The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World and Political Activism in the 1970s

5“The Tapes Were the Heart of the Matter”

5 “The Tapes Were the Heart of the Matter” The IBW’s Infiltration and Decline On the evening of March 11, 1975, there was a break-in at the IBW office. The intruder(s) came in through the back door of the white frame house at 87 Chestnut Street, using bolt cutters to make a hole in the heavy-gauge wire mesh that served as the IBW’s mediocre security. The unknown subject(s) prowled through the offices, searching through administrative files, breaking into desks, and stealing “highly sensitive” audiotapes of meetings. The break-in resulted in the loss of seven thousand dollars worth of office equipment—mostly typewriters and tape recorders—as well as over one hundred copies of the March 1975 Monthly Report. Even though the offices were located on the edge of Vine City, a high-crime area, the robbery seemed strange. The typewriters and tape recorders could be resold through the underground market of stolen goods, but the files and audiotapes had no intrinsic monetary value. The IBW associates conducted their own investigation, recognizing the improbability of a thriving underground market for office equipment and the impossibility of a market for organizational files and tapes. Associates asserted that “the fact that certain tapes and Monthly Report[s] were taken suggests that the burglary was more than theft for financial gain. . . . There are suggestions of ‘dirty’ tricks similar to Watergate.” The robbery crippled an already financially strapped IBW. Most associates believed that the theft of typewriters and tape recorders was a cover-up for a political break-in or “black bag job.” Vincent Harding recalled that despite the stolen office equipment, “the [stolen] tapes were the heart of the matter,” because they held discussions of future IBW activities and important staff meetings. “The Tapes Were the Heart of the Matter”: The IBW’s Infiltration and Decline · 167 This break-in was the first of several over the next three months. The IBW associates and friends wanted to find out who was burglarizing their offices and why it was happening. The break-ins and the harassment of staff members in 1974 and 1975 represented the apex of domestic surveillance on the IBW. Moreover, the crimes suggest that the IBW’s synthetic analyses and discussions with leading radical Black intellectuals had raised the ire of conservative forces as well as local, state, and federal police agencies.1 The IBW’s radical intellectual work throughout its history—Black Studies, a Black political agenda, and analysis of the racialized political economy—signaled an evolving progressive analysis, but these activities resulted in increased scrutiny by police forces inside and outside Atlanta. This radicalism, existing amid an increasingly conservative political culture and a disastrous economy, caused the IBW’s fragile financial situation to deteriorate. Harassment and dwindling funds reduced the institute ’s influence on the Black intellectual, political, and social landscape. Survival for the IBW meant withstanding a financial crisis and domestic surveillance. Stagflation, Domestic Surveillance, and Declining Support for Black Activism For nearly five years, the IBW stood on the verge of closing its doors, as the organization’s budgets never matched its aspirations. The stagflation of the seventies along with the revelations of governmental malfeasance pushed the IBW closer to its end. At the beginning of Nixon’s administration in 1968, inflation was at six percent, nearly five percentage points higher than in 1960. The sources of inflation were long-term structural issues in the American economy, including the rise of multinational corporations and their use of capital mobility, government spending in Vietnam , and the lack of corporate reinvestment in American factories. By 1971, America had its first trade deficit since 1893. In 1972, America witnessed soaring food prices. Following Nixon’s reelection that year, twentyfive percent of consumers participated in a boycott of meat because of rising prices. Oil was the final piece of the inflation puzzle. Arab nations forming the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised the cost of crude oil three hundred percent between the fall of 1974 and January 1975. Inflation crippled citizens’ purchasing power, making a 1967 dollar worth only 68 cents in 1974.2 168 · The Challenge of Blackness Unemployment further increased economic anxieties. Corporations’ rising fuel costs and reliance on capital mobility led to increased layoffs for blue-collar workers. In addition, unemployment for college graduates reached an all-time high in the early seventies. By 1974, the national unemployment rate...