The Trump administration has declassified and released a trove of FBI and CIA documents related to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., despite vocal opposition from members of King’s family.
The collection, totalling more than 230,000 pages, includes internal FBI memos and previously unseen CIA files that detail the extensive surveillance of King during his lifetime and efforts to apprehend his assassin, James Earl Ray.
These documents had been sealed from public access under a court order since 1977.
Their release was part of a broader directive issued by President Donald Trump earlier this year, which also covered classified records from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
King’s surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Dr. Bernice King, condemned the move.
In a joint statement, they urged Americans to handle the documents with empathy and care, warning that misuse could tarnish their father’s enduring legacy.
They described the surveillance King endured as “invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing,” orchestrated under the leadership of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The family said the campaign stripped King of the “dignity and freedoms of private citizens.”
The King children noted that a 1999 civil court verdict found that King’s assassination was not the act of a lone gunman but the result of a broader conspiracy involving multiple parties.
That ruling has long fueled calls for full transparency from the government.
Not all members of the King family opposed the release.
Alveda King, King’s niece and a prominent conservative commentator, welcomed the move and thanked President Trump for prioritizing transparency in matters of national history.
“This is a historic step toward the truth the American people deserve,” she said, while acknowledging the pain that revisiting the case may cause.
Attorney General, Pamela Bondi also praised the release, stating: “The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation’s greatest leaders.”
Critics of the Trump administration, including civil rights figure Rev. Al Sharpton, viewed the timing of the document release with suspicion.
Sharpton alleged it was a political distraction from growing controversy over Trump’s handling of records related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinated the declassification, said the documents had “sat collecting dust in federal facilities for decades.”
The release was done in partnership with the FBI, CIA, Department of Justice, and the National Archives.
Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.
Though James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in 1969, he later claimed he was framed. He died in prison in 1998
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