W.E.B. Du Bois, Age 83, Indicted as Foreign Agent

In February 1951, the Truman Justice Department indicts 83-year-old W.E.B. Du Bois as an unregistered foreign agent for his role with the Peace Information Center, which circulated a Soviet-backed petition against nuclear weapons. Du Bois and colleagues are handcuffed and fingerprinted. The case is eventually dismissed, but the indictment effectively silences Du Bois domestically, ruins his reputation among mainstream civil rights organizations, and exemplifies Cold War suppression of Black radical politics.