F.B.I. Investigations into Christian Conventions

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Black Stockings, File No. 100-147337; 3 pages, dated 10/7/42
CAUSE:  "Subject (name blacked out) reported to be a suspicious character because of his strange religious affiliation at (blacked out).  Investigation reveals he is a member of a sect known as the 'Black Stockings,' that he is registered for Selective Service in (blacked out) where he was classified as a Conscientious Objector, and that he has been making efforts to be classified as a minister.  No indication of any subversive activities." 

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Black Stockings, File No. 100-194864; 9 pages, dated 3/25/43-6/16/43
CAUSE:  "This investigation is predicated upon a letter alleging...itinerant preachers of an unorganized church, wandering through the vicinity of (blacked out), and...acting in a suspicious nature, in that an oil train was wrecked in the vicinity of his meeting, and that they took long walks in the woods...caused them to be regarded with suspicion by informant."

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Go Preachers, File No. 100-209144; 47 pages, dated 5/21/43 - 10/7/43
CAUSE:  "This investigation was predicated upon request of the Bureau to obtain information concerning the religious sect 'GO PREACHERS'."

NOTE:  The content of the report contains many quotes from George Walker's letter to the Selective Service of 1942.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christian Conventions
File No. 62-109060, Serials 2704, 2714, 2754; 7 pages, dated 3/23-26/64

CAUSE:  "Typewritten postal card received from Dorothy Mendenhall, Linneus, MO named eighteen members of Christian Conventions as real assassins of President Kennedy...card indicates group has persecuted and imprisoned writer."    

Personal typed account, undated, no author given, titled: 

"1942 Followers of Christ"

First line:  "As an F.B.I. Agent on the investigating committee for Ministers as conscientious objectors...I come across many interesting religious individuals and groups. But the strangest and most interesting, and perhaps the most practical is this group."

TTT Editor's Note:  A source has reported that this is a spurious account written by Walter Nelson, a young worker in Virginia at the time. For years workers have been trying to get this piece destroyed, but it continues to surface.  Walter was instructed to send a retraction for the hoax and to apologize to every person he had sent it to.  He was then sent to preach in Africa for many years. 

Compiled by Cherie Kropp-Ehrig