U.S. intelligence opens files on MLK Jr. assassination

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday released more than 230,000 pages of documents related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The pastor and civil rights leader was shot dead in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4, 1968. Some files related to his death were previously made public through Freedom of Information Act requests, according to Gabbard’s office. Others were under a court seal since 1977, according to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The files include internal FBI documents discussing leads in the search for his killer, and records from Canadian police and the CIA during an international hunt for James Earl Ray, who was later convicted of the murder. The files also include information on Ray’s former cellmate, who stated that he and Ray discussed an alleged assassination plot. The documents were minimally redacted to protect Social Security numbers and grand jury information, according to Gabbard’s office.

The files hadn’t been digitized before and were scattered across a variety of government facilities until the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and National Archives collected them for release, the intelligence director’s office said. The agencies will keep searching their records for files related to the case, and more documents will be uploaded to the National Archives site as they are found, according to Gabbard’s office.

How did King’s family react to the release? The government allowed the King family to look over the files two weeks before releasing them to the public, according to the intelligence director’s office. Alveda King, a niece of King’s, thanked President Trump and Gabbard for keeping promises of transparency.

However, two of King’s children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, said in a separate statement that the FBI targeted their father and the civil rights movement with a disinformation and surveillance campaign. The files should be viewed in that context and shouldn’t be used to undermine King’s legacy, they said. The two also said they believe someone other than Ray shot King and that government conspirators were behind their father’s death.

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