MLK Assassination Files Release Adds Little New Information

Despite the Trump administration’s effort to portray its release of voluminous files on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a “historic step,” the documents add precious little to what’s already known about the life and murder of the iconic civil rights leader.

That’s the take of several leading university scholars who’ve devoted their lives to studying the assassination of King, which took place on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dr. Lerone A. Martin“Thus far our team at the MLK Research and Education Institute has not found anything that changes what we already know about the life, murder, and legacy of MLK,” said Dr. Lerone A. Martin, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor and Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. “Our researchers are working diligently through the cache of documents,” Martin added.

Martin said that while the documents are largely focused on the assassination and subsequent investigation, researchers at the institute have found “a few small details” here and there, such as an audio of an interview with the cellmate of convicted King shooter James Earl Ray prior to his escape from prison in Missouri in 1967 – prior to King’s death. 

Martin offered one caveat for anyone who reads the newly-released files.

“These documents must be read with the knowledge that they derive from an FBI that was engaged in a no-holds barred counter-intelligence campaign against MLK and his legacy,” he said. “The program began officially in 1963, following the ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ at the March on Washington and continued long after MLK’s death.” 

Dr. Brian Kwoba