Also American

Curriculum unit

Hidden Histories: COINTELPRO to Mass Incarceration

The less-taught machinery of control — surveillance, the drug war, and the prison boom — and the connections between them.

Unit objectives

Students investigate primary evidence linking state surveillance, the crack era, and mass incarceration, and weigh contested claims.

  1. Lesson 1 · 1 class period

    COINTELPRO

    Objectives

    Examine the FBI's covert program to surveil and dismantle Black movements.

    Materials

    Timeline entries below; the COINTELPRO deep-dive article; Church Committee report.

    Study COINTELPRO's logic of surveillance and disruption, culminating in the 1969 police killing of Fred Hampton.

    Teach from these moments
    1. December 4, 1969
      COINTELPRO and the killing of Fred Hampton

      Chicago police, acting on FBI COINTELPRO intelligence, kill the 21-year-old Black Panther leader in his bed.

    Discussion questions

    What does it mean for the state to target constitutionally protected speech? How was Fred Hampton's killing emblematic?

  2. Lesson 2 · 1–2 class periods

    Dark Alliance and the crack era

    Objectives

    Trace the contested chain from Contra-linked cocaine to the crack epidemic and mandatory minimums.

    Materials

    Timeline entries below; the Dark Alliance article; the CIA Inspector General report.

    Follow Gary Webb's investigation, the crack epidemic, and the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act.

    Teach from these moments
    1. 1985
      The crack epidemic devastates Black cities

      Cheap crack cocaine floods urban neighborhoods, met with mass arrests rather than treatment.

    2. October 27, 1986
      The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986

      Mandatory minimums punish crack 100x more harshly than powder cocaine, devastating Black defendants.

    3. August 18, 1996· debated
      Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance"

      Reporter Gary Webb links CIA-backed Contras to the cocaine pipeline that fed the crack epidemic.

    Discussion questions

    How should we weigh contested claims responsibly? What did the IG report confirm, and what remains disputed?

  3. Lesson 3 · 1 class period

    Mass incarceration today

    Objectives

    Connect the War on Drugs and the 1994 Crime Bill to the modern prison population.

    Materials

    Timeline entries below; The New Jim Crow; the documentary 13th.

    Synthesize the through-line from 1971 to today, and evaluate the argument that the carceral system functions as racial control.

    Teach from these moments
    1. June 17, 1971
      Nixon declares the War on Drugs

      A campaign later admitted by aides to have targeted Black communities and the antiwar left.

    2. September 13, 1994· debated
      The 1994 Crime Bill

      Sweeping legislation that accelerated incarceration and policing in Black communities.

    Discussion questions

    Is mass incarceration a "new Jim Crow"? What evidence supports or complicates that claim?