Hoover’s commitment to curtail not only Communism but all forms of African American protest against racism resulted in a culture of suspicion at the FBI and in the executive branch more generally that sought to monitor and ultimately influence the practice of Islam among African Americans. There is some evidence that agents entertained the possibility that Islamic religion could be practiced in an apolitical way, but at the same time, Islam inevitably came under suspicion because of its association with African American protests against white supremacy. In sweeping Islamic religious practice, of various types, into the machinery of anti-black state suppression, Hoover and the FBI created mechanisms and meanings that framed Islam as a danger to the US nation-state. It did not matter for Hoover’s RACON whether black Muslims were explicitly pro-American or not. Islam was a sign for the FBI on the eve of World War II of pro-Japanese sympathy. It was enough to tar Islam as a problematic political symbol that deserved to be disciplined through surveillance, and if possible, prosecution.

XREF: Connects to COINTELPRO-era surveillance literature and histories of FBI targeting of civil rights and Black nationalist movements. SEED: A potential essay angle: how national security surveillance of religious practice blurs the boundary between political and religious activity. Builds on: "FBI surveilled Black Muslim groups as wartime security risks."

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 398