Overview

• The Justice Department posted over 240,000 pages of documents on the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the National Archives website on July 21 under a January executive order.
• The records include FBI investigation leads, internal memos, surveillance files, interviews with James Earl Ray’s former cellmate and previously unreleased CIA intelligence.
• Martin Luther King III and Dr. Bernice A. King asked that the files be viewed with historical context and respect for their family’s grief while reiterating doubts about the lone-assassin finding.
• Dr. Alveda King hailed the disclosure as a step toward transparency, while critics argue the release diverts attention from disputes over President Trump’s handling of Epstein investigation documents.
• Historians, civil rights groups and privacy advocates plan to review the trove for new insights, with legal challenges expected over unredacted personal data and disputed conspiracy claims.