Alabama State Troopers
Field Interrogation Cards
Targeting Civil Rights Workers

In the mid-1960s the Alabama Department of Public Safety (that is, the state troopers) compiled hundreds of dossiers on people known to be active in the Civil Rights Movement. This was done in cooperation with various state police deparments and Sovereignty Commissions spread across the Deep South. From these dossiers they created sets of field interrogation cards that were distributed to all Alabama law enforcement agencies large and small so that they could easily identify and surveil known "agitators." As one SCLC staff member described it:

From the driver's seat, the officer waved me over to his car and I went down the half dozen dirt steps cut into the embankment. He introduced himself as the Chief of Luverne Alabama's tiny police force which consisted of him and perhaps two or three others. He asked me to identify myself which I did. There was a shoe box on the seat beside him. It was filled with alphabetized 5x7 cards. He riffed through them and pulled out one with my name, photo, arrest-record, and other details of my nefarious existence. "Is this you," he asked? I confirmed that it was. — Bruce Hartford

Below are interrogation cards for a few of the freedom fighters featured on this website. Note that in some cases the names on the cards are misspelled.

Ralph Abernathy

Zev Aelony

Dianne Nash Bevel

James Bevel

Willie Bolden

Richard Boone

Anne Braden

Carl Braden

Joyce Brown

Stokely Carmichael

Lois Chafee

Judy Coburn

Dave Dennis

Dion Diamond

James Dombrowski

Ivanhoe Donaldson

Charles Fager

James Farmer

Rachel Findley

Larry Fox

Golden Frinks

James Gildersleave

Joanne Grant

Lemuel Green

Dick Gregory

Richard Haley

Joseph ("Big Lester") Hankerson

Willian (Bill) Hansen

Jesse Harris

Jessie Harris

William (Bill) Haygood

Eleanor Holmes (Norton)

Leonard Holt

Miles Horton

William (Stu) House

Martin Luther King Jr.

Lucille (Lucy) Komisar

Bernard Lafayette

Paul Lauter

James Lawson

Jennifer Lawson

John Lewis

Worth Long

Posey Lombard

Andrew Marrisett

James Marshall

Willie McCray

Lester McKinnie

Landy McNair

James Monsonis

Linda Morse

Carver Neblett

Silas Norman

James Orange

George Paris

Wendell Paris

Penelope (Penny) Patch

George Raymond

Cordell Reagon

Gloria Richardson

James (Jimmy) Rogers

Howard Romaine

Bayard Rustin

Ruby Sales

John Salter

Simuel Schutz

Cleveland Sellers

Sam Shirah

Fred Shuttlesworth

Frank Soracco

Lafayette Surney

Harriet Tanzman

Jimmie Travis

Joan Trumpauer

Bennie Tucker

Albert Turner

Willie Vaughn

C.T. Vivian

Wyatt Walker

David Walsh

William (Bill) Ware

Hosea Williams

Stanley Wise

Dorothy (Dottie) Zellner

Bob Zellner

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