One unexpected fringe benefit of a surveillance state is that it can make for a surprisingly comprehensive biographer. To kick off Black History Month at MuckRock, we put together a collection of all of our articles on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s forays into the lives of prominent African-Americans over the decades.

Muhammad Ali

James Baldwin

Thelma Glass

James Hood

Whitney Houston

Russell Jones

Rodney King

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bayard Rustin

Tupac Shakur

Christopher Wallace

Eric Williams

Malcolm X

Browse a collection of our completed FBI requests on the project page, and if you feel like we’re missing somebody, let us know and we’ll file for it on your behalf.

Image via Wikimedia Commons