The Villain among Us: J. Edgar Hoover and the Unqueer Religious Canon
book review
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century - Beverly Gage
The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism - Lerone A. Martin
Reviewer - Daniel Ballon-Garst
extract
Few villainous figures loom larger in twentieth-century US history than John Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). From 1924 until his death in 1972, Hoover built the FBI into the sprawling apparatus of the security state it is today, perfecting and popularizing the techniques of policing, surveillance, and intimidation commonplace in contemporary law enforcement. Hoover made it his life’s work to root out “subversive” elements, which he defined as anyone or anything who threatened the “American” way of life—namely, existing racial and social hierarchies. From labor organizers and civil rights activists to feminists and left-leaning religious and political figures, few escaped the watchful eye of Hoover’s FBI—including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Hoover famously described as “the most notorious liar in the United States”…