Did the FBI Try to Destroy Martin Luther King?

TL;DR

Top FBI leaders mailed Martin Luther King Jr. an anonymous package in 1964 containing surveillance tapes of alleged adulterous acts and a letter insinuating he should end his own life within 34 days. A congressional investigation later concluded his 1968 murder in Memphis was likely a conspiracy, and most Americans reject the lone-gunman account.

Transcript

(people chattering) - If you aren't out within 10 days, you and your family will be killed. Now in Montgomery, our home was bombed twice. Today we still confront threats through telephone calls and through the mail. (eerie music) - It's 1964 and a package has just been sent to Martin Luther King Jr's house in Atlanta, Georgia. The package contains ... Read More

Key Insights

• In 1964 a package was sent to Martin Luther King Jr's house in Atlanta containing reels of tape and a one-page letter that called him a complete fraud and a great liability to Black people.
• The anonymous letter, written in the voice of a disenchanted follower and riddled with typos, told King his end was approaching and that he had 34 days to do the one thing left, insinuating he should end his own life.
• The package and blackmail letter were not typical hate mail but were sent by some of the most powerful men in the United States, the top leaders of the FBI.
• More than half of Americans reject the official account that a lone racist gunman killed King in Memphis, and that figure rises to about 88% among Black Americans.
• A congressional investigation concluded that King's murder was likely a conspiracy, and skeptics include his family and people who were standing next to him when he was shot.
• J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director for decades, became suspicious that King's movement was a communist plot rather than a grassroots rising for equality and racial justice.
• Five days before the 1963 march on Washington, Hoover's domestic intelligence head William Sullivan reported no known substantial implementation of communism within King's movement despite Soviet efforts.
• Non-violence was a powerful tactic because peaceful protest provoked violent crackdowns by law enforcement, and covering those images made it starkly public who was right and wrong.

Questions & Answers

Q: What was in the 1964 package the FBI sent to Martin Luther King Jr?

The package sent to King's house in Atlanta, Georgia contained reels of tape and a one-page letter. The tapes were an audio super cut of surveillance evidence purporting to show King committing adulterous acts and sexual encounters with girlfriends and mistresses. The letter, written in the voice of one of King's supporters and riddled with typos and corrections, called him a complete fraud and a great liability to Black people.

Q: Why do people think the FBI was involved in MLK's death?

The FBI's top leaders anonymously mailed King a blackmail package in 1964 with surveillance tapes and a letter insinuating he should end his own life within 34 days. Because this hostility came from a Department of Justice agency whose job was to protect Americans and enforce the law, and because a congressional investigation found his murder was likely a conspiracy, many people connect the FBI's earlier campaign against King to his assassination.

Q: How many Americans believe MLK's assassination was a conspiracy?

More than half of Americans do not accept the official account that a lone racist gunman was behind King's death in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 1960s. Among Black Americans that number is more like 88%. Those who doubt the lone-gunman story include people who were standing next to King when he was shot, as well as his own family. An exhaustive congressional investigation found the murder was likely a conspiracy.

Q: What did the FBI letter tell Martin Luther King to do?

The letter told King to look into his heart because he was a complete fraud and a great liability to Black people. It called him a dissolute, abnormal, moral imbecile, an abnormal animal, and a beast, saying Satan could not do more. It said his end was approaching and that he had just one thing left to do, giving him 34 days to do it, insinuating that he should end his own life.

Q: Why did J. Edgar Hoover target Martin Luther King?

It was the 1960s and the Cold War, with an obsession over finding communist sympathizers tied to the Soviet Union. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director for decades, became suspicious that King's growing movement was not a grassroots rising for equality but a communist plot to sow division in American society. As the movement grew, Hoover treated it as a national security threat rather than a civil rights struggle.

Q: Did the FBI find communist influence in King's movement?

No. In 1963, as King planned the march on Washington, Hoover tasked his head of domestic intelligence, William Sullivan, to investigate communist influence over the movement. Five days before the march, Sullivan delivered a report concluding that even though the Soviet Union had spent tremendous sums of money and issued propaganda to try to infiltrate the movement, there was no known substantial implementation of communism within King's movement.

Q: Why did Martin Luther King use non-violent protest as a strategy?

King believed non-violence was the only way to follow and the most powerful tool for social change. Peaceful protest reliably provoked excessive violence from law enforcement and counter protesters, and when those images were covered and shown to the general population, it became starkly clear who was right and who was wrong. This built creative tension and dramatized injustices so they could no longer be ignored, giving the movement moral high ground.

Q: What threats and attacks did Martin Luther King face?

King received numerous threatening letters warning that he and his family would be killed, including one saying he would be killed if he was not out within 10 days. In Montgomery, his home was bombed twice, and he continued to confront threats through telephone calls and the mail. His enemies included the Ku Klux Klan, whose leaders allied with local police in the south and stated that killing him would eliminate racial problems there.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• In 1964 a package arrived at Martin Luther King Jr's Atlanta home containing tapes and a one-page letter. The letter, disguised as coming from a supporter and full of typos, called King a fraud and a beast, referenced audio evidence of adulterous acts, and told him he had 34 days to end his own life.

• This blackmail was not typical hate mail but was sent by the top leaders of the FBI. King had received numerous threatening letters, and his Montgomery home had been bombed twice, with warnings that he and his family would be killed if he did not leave.

• King used non-violent protest to change American hearts and minds, leading 40,000 to desegregate Montgomery buses and writing his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail. J. Edgar Hoover viewed the movement as a communist plot, though his own investigator William Sullivan found no substantial communist influence within it.