1971 (2015)

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https://www.1971film.com

Book at: http://theburglary.com

On the night of March 8, 1971, eight seemingly ordinary people showed extraordinary courage and carried out one of the most powerful acts of non-violent resistance in American history. In a search for evidence of whether the FBI was spying on Americans in order to suppress dissent, they broke into an FBI office in Media, PA, a sleepy old town southwest of Philadelphia that once was a stop on the Underground Railroad, the network of secret routes slaves traveled from the South to freedom. In the dark, and with the crackling sounds of the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier world championship boxing match filling homes and bars throughout the world that night – and providing cover for this burglary – these amateur burglars stole every file in the office.

Dramatic news at the time, but little remembered now, the Media burglary was the beginning of the end of the mythical FBI the bureau’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, had constructed in the American mind over nearly a half century through the successful efforts of a vast internal public relations office operated with public funds.

Based on Betty Medsger's book The Burglary, the film 1971 tells the full story of the Media burglary for the first time. The burglars, never found by the FBI despite one of the largest investigations in the bureau’s history, were found by the author and interviewed extensively for The Burglary. In addition to revealing the motivations and life stories of the burglars, who kept their secret for 43 years, The Burglary also documents the very significant impact of this burglary that shocked the public and moved congress, long intimidated by Hoover, to acknowledge the FBI director’s illegal and damaging actions.