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.
King’s family, including his two living children, Martin III and Bernice, were given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records.
Newly released documents contain FBI leads and CIA information relating to MLK Jr.
Among the documents are leads the FBI received after King’s assassination and details of the CIA’s fixation on King’s pivot to international anti-war and anti-poverty movements in the years before he was killed.
It was not immediately clear whether the documents shed new light on King’s life, the Civil Rights Movement or his murder.
King’s family got advance access to the records and had their own teams reviewing them. Those efforts continued even as the government granted public access.