By 1957, Joseph McCarthy was dead and HUAC’s power and influence was on the decline, with former President Harry Truman calling it “the most un-American thing in the country today.” Increasingly, organizations and individuals alike began to speak out against the committee, but rather than back down, committee members escalated their targeting of activist groups and individuals, with particular emphasis on Civil Rights leaders. As the Red Scare continued unabated, prominent Jewish and Black activists found themselves subjected to a new level of interrogation and scrutiny. Narrated by Rebecca Naomi Jones and featuring Dr. Jelani Cobb, Dean of Columbia Journalism School and scholar of the Cold War.

Image: Bayard Rustin and James Baldwin at the Montgomery March, 1965. From the American Jewish Congress records at the American Jewish Historical Society, I-77.

The Wreckage is made possible by funding from the Ford Foundation.

Additional funding is provided through the American Jewish Education Program, generously supported by Sid and Ruth Lapidus.