Nation of Islam Documentary: Fear of the Secret Dark (October 9, 1969)

In Miami, the FBI division furnished Richard Whitcomb from Channel 7 of WCKT-TV in January 1969 with material to produce a documentary film aiming at defaming the NOI and hampering its future activities. He was requested to expose and ridicule the Nation of Islam’s moneymaking schemes, which consisted in milking the members in order to fill Elijah Muhammad’s coffers. The programme that was aired in October 1969 under the title “Fear of the Secret Dark,” showed the leaders of this organization as people with questionable character who lived in luxury through the money collected from the members. It was in the eyes of the Bureau an exemplary success. In the following weekly meeting of the NOI in Miami, the attendance by visitors dropped by 50 percent. The NoI special, titled Fear of the Secret Dark, was first aired on Oct. 9, 1969. Such things sometimes backfired. For example, an FBI-facilitated NBC documentary on the NoI aired in 1959—it was titled The Hate That Hate Produced, and was hosted by Mike Wal