FBI Files on MLK Released: What Do They Reveal About His Life and Death?

The Trump administration on Monday released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the organization he led until his 1968 assassination.

The digital document release includes over 240,000 pages of records that had been sealed under a court order since 1977, when the FBI first compiled them and transferred the files to the National Archives and Records Administration.

In a comprehensive statement issued on Monday, King’s two surviving children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, acknowledged that their father’s death has captivated public interest for decades. However, they stressed that the matter is deeply personal and urged that the files be examined within their full historical context.

The King family received advance access to the records and had their own teams reviewing them even as the government made them publicly available. The documents include FBI intelligence gathered after King’s assassination and details of the CIA’s focus on King’s shift toward international anti-war and anti-poverty movements in the years preceding his death. It remains unclear whether the files offer any new insights into King’s life, the Civil Rights Movement, or his murder.

“As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief—a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met—an absence our family has endured for over 57 years,” they wrote. “We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s ongoing grief.”

They also reiterated the family’s long-held belief that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if he was involved at all.

Bernice King was 5 years old when her father was killed at the age of 39. Martin III was 10.

A statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, described the disclosure as unprecedented and noted that many of the records had been digitized for the first time. She commended President Donald Trump for pressing the issue.

As a candidate, Trump had promised to release files related to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. Upon taking office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with those associated with the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and MLK in 1968.

The government unsealed the JFK records in March and revealed some RFK documents in April.

Gabbard’s announcement included a statement from Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, an outspoken conservative who has diverged from King’s children on various issues, including the FBI files. Alveda King expressed her gratitude to President Trump for his transparency.

Separately, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s social media account featured a picture of her with Alveda King.

Beyond fulfilling Trump’s order, this latest release provides another headline for the president as he seeks to appease supporters frustrated by his administration’s handling of records related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation. Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019, during Trump’s first term. Last Friday, Trump ordered the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony but stopped short of unsealing the entire case file.

Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their Monday statement. However, Bernice later posted on her personal Instagram account a black-and-white photo of her father, looking annoyed, with the caption “Now, do the Epstein files.”

Some civil rights activists were even more direct in their criticism of the president.

“Trump releasing the MLK assassination files is not about transparency or justice,” said Rev. Al Sharpton. “It’s a desperate attempt to distract the public from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the unraveling of his credibility among the MAGA base.”

The King Center, founded by King’s widow and now led by Bernice King, issued a separate response from the joint statement by Bernice and her brother. The King Center framed the release as a distraction—not just from immediate political controversies.

“It is unfortunate and ill-timed, given the myriad pressing issues and injustices affecting both the United States and the global community,” the King Center stated, linking these challenges to MLK’s own efforts. “This righteous work should serve as our collective response to the renewed focus on the assassination of a great messenger of true peace.”

The King records were initially set to remain sealed until 2027, until Justice Department attorneys requested that a federal judge lift the sealing order early. Scholars, history enthusiasts, and journalists have been preparing to scrutinize the documents for new information about his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Georgia.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded in 1957 as the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, opposed the release. The group, along with King’s family, argued that the FBI had illegally surveilled King and other civil rights leaders in an attempt to discredit them and their movement.

It has long been established that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was intensely interested—if not obsessed—with King and other figures he regarded as radicals. Previously released FBI records reveal how Hoover’s bureau wiretapped King’s phones, bugged his hotel rooms, and used informants to gather information, including details of King’s extramarital affairs.

“He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing campaign of disinformation and surveillance orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the King children stated in their message.

“The intent… was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle, and destroy Dr. King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement,” they continued. “These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but deliberate assaults on the truth—designed to undermine the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, and to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo.”

The Kings expressed their support for transparency and historical accountability while objecting to any attacks on their father’s legacy or attempts to weaponize it to propagate falsehoods.

Opposition to King intensified even after the Civil Rights Movement compelled Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Following these victories, King shifted his focus to economic justice and international peace. He criticized rapacious capitalism and the Vietnam War, arguing that political rights alone were insufficient to secure a just society. Many establishment figures, including Hoover, regarded King as a communist threat.

King was assassinated while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, marking his explicit turn toward economic justice.

Ray pleaded guilty to King’s murder but later recanted his plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.

King family members and others have long questioned whether Ray acted alone, or if he was even involved. Coretta Scott King urged authorities to reopen the investigation, and in 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a new inquiry. Reno’s Justice Department later concluded that nothing was found to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.

In their latest statement, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III reiterated their belief that Ray was set up. They referenced a 1999 civil case brought by the King family, in which a Memphis jury concluded that Martin Luther King Jr. had been the target of a conspiracy.

“As we review these newly released files,” the Kings stated, “we will determine whether they offer additional insights beyond the conclusions our family has already accepted.” (AP)