Overview

• On July 21–22, the Trump administration published more than 230,000 pages of minimally redacted documents on King’s 1968 assassination following months of coordination among DOJ, ODNI, CIA and the National Archives.
• Released materials contain FBI investigative memoranda, international manhunt records for James Earl Ray and testimony from his prison cellmate.
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s children, Martin III and Bernice, urged the public to approach the files with empathy and warned against using them to undermine his legacy.
• Historians and civil rights scholars are gearing up to analyze the declassified records for new insights, though some documents remain sealed pending further legal review.
• The files illuminate J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO campaign to surveil and discredit King and the broader civil rights movement.