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Report: Longtime Civil Rights Activist Richard Aoki Was FBI Informant

A newly disclosed report from the FBI claims a longtime civil rights activist who died in 2009 served as a government informant. According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, Richard Aoki covertly filed intelligence reports on his fellow activists in the Bay Area after first being recruited by an FBI agent in the 1950s. Aoki was an early member of the Black Panther Party and later served as a field marshal for the Panthers. He helped train Panther members in handling firearms before the group’s infamous shootouts with Oakland police in the 1960s. Aoki went on to become an educator, working for 25 years at a community college before his suicide in 2009. Two years before his death, Aoki had denied being an informant when asked in an interview. A number of Aoki’s fellow activists have also cast doubt on the claims. But intelligence records released by the FBI list Aoki as an informant dating back to 1967.

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