FBI's Secret Death Squad: COINTELPRO Killed Civil Rights Leaders for 15 Years

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Did you know the FBI ran a secret assassination [music] program that killed civil rights leaders for 15 years? COINTELPRO started in 1956 [music] as J. Edgar Hoover's personal war against anyone who challenged the system. Black Panthers, [music] anti-war protesters, civil rights activists, they were all targets. The methods were terrifyingly [music] creative. Agents would poison food at community events. They'd start fake gang wars by sending forged [music] letters between rival groups. Car accidents that weren't accidents. House fires that started mysteriously. Leaders would disappear, found dead days later [music] with explanations that never quite added up. Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old Black Panther leader, was drugged by an [music] FBI informant, then shot in his sleep during a police raid. They called it self-defense. [music] The program only came to light when eight ordinary citizens broke into an FBI office in Pennsylvania [music] in 1971. They found thousands of classified documents proving the government was systematically murdering [music] its own people. For 15 years, America's law enforcement acted as a secret death squad. The scariest part?

[00:01:05]We only know [music] about COINTELPRO because of those brave burglars. How many other programs are still running today?