The administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump has released a collection of FBI records related to the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
These documents, totaling around 230,000 pages, had been kept from the public under a court order since 1977.
Included in the files are surveillance materials and records from the FBI’s monitoring of King during his activism.
The documents were released following an executive order signed by Trump in January, which also called for the declassification of records related to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and a leading figure in the U.S. civil rights movement, was killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.
James Earl Ray, a known criminal, later pleaded guilty to the murder but later tried to withdraw his plea, claiming innocence.
King’s surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, were informed before the files were made public.
They expressed concern over how the documents might be used and urged people to approach the contents with care.
The family acknowledged the deep pain tied to the FBI’s actions during King’s lifetime, which involved intrusive surveillance led by then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
These government efforts aimed to discredit King through tactics that invaded his personal life and undermined his public image.
While Trump’s decision fulfills a campaign promise to open government records about key historical assassinations, the release has raised fresh discussions about past abuses of power and the treatment of prominent figures in U.S. history.