Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Acknowledgments xi
4. Introduction 1
5. Part One/Thesis One. The Birth of the Bureau, Coupled with the Birth of J. Edgar Hoover, Ensured the FBI’s Attention to African American Literature 25
6. Part Two/Thesis Two. The FBI’s Aggressive Filing and Long Study of African American Writers Was Tightly Bound to the Agency’s Successful Evolution under Hoover 59
7. Part Three/Thesis Three. The FBI Is Perhaps the Most Dedicated and Influential Forgotten Critic of African American Literature 127
8. Part Four/Thesis Four. The FBI Helped to Define the Twentieth-Century Black Atlantic, Both Blocking and Forcing Its Flows 175
9. Part Five/Thesis Five. Consciousness of FBI Ghostreading Fills a Deep and Characteristic Vein of African American Literature 215
10. Appendix: FOIA Requests for FBI Files on African American Authors Active from 1919 to 1972 277
11. Notes 285
12. Works Cited 315
13. Index 343