P R O L O G U E S
My grandfather Fletcher and me, c. 1995.
My maternal grandfather, Fletcher Thompson (far right) with his father, Charles Hiram Thompson (far left), and brothers, c. 1941.
Likely my 2x-great-grandfather, James L. Thompson.
“I was born and raised in Knoxville, but my Tennessee roots do not run deep.”
So began the “personal statement” I submitted as part of my applications to various doctoral programs in history more than a decade ago. When I wrote this sentence, I wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. I wrote it because I thought it was true.
But I was very wrong.
Seventy-six years before I arrived in Baltimore to begin my doctoral studies at JHU, my grandfather, Fletcher D. Thompson, neared the probable end of his own educational career: high school graduation. It was the fall of 1938, and Fletcher was a senior year at Marye High School in Spotsylvania County, VA. He had been a solid student—decent grades and active in the school community. Even so, Fletcher must have known, his chances of attending college were slim. He had grown up poor, even by the standards of the Great Depression. So, imagining his future in 1938, Fletcher thought maybe he’d get a job working on the railroad or driving a Greyhound bus.
Gay Broaddus, Fletcher’s high school principal, however, had another idea. Knowing Fletcher was interested in college but not able to afford it, Mrs. Broaddus showed my grandfather a pamphlet she had received in the mail from a school in Spartanburg, South Carolina called the Textile Industrial Institute (TII). Recalling what he read in that pamphlet three-quarters of a century later, Fletcher told me, “[TII] had a program there where two students would share one job, many of them working in mills—cotton mills in Spartanburg—and they would give one job to two students. And one would work the job for two weeks and the other would go to school. I guess [students] probably went ten months out of the year. And at the end of the year you had paid your way and you had a year of college.” This, Fletcher told me, had sounded like a fine deal indeed.
The following September, that of 1939, Fletcher began his studies in Spartanburg. Like most TII students, he also got a job working in a local textile mill, but this was actually just one of three sources of income Fletcher established within a month of his arrival in South Carolina. He worked, also, in the Institute’s kitchen, helping to prepare and serve food to his fellow students, and as a delivery man for the local paper, The Spartanburg Herald. Between his studies and his various jobs, Fletcher’s days typically started at 3:30 am and ended around 10 or 11 pm.
Newspaper article about the Textile Industrial Institute printed in 1939, the year of my grandfather’s enrollment.
In the fall of 1940, the start of Fletcher’s second and final year at TII, two events occurred which would change the course of his life.
The first was the arrival of a young woman named Ruth DeLoache to campus. Having grown up just 70 miles south of Spartanburg in Saluda, SC, Ruth was a petite brunette with quiet confidence and clear intelligence. Here’s how, in 2014, my grandfather recalled meeting Ruth:
“[Ruth] was a waitress in the [TII] dining room. Well, Marry Goff was Ruth’s roommate, and she [Goff] was in my class, and we were having supper one night and Ruth was waiting on our table, and I told Mary, I said, ‘That’s a cute little gal over there.’ And Mary said, ‘She’s my roommate!” And then Ruth came over and Mary introduced all of us to her.”
Sitting next to Fletcher as he told this story, my grandmother shared her own memories of the event:
“And then you said to me, “Okay, now how many of those names can you repeat back? And that was not very thoughtful!”
Still, Ruth must have been charmed by Fletcher’s playfulness; the two began “courting” shortly afterward. As it happened, much of this courtship took place on a bench outside Judd Hall, the women’s dormitory at TII, where my grandparents would sit after Fletcher finished his morning newspaper delivery route. Here’s how the two of them described this ritual back in 2014:
Fletcher: “[Ruth and her roommate] lived on the second floor [of the women’s dormitory], just over the sidewalk, and I would come in every morning and throw a paper up and hit their window.”
Ruth (teasing): “It wasn’t really a happy time…” [laughs]
Me: “What time was it that he would wake you up? Really early in the morning?”
Ruth: “Probably six!”
Fletcher: “It was before seven o’clock, and then we’d have breakfast together.”
RDT: “So then I’d have to get happy!”
Fletcher Thompson, c. 1940
Ruth DeLoache, 1942.
Ruth and Fletcher sitting on a bench dedicated in their honor in 2017. The bench sits outside Judd Hall at Spartanburg Methodist College, formerly TII.
Later that same month, Fletcher was rolling up newspapers for his route one morning when a particular advertisement caught his eye. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was expanding, it announced. J. Edgar Hoover was looking to hire 300 additional Special Agents.
In order to understand why this advertisement sparked my grandfather’s interest, it is helpful to consider the time period in which he came of age. In the 1930s, G-Men (short for “Government Men”) came to represent the government’s increasing efforts to combat crime during Prohibition and the Great Depression. Thanks to a combination of the federal government’s aggressive public relations efforts and sensational media coverage, G-Men gained a reputation as heroic, incorruptible lawmen—stoic figures battling organized crime and restoring order in a time of economic and social upheaval. And as for Fletcher, his fascination with G-Men clearly began early. In 1933, when Fletcher was 12, his older brother, Charles Hiram (“CH”), graduated high school and left home to attend Strayer College in Northwest Washington, D.C. From then on, Fletcher took every chance he could to visit CH in the capital. The two of them used to spend hours whizzing around DC on bikes, with CH pointing out landmarks as they sped by. Speaking with me in 2015 about his decision to apply to the Bureau back in the 1940s, Fletcher explained:
“I had gotten fascinated by the FBI because I had visited Washington, and I remember riding by the Department of Justice with my brother CH. He pointed out the Department of Justice and he said, ‘That’s where the G-men hang out.’ That’s what they were called back then. And the FBI was noted for catching gangsters like Baby-faced Nelson, John Dillinger, and all that, and it was just fascinating to me.”
Illustration for the film G-Men (1935).
John Dillinger.
Lester Joseph Gills, a.ka. “Baby Face Nelson”
The advertisement that caught Fletcher’s eye in 1940 gave clear instructions to potential applicants. “Contact your local FBI office,” it read. But this is not what Fletcher did. Instead, he wrote directly to the Bureau’s Director in Washington, J. Edgar Hoover.
This was a bold move. For reasons I do not entirely understand, however, it worked; J. Edgar wrote back. “Reference is made to your application for appointment to the position of Messenger [a low-ranking special agent] in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice,” his reply read. “You should communicate with the Special Agent in Charge [SAC] of the Charlotte Field Division of this Bureau not later than September 26, 1940 and make arrangements with him for a personal interview.” If he looked closely, Fletcher might have noticed that Hoover had made it all but impossible that the Charlotte SAC would not grant him an interview; Hoover had cc’ed him personally.
A few days later, Fletcher penned a letter to the Charlotte SAC, Edward Scheidt. In the year that followed, FBI personnel interviewed Fletcher at least three times. And, per J. Edgar Hoover’s instructions, agents at the Charlotte and Richmond Divisions also conducted thorough investigations into Fletcher’s “character, reputation, ability, and qualifications.”
Having read the resulting reports, I’ll admit that Hoover’s men got a lot of things right about my grandfather. Scheidt, for example, easily surmised the particulars of Fletcher’s socioeconomic background during his initial interview:
“Applicant is described as being approximately 5’ 8” in height, weighing approximately 148 pounds, of medium build, of dark complexion and brown hair. He is neat, and wears conservative clothes of poor material which is probably due to the fact that he is unable to afford better clothes.”
Fortunately for Fletcher, the Bureau’s investigations into his background also yielded less superficial insights. One of Fletcher’s instructors at TII informed Sheidt that Fletcher was “very popular on campus,” and that “due to the fact Thompson was being elected to all of the important offices on the Campus, the [Textile Industrial] Institute passed a rule that no student could hold more than two responsible offices at one time.” Fletcher had thus “resigned most of his offices” and was then serving “only” as president of his class. “Slim” Monneyham, TII’s “coach” in charge of student employment, spoke of Fletcher in similar terms. Sheidt reported, “Mr. Monneyham stated that he regards the Applicant as “definately [sic] a leader, above average in intelligence, and possessing a good reputation.” Likewise, Fletcher’s supervisor at the Herald reported that Fletcher was “level headed,” “full of ambition,” and “the type of young man who [was] likely to succeed.”
In the end, Hoover was more than persuaded. Technically, Fletcher was not qualified to serve as a clerk in the FBI, much less as a Special Agent. Immediately after his graduation from TII in June of 1941, however, Fletcher moved to DC and began working in a clerical capacity for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And, less than three years later, on January 3, 1944, he was appointed a Special Agent.
Excerpt of report summarizing interview of Fletcher Thompson submitted by Edward Scheidt to J. Edgar Hoover, 7 October 1940.
Just five months after his appointment as Special Agent, Fletcher put his career in the Bureau on hold in order to enlist in the United States Marine Corps: a decision that very nearly cost him his life.
The trouble began on the ship en route to Guam, where Fletcher and the rest of his outfit would be temporarily stationed before they shipped out to Okinawa. Playing cards with several of his fellow Marines one day, Fletcher noticed he was having trouble using his sense of touch to determine how many cards were between his thumb and finger at any given moment. Before long, he couldn’t feel his fingers or thumbs at all: a numbness that spread slowly but surely until he was largely paralyzed from the neck down. Recalling this experience many decades later, Fletcher told me, “He [the ship medic] put a piece of candy on my chest and said, ‘Thompson, if you can grab that candy you can have it,’ but I just couldn’t move—couldn’t get it.”
Aboard the ship, Fletcher’s illness was diagnosed as ALS—a difficult diagnosis now, but especially in the 1940s. Once he was back in the states, however, doctors realized Fletcher was actually suffering from transverse myelitis, a rare neurological disorder characterized by inflammation of the spinal cord. In many if not most cases, transverse myelitis results in lifelong disabilities, but Fletcher was lucky. He recovered enough in time to marry my grandmother on October 6, 1945. Honorably discharged from the Marine Corps shortly thereafter, Fletcher returned to service at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in January of 1946.
Excerpt of diary of Ruthe DeLoache, 17 July 1945.
My grandparents, c. 1945.
Ruth and Fletcher on their wedding day, 6 October 1945.
Fletcher remained stationed at FBI Headquarters until 1949, at which time he was transferred to Toledo, OH, where my mother and her two elder sisters were born. A son arrived five years later, by which time Fletcher (and thus the entire family) had been transferred to Savannah.
Fletcher’s Savannah appointment marked his first leadership role in the Bureau. As the division’s Relief Supervisor, Fletcher assumed the responsibilities of the regular supervisor, the division’s SAC, when the latter was unavailable or on leave. A far greater portion of Fletcher’s work in Savannah, however, involved coordinating the Bureau’s investigation of the Klu Klux Klan, work that relied heavily on his ability to cultivate informants within the white terrorist organization.
Ruth DeLoache Thompson with daughter Jennie, 1950.
Edgar Hoover to FDT, 21 May 1957.
Edgar Hoover to FDT, 27 March 1957.
In 1961, after six years in Savannah, Fletcher was transferred back to Headquarters in Washington, and it was there that, two years later, my grandfather was assigned the case which he would always consider among the most significant of his career: the investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
At the time, Fletcher was assigned to Headquarters supervising the investigation of bank robberies and other federal crimes, including the assaulting and killing of federal officers. As such, Fletcher’s duties involved keeping “the Director and other officials informed concerning developments in major cases.” On November 22, 1963 specifically, Fletcher was debating the particulars of a memo intended for Director Hoover with another agent, Henry Schutz, when “suddenly the door opened and another employee announced that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.”
Later that same afternoon, Fletcher later recalled, “someone called on behalf of the Director” and asked an important question: Was the President of the United States “covered by Federal Statute for assaulting or killing a federal officer?” What Hoover wanted to know, in other words, was whether or not it was a federal crime to kill the President. “We frantically examined the list of officers covered by that statute,” Fletcher said, “but the President was not one of them.” It was, therefore, the local Dallas Police Department that arrested and took custody of Lee Harvey Oswald later that day.
Two days later, Fletcher, Ruth, and their youngest two daughters (my mother and aunt) returned home from church to find their eldest child, Jennie, eagerly awaiting them. Jennie had stayed home from church to take care of her younger brother Jim, then 3, who was sick. “Daddy, you had better call your office; someone has just shot Oswald,” she said.
Fletcher’s first thought was that Jennie was confused. “No, Jennie,” he said, “Oswald shot President Kennedy.”
Just in case his daughter was not confused, however, Fletcher did call his office. What he learned, of course, was that Oswald had indeed been killed, and that the shooter was a man named Jack Ruby. It was also on this phone call that Fletcher learned that newly-sworn in President Lyndon B. Johnson had, in my grandfather’s words, “called Mr. Hoover and directed that the FBI—jurisdiction or no jurisdiction—was to head up the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy.”
A few hours later, Fletcher received a phone call from a friend at the Bureau. “[He] suggested that I get a bag packed because it looked like I might be going to Dallas,” Fletcher said. Indeed, shortly after, he received another phone call instructing him to “be at Andrews Air Force Base at 9 pm to be flown by Air Force jet to Dallas.” As Fletcher later learned, in the hours following Jack Ruby’s assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, President Johnson had called Hoover and “given instructions to the effect that he wanted a thorough investigation [of both Kennedy and Ruby’s deaths] conducted by the FBI,” as well as a report summarizing the investigation on his desk by the following Tuesday morning for “immediate release to the American people.”
Unfortunately for Fletcher, traffic in downtown Washington was bad that evening—especially around the Capitol where Kennedy’s body had arrived earlier that same day, having been transported from the White House in a horse-drawn caisson. Increasingly anxious that he would miss his flight to Dallas, Fletcher began to wonder how he would explain doing so to J. Edgar Hoover. But when he finally arrived at the airport, just a few minutes after 9, he was informed by an Air Force officer that the plane—which had been Vice President Johnson’s plane until he was sworn in as President just two days before—was “being sent to Dallas for the sole purpose” of transporting Fletcher and the one other agent Hoover had chosen to send to Dallas, Richard (“Dick”) Rogge.
Upon their arrival in Dallas, Fletcher and Dick Rogge were transported to the Hotel Adolphus in the city’s downtown to drop their bags. Then they were taken directly to the local FBI office where their job, in Fletcher’s words, “was to review the volumes of memos, teletypes, and other communications as they poured in and to talk with the investigating personnel.” As such, neither Fletcher nor Dick Rogge left that office from the time of their arrival late Sunday night to Tuesday morning, when their report had to be completed for transmittal to FBI Headquarters. Their instructions, Fletcher later recalled, were: “One of you come back with the report and the other one should stay in Dallas,” followed by what my grandfather always referred to as the “understatement of the century”—”There may be further questions.” By coin toss, it was determined that Fletcher would carry the report back to Washington and Rogge would stay behind in Texas.
Recalling his subsequent return to Headquarters, Fletcher later said, “I was told, ‘Well, you did what we sent you down there to do, but the President has changed his mind and is going to appoint a Presidential Commission,” a commission now known as the Warren Commission. So, “after a brief period of more memos and conferences,” Fletcher said, “I went back to my regular duties.” As long as he lived, however, Fletcher took pride in the fact that the Warren Report largely confirmed the facts he and Dick Rogge presented in their initial report to Hoover and President Johnson.
Excerpt of report submitted by my grandfather and Dick Rogge to J. Edgar Hoover on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Excerpt of letter from FDT to his brother, CH, and sister-in-law, Glenna, from the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, 26 November 1963.
Excerpt of remarks delivered by FDT on 40-year anniversary of assassination of JFK with notations by FDT.
Nearly a decade later, in February of 1973, my grandfather was appointed Assistant Director of the FBI. Specifically, Fletcher was appointed head of the Identification Division, the largest in the Bureau at the time.
Two years later, on January 3, 1975, Fletcher retired from the Bureau, thereby concluding a 34-year career in the agency. Fletcher and Ruth then elected to return to the place they had met back in 1940, Spartanburg, SC. Having completed both his undergraduate education and law school during his service in the Bureau, Fletcher opened a general law practice, a [second] career in which he found great meaning for more than four decades. Above all, however, my grandfather found joy in his relationship with his beloved wife, my grandmother Ruth. Even today, I have never witnessed such consistent kindness, love, and devotion between two people as I saw between my grandparents. By the time of Fletcher’s death in 2017, Ruth and Fletcher had been married for 73 years and together for nearly 80. Ruth passed away just months later, in 2018.
My grandparents in Washington, DC., 1945-1949.
My grandparents at their home in Spartanburg, Christmas Day 2011.
Ruth and Fletcher were in their late 60s when I was born. Still, even as a kid, I adored my grandparents. Generous with their love, time, and affection, Ruth and Fletcher were keenly interested in my life and the lives of all of their grandchildren.
In some ways then, it’s no wonder I felt close to my grandparents as a child. Who wouldn’t adore grandparents like mine? At the same time, however, my close relationships with Ruth and Fletcher also probably had something to do with the fact that I was somewhat of a peculiar kid. For one thing, as soon as I could read, I became obsessed with history, reading as many age-appropriate history books as my parents would buy and then pulling their nonfiction books off the shelves in our living room. And, as far as I was concerned, Ruth and Fletcher were clearly historical figures. I first “interviewed” my grandparents, I believe, when I was six or seven. (Unfortunately, I was quite fixated on the history of the dustbowl at the time, and thus disappointed to discover that Ruth and Fletcher had grown up in the Southeast.)
Fletcher and me, c. 1995
Fletcher and me returning from getting the morning paper at my childhood home in Knoxville, TN, c. 1994.
The period in which I was closest to my grandparents, however, was actually when I was in my twenties and they were in their nineties. Not coincidentally, these were also the years in which I conducted extensive interviews of my grandfather.
On some subjects—the Kennedy assassination, for example—Fletcher was quite open and engaging. Of all the things my grandfather could have been involved in at the FBI, however, I had spent a great deal of time thinking about COINTELPRO, a series of covert and illegal counterintelligence programs conducted by the FBI between 1956 to 1971 to surveil, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt American political organizations perceived as “subversive.” On this, however, Fletcher said very little at all. In fact, the only thing I recall him saying about COINTELPRO was that he “did not know of any such program,” and that if he had, he would have been “extremely disappointed in the Bureau.”
There are, of course, far too many ways to interpret a statement like that for it to be of any use at all. So, when Fletcher passed away at 96 in 2017, I figured I had probably learned everything I ever would about my grandfather’s career. But I was wrong.
Excerpt of Bureau memo regarding COINTELPRO, 13 November 1970.
Through a series of coincidences in August 2021, I was introduced to Oliver St. Clair Franklin, CBE., a diplomat and financial executive who was then in his mid-70s. From our very first conversation, I could tell that Oliver and I were going to be good friends. Still, I never could have imagined what Oliver would soon tell me.
A few months after our first (email) introduction, I decided to give Oliver a call to help me pass the time on a long road trip back to my parents’ house in Tennessee. As we chatted, I mentioned my plans for my time in Knoxville. “I’m going to organize my grandfather’s papers,” I said, adding, “he was an Assistant Director in the FBI.”
I will never forget Oliver’s reply: “You know, I hope your grandfather was Fletcher Thompson,” he said. I pulled over immediately. “How do you know my grandfather’s name?!” I asked. At first, Oliver just laughed. But then he told me a story.
In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King came to Baltimore where, for safety reasons, he stayed with Oliver’s parents, the Rev. Oliver St. Clair Franklin Sr. and Mrs. Hyla Franklin. By 1964, of course, the FBI was tracking Dr. King’s every move by any and all means, legal or, more often, not. And so, shortly after Dr. King’s departure, the Rev. and Mrs. Franklin realized that they, too, were being targeted by Hoover’s men. Knowing, at the very least, that their home phone had been tapped, they began to wonder and worry about what they might not know.
What they needed, Oliver’s father eventually decided, was a man on the inside—a Bureau man with some semblance of a conscience who might be persuaded to let them know if and when they had cause to fear for their family’s safety. So, in search of such a man, the Franklins reached out to a powerful and connected friend, Judge William H. Hastie Jr. (William H. Hastie was the first African American to be appointed as a federal district court judge, as well as the first African American to be appointed as a federal appellate judge. He was also a native of Knoxville, TN.)
Judge Hastie did not disappoint. He did indeed know someone in the Bureau whom he trusted. His name was Fletcher Thompson. From then on, Oliver told me, it was not uncommon for his father—who remained active in the struggle for civil rights despite the FBI’s harassment—to exclaim, about some crisis or another, “I’ve got to talk to Fletcher about this!”
Now, to understand the significance—to me, I mean— of what Oliver told me, you have to understand that one of the primary reasons I often found my grandfather’s career quite painful to think about was that he always seemed exclusively proud of his work. There were, to be sure, many reasons Fletcher had every right to be proud. But what about the FBI’s many abuses of power? How, I wanted to know, did Fletcher feel about that history? What Oliver told me, therefore, complicated things—complicated Fletcher, and in a way I did not see it coming. It is possible, however, that I should have.
Dr. King in Baltimore, 1964.
Judge William H. Hastie Jr.
Newspaper advertisement featuring Oliver St. Clair Franklin Sr.
One hundred years ago to the day before this conversation with Oliver, my grandfather Fletcher was born in Spotsylvania County, VA.
Fletcher’s birth, on August 11, 1921, was a difficult one for his mother, Jennie Lee Brown Thompson, so much so that she was advised not to have any more children afterward. Unfortunately, however, she fell pregnant again less than two years later. Her death certificate, dated April 9, 1923, indicates that she died of “sepsis following [an] abortion.” In the wake of Jennie Lee’s death, Fletcher’s father, Charles Hiram Thompson, decided to send his youngest son to be raised by his (Fletcher’s) paternal grandparents, James L. Thompson and Julia A. Thompson.
So who were these elders who raised my grandfather?
Fletcher with older sister, c. 1921.
Unidentified woman in Fletcher’s family, c. 1850-1890.
Fletcher Thompson (far right) with his father, Charles Hiram Thompson (far left), and brothers, c. 1941.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, James L. Thompson was a ten-year-old boy living on his family’s farm in Mountain City, TN.
Tennessee seceded from the Union in June of that year, and according to the Confederacy’s First Conscription Act, passed less than a year later, every man between 18 and 35 owed the South at least three years of military service. James, of course, was far too young to enlist. At 42 years of age, though, his father, Henry Hawes Thompson, would have been welcome in the Confederate Army. Ultimately, Henry did elect to serve. He fought, however, for the Union.
All told, Henry Hawes Thompson was one of the lucky ones. A year and a half after his enlistment, he fell ill and was sent to a hospital in Chattanooga to recuperate. Six months later, he was discharged from both the hospital and the army; the war was over. (By the way, the town where my great-great-great-grandfather mustered out? Knoxville, TN.) This, however, is not the end of Henry Hawes Thompson’s story, for he may have survived the Civil War, but he would not survive the chaos and fury of Reconstruction.
Returning to Mountain City after the war, Henry was met not only by his family, but also by an entire town of bitter, white southerners enraged by his betrayal of the South, slavery, and them. They wanted his death, and ultimately, they would have it. Henry Hawes Thompson was lynched on March 14, 1870. Standing in the crowd to witness his father’s death was Henry’s nineteen-year-old son, James—the same man who, many years later, would raise a little boy named Fletcher.
Civil War service records of Henry Hawes Thompson.
Likely James L. Thompson, son of Henry Hawes Thompson and grandfather of Fletcher D. Thompson.
Four years after his stay with Oliver’s parents in 1964, Dr. King made a tragically different decision in Memphis. He checked into the Lorraine Hotel on April 2, 1968 and was assassinated on the balcony of Room 306 two days later.
As a kid, I was taught what all American school children are taught about Dr. King’s death, that he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray. In retrospect, however, I have a problem with this explanation of Dr. King’s death, and my problem is this: I don’t think it’s true. I don’t believe James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr. This belief, I should say, is not the result of my own research, but the result of having carefully read three books by William F. Pepper, an attorney and confidant of Dr. King. I also had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Pepper several times before he passed away in 2024. According to Pepper’s research, King's assassination was not the act of a lone gunman, James Earl Ray, but rather the result of a broader conspiracy involving multiple parties, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation. King’s shooter, according to Pepper, was Frank Strausser, a former Memphis Police Department officer and an expert marksman.
For reasons the reader may surely guess, William Pepper’s account of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was not one I wanted to accept as truth. For one thing, who wouldn’t be horrified by the notion that King was killed at the behest of a racist and corrupt director of a federal agency? Then, of course, there is matter of my grandfather, a man whom—if you couldn’t tell—I absolutely adored. Reading William Pepper’s books was, therefore, an extremely distressing experience, for as much as I hated to admit it, the facts they laid out before me were compelling. Thankfully, however, my purpose in mentioning any of this is not to convince you, reader, of those facts or of any others, as I am not up to that task at all. It is, instead, to prepare you to hear just one more story—one that began with a phone call from a friend in the spring of 2022.
The New York Times, 5 April 1868 (day following Dr. King’s assassination).
My mother with her siblings and parents and J. Edgar Hoover, 2 April 1968 (two days before the assassination of Dr. King).
Answering this phone call three years ago, I was surprised to discover that there was a third person on the line: someone I will refer to as “Jason.” Jason was hoping to speak with me, my friend explained, about the documentary he hoped to make regarding the FBI’s role in the assassination of Dr. King.
Specifically, Jason explained, he was wondering if I would be willing to share any records I had from my grandfather’s time in the Bureau. Hearing this, I knew my reply would be a disappointment. “I do have a few documents from my grandfather’s career,” I explained, “but nothing even remotely related to Martin Luther King Jr. or his assassination.” I also shared my honest opinion that while I, too, believe J. Edgar Hoover set the sequence of events leading to King’s assassination in motion, I highly doubt that Hoover did so by communicating anything in writing. It is far more likely, I argued, that Hoover verbally communicated his wishes to Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s second-in-command (and lover, but that’s neither here nor there), and that Tolson, in turn, traveled to Memphis to verbally convey those wishes to Russell Adkins Sr., a Klansman and Mason, and the de-facto head of the Memphis division of the Dixie Mafia, and that Adkins ultimately enlisted the “help” of King’s shooter, Frank Strausser.
Explaining all this to Jason, though, another thought occurred to me. Way back when I read William Pepper’s books, I said, I had become, for a time, somewhat obsessed with the question of whether or not Frank Strausser was still living. And, after quite a bit of digging, I had not been able to find any evidence that Strausser was not alive. In fact, I said, I had found what seemed to be a current address. So I posed a question: “What if I went to Memphis and knocked on Strausser’s door?”
This, I will acknowledge, was an insane proposition, and yes, I did know it was insane at the time. I made it, however, for a very simple reason, which is that it just seemed like something I had to do. Why? I’m not sure, but if I had to guess, it would be because it seemed like something I could do. As much as I might have wished otherwise, that is, I understood myself to be quite suited—almost bizarrely suited—to the task of showing up at angry white man’s door and coaxing him into a conversation with me—especially this angry white man’s door. If desired, I can speak like a Tennessee native (after all, I am a Tennessee native), and generally speaking, I’m good at connecting with people. Besides, as a historian of race and slavery, I know every racist trope in the book: surely fertile ground for connecting with the man who killed Martin Luther King Jr., right? Last but not least, I’m a relatively young and not unattractive white woman. Racist old men love those. Given all this, if not me, who? No, I’m seriously asking. Who?
Excerpt of public information regarding Frank Strausser.
I arrived in Memphis on the morning of June 27, 2022, a Monday. Jason arrived later that afternoon.
Having booked reservations at the same hotel (the Hilton located inside the old Central Station downtown), we met at the hotel bar briefly and then moved to the restaurant off the lobby. About an hour later, Dr. Coby Smith, a founding member of the Memphis Invaders, and his wife, Mrs. Constance Smith, arrived to join us for dinner. But after just fifteen minutes or so (Dr. and Mrs. Smith were still eating), Jason and I excused ourselves to prepare for our outing, as I thought it best to knock on Strausser’s door while it was still light outside. The Smiths wished us luck.
Up in Jason’s hotel room, I unbuttoned my dress so that he could place a tiny black microphone in my bra and a small black box (I didn’t know its name then and I don’t know its name now) in my underwear. Then we left.
As we reached Strausser’s neighborhood—or at least the neighborhood I believed to be Strausser’s—I was surprised and quite irritated by how pretty it was—full of nice, older homes with gardens and porches. Once our target address was in sight, though, I realized the house I took to be Strausser’s was, in my view, the crummiest on the block. “But still,” I thought, “this neighborhood…” It just bugged me to think of Strausser living all these years in such a nice setting, crummy house or not. Knowing it would be unwise for Jason to be visible from Strausser’s door, I exited the car at the end of the street and approached the house on foot in my high heels. (I had dressed for the occasion.)
Anticipating this moment the day before, I had called a cop I used to know back when I lived in Baltimore to ask for advice. “When you knock,” he had said, “make sure you stand to the side in case he shoots at you through the door.” I reminded myself to do this, and then I knocked.
Microphone in my bra, 27 June 2022.
Dinner in Memphis, 27 June 2022.
Actually, no. I rang the doorbell. Seeing it had a built-in camera, I also smiled and waved. A few moments went by, and then an elderly white man opened the door.
I began talking as soon as he did so—loudly, cheerfully, and with the accent I thought least likely to get me killed.
“Hi! I’m looking for Frank Strausser! Are you Mr. Strausser by chance??”
“Frank? You’re looking for Frank? Frank is dead!”
“Oh is he? Well, shoot. When did he die?”
“Oh, a couple of years ago.”
I’ll admit that at this point, I don’t think I was thinking very strategically, because I just thanked him for the information and took off down the street. Once I got back in the car, however, I realized my mistake—I should have asked to come inside! I should have seen what information I could get out of him! So, back I went.
This time, I tried my best to make conversation. I asked about Frank’s family, I think, and just generally tried to be charming, and before long, the man invited me inside.
As the door shut behind me, I looked around the living room. And, everywhere I looked, Ronald Reagan looked back at me. To this day, I have never seen so many framed portraits in one room, and I certainly have never seen so many framed portraits of a single person. A few of them were even signed! Pointing at one, I said, “Now, he was a fine President. Best we’ve ever had if you ask me.”
“You’re sure right about that,” the man replied.
I sat down on his couch and he took a seat in a chair across from me. He told me his name, Bob, and said he had known Frank Strausser for years. Frank used to rent the “little house out back," he said.
Bob was extremely curious to know why I was so interested in Frank Strausser, so I offered an explanation. “I’m a historian,” I said, “and I think it’s such a shame how people don’t respect the police like they used to. That’s why I’m writing a book all about the history of the Memphis police. You know, they’ve always been some of the finest in the nation.”
“That’s right,” Bob said, “Frank was a police officer back in the day.” He had forgotten, he said, because Frank had been driving a cab for most of the time that they knew each other.
Having explained why I wanted to talk to Frank Strausser, I felt it was safe to ask a follow-up question: Did Frank have any family? “Sure,” Bob said, “a brother and a son that I know of…”
This information was good enough for me. I thanked him and headed back to the end of the street.
Somewhat to my surprise, I realized I felt disappointed walking back to Jason’s car. I had wanted Strausser to be alive, wanted to meet him, wanted—naively, I’m sure—to see what I could get out of him.
Jason, meanwhile, said he wasn’t disappointed at all. We had wanted to find out if Strausser was alive or dead, he said, and now we had. He left Memphis the next morning—said he had a “shoot in the city.” As for me, though, I was thinking about what Bob had told me—that Frank Strausser had family in Memphis. I was thinking, specifically, about that brother. I was thinking about trying to find him.
“Jason” and me in Memphis, shortly before I knocked on the first door, 27 June 2022.
Home of landlord of Frank Strausser. (Strausser lived behind this house before he died.)
Back at the hotel, I opened my laptop, and within an hour, I had found an address for someone I believed with some confidence to be Frank Strausser’s brother, Kurt Strausser.
So, the next morning, I did it all over again. I put on the same dress and heels, did my make up, and called an uber. (I didn’t have a car in Memphis, and remember, Jason had left already.) Before I departed, though, I tested my theory that my hearing aids, which are Bluetooth-enabled, could be used in conjunction with my phone as recording devices. Indeed they could. In fact, the sound quality seemed superior to the recordings made with Jason’s equipment the previous day.
From my hotel, it took roughly half an hour to reach Kurt Strausser’s residence. The house was gargantuan and new-looking, the sort my mother refers to as “McMansions.” Dozens of miniature Confederate flags lined the front portion of its circular driveway, along with a yard sign reading, “Dixie Land.” If you’re having trouble picturing this scene, just know there was nothing subtle about its messaging.
As my Uber driver pulled away, I approached the house. When I knocked on the door, though, no one answered, so I decided to walk around the back of the house to where a significantly smaller and run-down house was. I knocked on its door, and a few moments later, a little girl—maybe seven years old—appeared. I asked if her parents were home. She ran off and returned with her dad. I asked him if he was Kurt Strausser, but he said, “No, Kurt’s got the big house.” I told him that I had knocked but that no one was home, and he offered to call Kurt for me. “That would be great!” I said. He dialed the number and held the phone to his face. “You’ve got a visitor,” he said.
Ten minutes later Kurt Strausser pulled into the flag-lined driveway, and he absolutely did not look pleased to see me. This, I pretended not to notice; I just smiled and waved as he pulled up next to me and rolled down his window.
Me: “Hi! I’m a historian from the University of Virginia, and I’m here to ask you about your brother’s career as a police officer. I’m so sorry to just show up like this, but do you have a few minutes to talk?’
Him: “What about my brother’s career?”
Me: “1968…?”
Him: “I don’t know anything nothing about what my brother did. I was ten years old in 1968.”
Again, I asked if he had five minutes to talk, and again, he said he was busy, that he had to go somewhere. But this, I thought, this was an opening. “Where are you going?” I asked. “Can I come?”
Now, do I know getting in that truck was absolutely not a safe decision? Yes, I do. But there just wasn’t anyway I wasn’t getting in that truck.
As I buckled my seatbelt, Kurt gave me a notepad and told me to write down “all my information—name, email, phone number, and address.” I didn’t see how I could get out of doing as he instructed. I also knew that if what I wrote down wasn’t accurate, he would find out. So I wrote down my information, and then I got into it.
Me: “Well, I heard Frank passed away a couple of years ago, and you know I’m from Knoxville, so I figured I’d just drive over. I’m staying at a hotel. Did I mention that I work at the University of Virginia? Anyway, my grandfather was in the FBI—an Assistant Director, and he always used to say things like, ‘Well, we had a real good relationship with the Memphis Police. We could always trust them.’ But I never knew what he meant. But then I heard from people doing research on things that Mr. Strausser—your brother I mean—was the man to talk to about this.”
Him: “Your dad’s dad?”
Me: “No, my mother’s. My granddad, Fletcher Thompson. He was an Assistant Director under J. Edgar Hoover. Now, I don’t know if he knew anything—maybe he did and he just didn’t tell me. I mean, I like to think I was his favorite granddaughter, but maybe I wasn’t!”
Him: “And you’re Jennie Williams?”
Me: “Yes, sir.”
Then, finally, he started talking. He was the youngest of ten, he said, and Frank had been the oldest. Frank was shot six times in Vietnam—six times, and in the back! And one of their brothers, Paul, he had been killed over there. And Frank wouldn’t have killed anyone because he used to want to be a priest. Did I know that? But then there was a book that accused him of murder. Had I read that book?
“Wow,” I said, “that book coming out must have been difficult for your family…”
Shortly later, we pulled into the CVS parking lot, and I was out of time. Kurt would “talk to his family,” he said, about speaking to me again, and then he’d “give me a call.” I thanked him, but I knew he wouldn’t call, and I didn’t think I could push him much more. I climbed out of the truck and walked to a nearby coffee shop to call an Uber.
By the time I made it back to my hotel, I was feeling a strange combination of absolute exhaustion and sheer panic about what I had done. I ate dinner at the hotel bar then went straight to bed.
Home of Kurt Strausser.
Unsurprisingly, I had trouble sleeping that night. When I woke up again a couple hours later, I checked my phone and saw that I had received two messages from someone with the last name of Strausser, one via Facebook Messenger and one via LinkedIn. Both messages said the same thing: “Are you still in Memphis?”
Staring at my phone, I pondered two potential reasons as to why this this person was reaching out to me. First, I knew, he could be trying to contact me to convey a threat. But it was also possible, I reasoned, that this man was willing to speak with me about Frank Strausser. I replied to the Facebook message, and I gave him my number.
My phone rang early the next morning as I was sitting in the hotel having breakfast. Seeing the Memphis area code, I answered. The person on the other end of the line—I’ll call him “Mike” Strausser—sounded significantly younger than Kurt. Probably not another one of the Strausser brothers, I decided. Indeed, the man introduced himself as a nephew of Kurt and Frank Strausser.
Mike Strausser knew a great deal about me. He knew where I did my PhD and the focus of my research. He knew my dad ran for Congress in 2016. He knew my parents are both clinical psychologists. In fact, he told me, he had reached out to my mother (something I would have to deal with later). Truthfully, though, none of this alarmed me. I would have done the same research he had done if I had been in his shoes. Besides, I had done a great deal more research on his family than he had done on mine.
What’s more, as Mike spoke, I began to get the impression that he was significantly more educated than the man I had spoken to the day before. He seemed reasonable to me—even willing to try to understand why I had done what I had done. Still, and understandably, he was irritated and alarmed that I had shown up to his uncle’s house out of the blue. I made up my mind to be straight with him. I told him a little about my family history—spoke briefly about why I feel compelled to reckon with that history and its larger contexts, including slavery, my primary focus as a scholar, and the FBI’s harassment and surveillance of civil rights activists, my focus in that moment.
Listening, Mike told me he could understand where I was coming from, and that he, too, wanted to know the truth. In fact, he said, he had been quite close to Frank, and as his uncle had laid dying a couple years back, Mike had encouraged him to get “everything off his chest” while he could. He said he was eager to learn more about the research showing that Frank murdered Martin Luther King, and that he was willing to remain in contact with me in order to do so. He had just two requests: He wanted any and all contact with his family to go through him, and he did not want to be asked to talk to anyone but me. Both requests were fine by me, I said.
When I called Jason from the airport later that afternoon, however, I discovered that he felt differently. He insisted that I needed to give him Mike Strausser’s phone number immediately so that he could call Mike for himself: a plan I felt would surely backfire.
Mike had made his wishes clear, I said, and I certainly hadn’t been in a position to argue with him. What’s more, I had given Mike my word that I would not share his contact information. Going back on my word, I said, would not only violate my own integrity but also, in all probability, anger Mike Strausser—someone who, I reminded Jason, was under absolutely no obligation to talk to us. Explaining all of this, I suggested another plan. “Just give me two weeks,” I said—two weeks to build a relationship with Mike Strausser. After those two weeks, I would do my best to convince Mike that there was someone else, Jason, whom he should really be talking to about all this.
Unfortunately, though, this plan was not satisfactory to Jason at all. In fact, by this point, he was clearly struggling to contain his anger toward me. That anger, as best as I can tell, also explains why he said the thing that ultimately ended our collaboration:
“You wanna know why I asked for your help, Jennie?? It’s because you’re a pretty face. That’s it.”
This, I will admit, was disappointing as hell. More than that, though, it was deeply troubling, because it told me all I needed to know about Jason and his ability to get the truth about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. out there. He just wasn’t up to it.
But I sure hope someone is.
On August 11, 2017, I called my grandfather to wish him a happy 96th birthday. Fletcher thanked me for calling, as he always did, and then he said he had something to tell me.
Inspired by all the interviews I had conducted with him over the years, Fletcher had decided to start writing down memories on his own as they occurred to him. "I’ll have Vicki type them up and mail them to you when I’m finished,” he said. (Vicki was the office manager of his law practice.)
Over the next several months, Fletcher spent hours seated at his kitchen table, filling page after page of a yellow legal pad with blue and black ink. Sometimes he would call me around 9 am just to tell me he had been “up writing” since 5 or so. Fletcher never was one for idleness.
I received the typed edition of my grandfather’s “memoirs” (as we had taken to calling them) one day early that December. Opening the package, I dialed Fletcher to let him know that it had arrived and that I was looking forward to reading everything he had written later that day. The call was brief but warm. It was also the last conversation we ever had. Fletcher passed away on December 17, 2017.
“Here are some of the verses, rhymes and tunes that often come to mind especially in the early mornings: ‘Life’s evening sun is sinking low; a few more days and I must go to meet the deeds that I have done.’”
— Memoirs by Fletcher D. Thompson, p. 34.