The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr, despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.
The release involves an estimated 200,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.
The documents on the murder of the civil rights leader were posted on a government website.
Donald Trump promised as a candidate to release files related to John F Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. When he took office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with those associated with Robert F Kennedy’s and King’s 1968 assassinations.
The government unsealed the JFK records in March and disclosed some RFK files in April. The King records were initially intended to be sealed until 2027, until justice department attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the sealing order early.
King’s family, including his two living children, Martin Luther King III and Dr Bernice A King, were given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records in advance of the public disclosure.
Martin Luther King III and Dr Bernice A King have appealed to the public to engage with the documents “with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”
Bernice King was five years old when her father was killed at the age of 39. Martin III was 10. They wrote in a statement that the release of these files must be “viewed within their full historical context.”
“During our father’s lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”
Martin Luther King III and Dr Bernice A King
They also repeated the family’s long-held contention that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if at all.
They added that the intent of the government’s COINTELPRO campaign was “not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle, and destroy Dr. King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement.”
“These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth – undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo.”
Martin Luther King III and Dr Bernice A King
The murdered civil rights leader’s children also write that they believe that their father was killed as part of a conspiracy that involved “unnamed co-conspirators, including government agencies.”
Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents for new information about his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
King was assassinated as he was aiding striking sanitation workers in Memphis, part of his explicit turn toward economic justice. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to King’s murder.
Ray later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998. Members of King’s family, and others, have long questioned whether Ray acted alone, or if he was even involved.
Release Of Martin Luther King Jr’s Records Deemed Attempt To Distract From Epstein Files
Meanwhile, critics and supporters of Donald Trump continue to call for him to release files from federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender Trump socialized with for more than 15 years.
Some civil rights activists were not so supportive of the release of records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.
According to Rev Al Sharpton, Trump releasing the MLK assassination files “is not about transparency or justice.”
“It’s a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unraveling of his credibility among the MAGA base.”
Rev Al Sharpton
The King Center, founded by King’s widow and now led by Bernice King, reacted separately from what Bernice said jointly with her brother.
The King Center statement framed the release as a distraction – but from more than short-term political controversy.
“It is unfortunate and ill-timed, given the myriad of pressing issues and injustices affecting the United States and the global society…
“This righteous work should be our collective response to renewed attention on the assassination of a great purveyor of true peace.”
The King Center
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