“Judas and the Black Messiah” has inspired Congress members to reintroduce a bill to strip J. Edgar Hoover’s name from the FBI Building.
Tennessee Democratic representative Steve Cohen and other lawmakers are reintroducing the bill that will strip Hoover’s name from the FBI building after seeing the movie that he says is “a clear depiction of his efforts to impede the civil rights movement.”
The bill was introduced last month with nearly a dozen co-sponsors.
The critically acclaimed movie details Fred Hampton, an activist and chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, and his relationship with William O’Neal, an FBI informant who helped take down Hampton.
Cohen said that he faced a backlash from Republicans who believe that this latest measure is a form of “cancel culture.” This is not Cohen’s first time trying to get Hoover’s name removed from the building. In 2015, he introduced legislation to remove the name after viewing a documentary that followers Hoover’s efforts to rid the government of gays in the 1950s.
The FBI building was named after Hoover in 1972, five months after J. Edgar Hoover’s death.
