A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father
Channel: US National Archives
Date: 16/05/2019

Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Maraniss captures the pervasive fear and paranoia that
gripped America during the Red Scare of the 1950s. A Good American Family recounts his

family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, a World War II veteran who
had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was named as a communist by an FBI
informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, fired from his
newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged
with his family and optimism intact. A book signing follows the program.