Soukeyna Wade: the CIA and the FBI in pre-Civil Rights America

“Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny” -Huey P. Newton

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Soukeyna is a 12th grade student who wrote her Extended Essay in History. Her essay focuses on the roles of the FBI and the CIA in pre-Civil Rights America; find out more about her experience in this interview, and read her essay!

Hi Soukeyna, can you give us an elevator pitch of your EE?

So my EE kind of talks about debunking myths that the American CIA as well as the FBI had hid from the American people during the 1950’s, and about 1960’s, roughly during the segregation and racism period. I discussed organizations such as the Black Panthers, and secret police forces that wanted to deteriorate these groups. These archive documents talk about how it was done.

What was your research question?

“To what extent is J Edgar Hoover, who was the FBI leader, infiltrate groups during his presidency”

How did you come across your topic?

I would say that I am very into activism, and I like talking about segregation. It’s a strong topic within me that I like to talk about. I really wanted to focus that, and since we study segregation but not to the extent that I looked at through my EE, that was something I wanted to come upon.

What was your greatest challenge?

Writing. Your mind just goes on different rampages and journeys. Your EE advisor is there to say like “Yo, this is your topic question, you have to stay in the realms of this, or else you can go into directions that I don’t think your examiner would understand or appreciate”.

How did you approach the research process?

First, I’m a very visual learner, and I focus on colors. What I did was, I watched a couple of movies. Some of them were in Black and white, some were in color. I focused on what different activists were wearing, that would help me compare and contrast tables and graphs. For example, the Black Panther, stuck to wearing just black, MLK stuck to more blues and those kind of colors, and Malcolm X stuck to browns and kahkis and very netural colors. That is how I was able to distinguish those leaders and people.

What kind of resources did you find most useful?

Archives and primary sources were definitely very useful, as well as secondary information to get a holistic understanding

Did you find a “star” resource?

Yeah, the FBI online government website where they have the archives. They are very public about their information.

What did you works cited end up looking like?

It was very… alphabetical… well obviously it was alphabetical but… (laughs)… it was organised. It was mostly just a lot of government resources.

What was the most important take-away?

Start early. Yup. Start early on work. Subjects are much fun when you actually love what you are talking about. That’s something that I really learned. If I’m forced to write a topic about something I don’t love, I’m obviously not going to do it as well and put my heart into it. But if you actually love the topic, you’re more likely to be successful.

What is one improvement you would bring to your essay?

Add more perspectives and quotes.

What would you recommend to students writing an Extended Essay in your subject?

First I would ask them what they are interested in. I would ask them what is your main focus. One of my other classmates would love to study wars. So I would ask him to focus on a specific leader, or a specific war that he would like to write about in his EE.