Trump administration releases 240,000 pages on FBI surveillance, assassination of Martin Luther King

The Trump administration has released more than 240,000 pages of long-sealed documents detailing the FBI’s surveillance and investigation of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. — a move that has drawn mixed reactions from the King family and civil rights advocates.

The documents, some of which date back to the 1960s, had been under a court-ordered seal since 1977. Their release was authorized under a transparency initiative spearheaded by former President Donald Trump, who also ordered the declassification of files related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

“This release is meant to advance transparency and truth for the entire nation,” said Matt Brown of The Associated Press. “But the King family voiced deep concern, calling the surveillance and assassination deeply personal matters.”

King's surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, were given early access to the documents. While acknowledging the historical importance of the files, they urged the public and media to handle them with care, given their father’s history as a target of illegal and often racially motivated surveillance by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.

Included in the trove are digitized documents, surveillance reports, photographs, and even an audio file — shedding new light on how federal authorities tracked and targeted King in the years leading up to his 1968 assassination.

Some civil rights groups have criticized the timing of the release, suggesting it could be a political distraction from Trump's own legal troubles. Nonetheless, historians say the documents could deepen public understanding of the civil rights era and the extent of government efforts to suppress its leaders.