The Trump administration on Monday released a trove of previously classified documents related to the 1968 assassination of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) in Memphis, Tenn.
James Earl Ray, who died in prison in 1998, admitted to the murder after he was captured in London, but conspiracy theories have swirled about the motivation behind the attack and who may have been involved beyond Ray, including the federal government.
Why now?
Trump signed an executive order in January to release of the documents related to MLK’s assassination.
While campaigning for a second non-consecutive term last year, the president had promised to release FBI records related to the deaths of high-profile figures in the 1960s, including President John F. Kennedy Jr. (JFK) and former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK).
The documents related to the Kennedy brothers have also been released, prompting increased speculation about the high-profile assassinations.
The president also signaled he would release the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the administration said earlier this month that it had no additional information to provide and has sought a court release of grand jury testimony.
What are the documents?
The previously classified records related to MLK’s assassination while he was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis include details about the FBI’s probe into the civil rights leader before his death five decades ago.
King was in Tennessee to support sanitation workers who were on strike over low pay, and he had delivered his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech there the night before.
Then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover deemed King a radical and targeted him for investigation with the agency’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO).
Records have shown that the FBI had wiretaps on King’s phone lines, surveilled his hotel rooms and used informants to build information against him while he led the 1960s Civil Rights effort against discrimination.
What do they reveal?
More than 230,000 pages of documents related to King’s assassination were published in Monday’s release. According to the National Archives, more files will be released as information is reviewed.
The documents unveiled, so far, focus primarily on the FBI’s investigation into King’s death, such as agency memos and interviews with people who knew Ray, but they also provide insight into the FBI’s investigation into King’s anti-poverty and anti-war campaign before his death.
Historians who have studied King told The New York Times that the documents provide little new information, though.
How does the King family feel about this?
His family has long questioned the conventional narrative that Ray, who pleaded guilty to the assassination and died in 1998 a Nashville, Tenn., prison at age 70, acted alone in the shooting death of King.
A jury in a 1999 civil trial found that a man, who claimed to have known about a plot to kill King, and unnamed others — including government agencies — had participated in a conspiracy to carry out the killing.
However, the Justice Department reopened the case in the 1990s and said it “found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.”
King’s two living children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice A. King, released a joint statement on Monday saying that they disagreed with the Trump administration’s release of the documents on their father without appropriate context.
“We recognize that the release of documents concerning the assassination of our father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has long been a subject of interest, captivating public curiosity for decades,” the duo wrote. “We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”
They urged people to view the files “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),” the Kings continued. “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,” they added.
The King family won a wrongful death lawsuit against Shelby County, Tenn., in 1999.
“The jury unanimously concluded that our father was the victim of a conspiracy … including government agencies as a part of a wider scheme,” the King children said in their statement. “As we review these newly released files, we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted.”
The two also noted their support for “transparency and historical accountability,” but warned against efforts to smear their father’s legacy that may come from the release.
“Those who promote the fruit of the FBI’s surveillance will unknowingly align themselves with an ongoing campaign to degrade our father and the Civil Rights Movement,” they wrote. “Let us move forward together, inspired by our father’s enduring vision of the Beloved Community – a world made possible when we choose to center love in all that we do.”
They added, “By embracing compassion, mutual respect, and justice, we can transform his dream into our shared reality.”
