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‘You Are Done’: The letter sent to King by the F.B.I (2014)

What HN thinks

A thread about a 1964 FBI letter that somehow ends up relitigating voter ID, gerrymandering and the 2016 primaries.

Civil rights opposition never ended
Many argue the bitter resistance to civil rights persists today, citing the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, redistricting, and segregationists who stayed in power and trained successors.
Disparate impact versus intent
A long subthread debates whether voter ID laws and gerrymandering are racist by design (citing Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy) or merely have unequal effects that shouldn't drive policy.
Establishment suppresses popular movements
Others see the FBI's targeting of King as part of a pattern of elites crushing cross-racial working-class coalitions, extending the argument to the DNC versus Bernie Sanders.

Consensus: Most agree the FBI letter was heinous and that schools rarely taught the depth of opposition to civil rights; there is no consensus on how much of that persists in current policy.

Recommended in the comments

The Warmth of Other Suns (book): Recommended for filling gaps in school education about the Great Migration.
Caste (book): A non-American commenter said it made American racism understandable to them.
The Alt-Right Playbook ↗ (other): Recommended for its episode on why progressives and conservatives talk past each other.
A People's History of the United States (book): Cited for its account of racism being used to divide poor whites and Black Americans.