital “H” — a clear indication that Hoover both saw the document and approved of the snooping, said author Curt Gentry, who wrote “J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets,” a definitive biography on Hoover and the FBI under his leadership.
Per the article, Bryant had black players on his team as non-scholarship, walk-ons, but it wasn’t until five months after the federal suit was filed that ‘Bama signed its first black football player to an actual scholarship (Wilbur Jackson).
It’s interesting that Hoover had files on high-ranking sports profiles, although as the article notes, he had dirt on everybody – actors, authors, pool cleaners, etc.
