That photo of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. riding one of the first desegregated buses in Montgomery, Ala.? He took it. The well-known image of black sanitation workers carrying “I Am a Man” signs in Memphis? His. He was the only photojournalist to document the entire trial in the murder of Emmett Till, and he was there in Room 306 of the Lorraine Hotel, Dr. King’s room, on the night he was assassinated.
But now an unsettling asterisk must be added to the legacy of Ernest C. Withers, one of the most celebrated photographers of the civil rights era: He was a paid F.B.I. informer.
On Sunday, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis published the results of a two-year investigation that showed Mr. Withers, who died in 2007 at age 85, had collaborated closely with two F.B.I. agents in the 1960s to keep tabs on the civil rights movement. It was an astonishing revelation about a former police officer nicknamed the Original Civil Rights Photographer, whose previous claim to fame had been the trust he engendered among high-ranking civil rights leaders, including Dr. King.
“It is an amazing betrayal,” said Athan Theoharis, a historian at Marquette University who has written books about the F.B.I. “It really speaks to the degree that the F.B.I. was able to engage individuals within the civil rights movement. This man was so well trusted.”
From at least 1968 to 1970, Mr. Withers, who was black, provided photographs, biographical information and scheduling details to two F.B.I. agents in the bureau’s Memphis domestic surveillance program, Howell Lowe and William H. Lawrence, according to numerous reports summarizing their meetings. The reports were obtained by the newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act and posted on its Web site.
A clerical error appears to have allowed for Mr. Withers’s identity to be divulged: In most cases in the reports, references to Mr. Withers and his informer number, ME 338-R, have been blacked out. But in several locations, the F.B.I. appears to have forgotten to hide them. The F.B.I. said Monday that it was not clear what had caused the lapse in privacy and was looking into the incident.
I’m never surprised to learn about a trusted figure in American insurgent politics who may have been an agent, informer, even an agent provocateur. All part of S.O.P. for American governments, federal, state and local. Even small town Red Squads have been around for decades to keep an eye on everyone from trade union organizers to peace activists.
Check back on some of your favorite ivory tower intellectuals – whether it be Somerset Maugham or Arthur Schlesinger the Little. They finked for the Man.
Like Andy Young said in the article, “We knew that everything we did was bugged.”
I hope none of you are gullible enough to think it ever stopped.
Eideard 
The bigger question is WHY. What hold did Hoover and the FBI have over any of these informants?
Some of it is hatred and fear. Some of it is opportunism, a step up the ladder socially and politically among those who own political power – sadly, some of it is just for the money.
I’ve known a few informers, some paid, some undercover for the advancement – placed inside the civil rights movement, the peace movement, trade union movement.
One of my best human resources job skills – has been exposing finks. So, I’ve known a couple of paid informants inside a union organizing drive, for example. I turned up a Black cop inside a major citywide civil rights movement – because that was one of the best ways for a Black cop to overcome the bigotry inside his chosen profession. Brother Blue can always move ahead faster by busting Black people and informing on civil rights activists counted towards that goal.
The dumbest fink I knew was a deputy sheriff masquerading as a hippy in the peace movement who was just plain laughable. All he knew about how to sound like an activist he got from idiot rightwing pundits.
In short, none of the reasons truly represent anything praiseworthy – regardless of the lies about patriotism and defense of America. They’re all opportunists looking out for #1.