The federal government has released a massive trove of documents related to the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., sparking renewed scrutiny and debate over the events surrounding his death.
The 230,000 pages of records were published on the National Archives and Records Administration’s website on July 21 and can be accessed here. The release follows a directive from President Donald Trump in Executive Order 14176, which called for the declassification of documents related to the assassinations of King, President John F. Kennedy, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
The release of these files numbers almost 3x more than the 80,000 JFK files that were released earlier this year.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi marked the occasion by hosting King’s niece, Dr. Alveda King, at the Department of Justice. “The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation’s great leaders,” Bondi said in a press release.
Alveda King added, “While we continue to mourn his death, the declassification and release of these documents are a historic step towards the truth that the American people deserve.”
The newly released files arrive amid persistent skepticism from King’s family and civil rights groups, who have long opposed such a release due to privacy concerns. “We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief,” the King family said in a statement, per the Associated Press.
King was gunned down on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had traveled to support striking sanitation workers. James Earl Ray later pleaded guilty to the killing but recanted and claimed innocence until he died in 1998.
In 1999, a civil jury in Memphis found that Ray had acted as part of a broader conspiracy involving government agencies. The Justice Department, however, concluded in its investigation that it had “found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.”
The FBI has long faced scrutiny for its treatment of King, including a covert surveillance program that included wiretaps, bugged hotel rooms, and attempts to discredit him during his lifetime. “He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign,” the King family said.
What the newly released files contain remains to be seen, and The Dallas Express is currently reviewing the documents: updates will be posted as soon as they become available.