MLK/FBI (2020) - full transcript

- At this time I have the
honor to present to you,

the moral leader of our nation.

- From 1955 to 1968, Martin
Luther King led a peaceful

20th century
American revolution.

In the short span of 13 years,

the nonviolent civil rights
movement, which he headed,

changed the face of
American society.

- You know, when you
construct a man as a great man,

there's nothing
almost more satisfying

than also seeing him
represented as the opposite.

- When the
National Archives



puts government documents
up on the web, in public,

one has to confront them.

One cannot pretend
they don't exist.

- I think one of the
difficulties for historians

in dealing with really,

the fruits of all of this
surveillance of King,

is whether or not we
then become complicit

in what the FBI was doing.

- But you know
this about humans.

What we're best at is
convincing ourselves

of our own righteousness.

I think this entire episode

represents the darkest part
of the Bureau's history.

- Tapes
from the hotel rooms,



the FBI reports of
what was going on,

those are pieces of information
that we shouldn't have.

Whatever comes out
will certainly help us

understand him as a person,

and that's kind of our
duty, is to understand.

- Hello.

In the traditional
motion picture story,

the villains are
usually defeated,

and the ending is a happy one.

I can make no such promise

for the picture
you're about to watch.

The story isn't over.

- They came from
Los Angeles and San Francisco,

or about the distance
from Moscow to Bombay.

They came from
Cleveland, from Chicago,

or about the distance

from Buenos Aires
to Rio de Janeiro.

They came from
Jackson, Mississippi,

from Birmingham, Alabama,

or about the distance from
Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam.

He had been insulted,
beaten, jailed,

drenched with water,
chased by dogs,

but he was coming to
Washington, he said,

to swallow up hatred in love,

to overcome violence
by peaceful protest.

- We are not gonna fight

out White brethren with malice,

nor are we gonna fight them

with any falsified stories,

nor are we gonna fight
them with hatred,

but we are gonna
fight them with love.

When they hate us, we're gonna
absorb their hatred in love.

When they speak against us,

we're gonna speak things
of love toward them.

We're not gonna let their
hatred turn us around,

but we're gonna love
them on every side.

- We had been through
the battles in Birmingham.

We thought that
was the movement.

And it was,

but after it was over,

we realized that
what had happened was

that the March on Washington

took a Black Southern movement

and turned it into a national,

and international
movement for human rights.

- One day right
there in Alabama,

little Black boys
and Black girls

will be able to join hands

with little White
boys and White girls

as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

- The FBI was
most alarmed about King

because of his success.

And they were
particularly concerned

that he was this powerful,
charismatic figure

who had the ability
to mobilize people.

- And if America is
to be a great nation,

this must become true.

So let freedom ring.

- When you look
at the social movements

from the point of
view of the FBI,

it looks very different.

You know, J. Edgar Hoover
is famous for saying

that he feared the rise
of a Black Messiah.

- Free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty.
We are free at last.

- After Dr. King gave

his famous March on
Washington speech,

Wednesday, August 28th, 1963,

in a memo dated the 30th of
August, no later than that,

the second person in
the FBI, Bill Sullivan,

sends a urgent memo
in which he says,

"After the March on Washington,

"it's clear that
Martin Luther King Jr.,

"is the most dangerous
Negro in America.

"And we have to use every
resource at our disposal

"to destroy him."

- 1956, 20,000 Blacks

walk the streets of
Montgomery, Alabama

to protest segregation
on city buses.

The Montgomery bus boycott

focuses national
attention on its leader,

a 27 year old Baptist minister,

Martin Luther King, Jr..

- Is this just a test that
we're getting ready to go.

- That's what we've done.

Next time we go, it
will be for real.

- I'm sure that I
voice the sentiment

of more than 40,000 Negro
citizens of Montgomery.

We still have the
attitude of love,

we still have the method
of passive resistance,

and we are still
insisting, emphatically,

that violence is self-defeating.

That he will lives by the
sword, will perish by the sword.

- He let
us accept the fact,

and made us accept the fact,

that what we were
doing was insane.

He'd say you've got to
be certifiably insane

to think that a bunch of
crazy folk like you all,

with no money and no
guns, no political power,

are gonna change this nation.

We were trusting
in the power of God

and only a kind of
crazy people of faith

would be willing to put
their lives on the line

and trust in God.

In an era of science
and technology,

ambiguous spiritual
phenomena like moral power,

you know, it didn't make sense.

- This morning, the
long-awaited mandate

from the United States Supreme
Court came to Montgomery.

Segregation in
public transportation

is both legally and
sociologically invalid.

In the light of this mandate,

the Negro citizens of Montgomery

are urged to return to
the buses tomorrow morning

on a non-segregated basis.

- As the boycott wins

in the United
States Supreme Court

come the end of 1956,

civil rights activists
take a strong interest

in this unprecedented
community action

in the capital of
the old Confederacy.

Now, one of the most important

of those long time
civil rights activists

who took a real
interest in Montgomery

was Byard Rustin.

And it's through Rustin that
Stanley Levison meets Dr. King.

- Stanley
David Levison was
White, he was Jewish,

he was a lawyer who was a
certified public accountant,

and unsung hero in the
civil rights movement

as related to Martin
Luther King, Jr..

And Dr. King adored him.

- From 1955 forward,

the FBI takes some
degree of interest

in local Black protest
movements in the South,

in Montgomery, in Birmingham,

in Nashville, Tennessee.

But it's standard FBI vacuum
cleaner information gathering.

They're not particularly
focused on
Martin Luther King Jr.

in those mid and
late 1950 years.

Even though Stanley
Levison and King

have a very close personal
relationship from 1957 forward,

only at the very
beginning of 1962,

four or five years later,

does the FBI tardily
realize that Levison

has become a very
important advisor to King.

- I always tell people

I was strolling down the
student union one day

and the Bureau had a table
there and they were recruiting,

so I filled out the application

and lo and behold, a week
later, I get a phone call.

They told me that
they will accept me

if I pass the physical.

On my gosh, 21st birthday,

I was driving my car
to Washington D. C.,

took an oath of office
and almost quit that day

because it was
just very surreal.

And they were talking about

when the bomb goes off, where
to go and stuff like that,

and I'm thinking, "This
is like out of a movie."

- The new FBI will not be the
product of one individual.

No one man can build it, but
one man can pull it down.

- There were two
big themes that came across

in the popular culture that
was produced about the FBI.

One of those was crime,

and the other was the
struggle against communism.

- Mm hmm.

- Sometime in 1962,
Levison got a subpoena

from the House Un-American
Activities Committee.

And he was really, I
don't wanna say petrified,

but he was very concerned.

- Are you now, or
have you ever been

a member of the Communist Party?

- I stand on my
constitutional rights

under the Fifth Amendment.

- There was an old saying

that once you're a member
of the communist Party,

you're always a member
of the Communist Party.

That's what everybody believed.

- And it's
pretty clear, in fact,

that Stanley Levison
was deeply involved

in communist politics
in the 1950s.

- He had
dropped off the radar,

but even after he went totally
off the grid, if you will,

when the relationship
with Dr. King started,

they would still get reports

from people inside
the Communist Party

of what Levison was doing.

The concern with Dr. King

and his connections
with Stanley Levison

was that he was being influenced
by the Communist Party.

- The growing
menace of communism

arouses the the House
of Representatives

Un-American
Activities Committee.

Among the well-informed
witnesses testifying

is J. Edgar Hoover,

head of the Federal
Bureau of Investigations.

Mr. Hoover speaks with
authority on the subject.

- The Communist Party
of the United States

is a fifth column if
there ever was one.

It is far better organized
than were the Nazis

in occupied countries prior
to their capitulation.

They are seeking
to weaken America.

Their goal is the overflow
of our government.

- To some
people, J. Edgar Hoover

was a great American,

a hero who stood up against
crime and communism.

To others, he was a
figure of profound evil

who terrified those
he disapproved of

with police powers
at his command.

To everybody, he
symbolized the FBI.

- The Federal Bureau
of Investigations

is as close to you as
your nearest telephone.

It seeks to be your protector

in all matters with
its jurisdiction.

It belongs to you.

- J. Edgar Hoover
was the head of the FBI

for 48 years, from 1924 to 1972.

And it's a really
astounding span of time.

He went from a period
in which Washington

was kind of a nothing backwater

to a moment when it was really

the pinnacle of American power,

and he helped build
a lot of that.

- The communists
have been, still are,

and always will be
a menace to freedom,

to democratic ideal,
to the worship of God

and to America's way of life.

- From the moment that
he entered government,

it was his job to figure out

who was dangerous to
the country, who was
too revolutionary,

who belonged to a
subversive organization.

Hoover understood himself really

as the guardian of the
American way of life.

But he had a very particular
vision of what that meant.

He understood it
really as a society

of certain kinds of racial
and gender hierarchies,

a society in which White
men were the natural actors,

the natural rulers.

- I want to talk to you,
fighting men and women,

about the battle of
the United States.

- I think for Hoover,

particularly in his early years,

communists were in some sense,

the ultimate subversives.

He saw them as disruptive
of a kind of law and order,

of a certain kind
of social order.

He saw them as disruptive
on questions of race.

- The Workers
Communist Party of America

puts forward correctly
as it's central slogan,

abolition of the whole system
of race discrimination,

full racial, social
and political equality

for the Negro people.

- Black
America was always

a particular focus of the FBI,

because there was the
presumption that Black people

are somehow more
susceptible to recruitment

for a dangerous ideology.

- We are all familiar
with the fact

that the communists have been
agitating racial problems,

racial disunity in our nation

for the last several years.

That's the reason
that you've seen

racial agitators like Martin
Luther King rise on the scene

and get all kinds of
national publicity.

This was intended.

They would like nothing
more than to see a civil war

in the 1960s in
the United States.

- The FBI quite
understandably asks itself,

How come has
someone who was once

so important in
American communism

now turned up at the right hand

of Martin Luther King Jr.?

Within a few weeks,

the FBI goes to Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy

for Kennedy's approval

to begin wiretapping Levison

at his home and
office in New York.

- Among the most familiar words

of the founders of the Republic,

are those affirming that
all men are created equal,

and that they are endowed
with certain rights

of which they can
not be deprived.

It is a sad shortcoming
of our history,

that while asserting these
high principles of equality,

we have never completely
lived up to them,

nor have these injustices
and discriminations

been peculiar to any
one part of our country.

- How bad is the
complaint today?

After all, the United
States has changed a lot,

the Negro's rights are
protected under the law.

What exactly, how much
has this system changed

between then and now?

- Well, it has
changed a good deal.

It is far from what
it ought to be,

but I can see many, many changes

that have taken place
over the last few years.

And the problem now is to
move from token integration

to overall integration,

where it involves more than just

a few students in a school.

More than just a few
lunch counters open,

more than gaining
justice in the courts

in a few situations,
but in every situation.

- The next target
of the civil rights movement

was Birmingham, Alabama.

In 1963, the most segregated
city in the nation,

and for Blacks, a place to die

if you tried to be a person.

- Staying
calm under fire

is necessary for your survival.

It's also necessary
for your success,

but it's very hard
not to get emotional

when people are
trying to kill you.

- There is no middle
ground in this fight,

there's no middle
ground in this struggle.

You're either for us,
or you're against us.

You've heard that said
time and time again.

Yes my friends, you
are either for us,

or you are against us.

- We will trying
to reveal the truth

about segregation in the South.

- I will not rest

until we are able to make this
kind of witness in this city,

so that the power structure
downtown will have to say,

we can't stop this movement,

and the only way to deal it

is to give these
people what we owe them

and what their God-given rights

and their constitutional
rights demand.

- In a very emotional
and volatile environment,

it was important
for us to come off

as reasonable,
sane and patriotic.

'Cause we were.

We just wanted America
to be what America

said it was supposed to be.

- And they go talking about
these little levels of progress

that we see here and
there and they say,

you know, you've
made great progress.

Aren't you satisfied?

No, we are not satisfied.

- Well, of course, I feel
that the communist movement

is behind all of the racial
demonstrations in this country,

and I have only, I
have a statement here

that J. Edgar
Hoover made in 1958.

"The Negro situation
is also being exploited

"fully and continuously by
communists on a national scale.

"So as to create unrest,
dissension and confusion

"in the minds of the
American people."

- Both Bobby Kennedy

and his brother, the president,

were on record as
supporters of Dr. King.

As supporters of the
civil rights movement.

But when the FBI
begins insisting,

that King is
susceptible to influence

from this dangerous
Soviet-connected figure,

Robert Kennedy, and in time
his brother, the president too,

tell him that he needs
to distance himself,

and really sever his
connection with Levison.

- The leaders of the
march are now coming

down the northwest driveway
of the white House.

They'll shortly be going
in to see the president.

- It was
June 22nd, 1963.

President Kennedy is meeting

with several civil
rights leaders.

- They are being led by
Walter Reuther of the UAW,

Martin Luther
King, James Farmer,

Whitney Young of
the Urban League.

- President Kennedy,

he asked Dr. King to stay behind

and he and Dr. King went for
a walk in the Rose Garden.

And Kennedy said,

My brother, the Attorney
General and J. Edgar Hoover,

we have some, we've
got some bad news.

Some people you're very close
to are openly communist.

Kennedy said, you know,
we're in this thing

together pretty
closely, you know?

Anything happens to you

is gonna reflect
very badly on myself

and Bobby as Attorney General.

You gotta distance yourself.

You can't have anything
to do with these people.

- Even hearing it from
President Kennedy,

King is unwilling to believe

that these FBI
allegations about Levison

have any real truth to them.

- Dr. King, it's been alleged
that you have been slow

to sever your ties
with alleged communists

in the civil rights movement,

even after government officials

have warned you against them.

- The only person
that they identified

that had any connection

with the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference

was removed.

- Dr. King was
advised again and again,

to avoid getting into any public
spat with J. Edgar Hoover.

- Well, this places you in
the direct opposite position

of the Director of the federal
Bureau of Investigations,

J. Edgar Hoover, who gave
some testimony recently

to the contrary.

- I would hope that
the FBI would come out

and say something that I think
is much more significant.

And that is that it is amazing

that so few Negroes
have turned to communism

in the light of their
desperate plight.

I think it is one of
the amazing developments

of the 20th century,

how loyal the Negro has
remained to America,

in spite of his long night of
oppression and discrimination.

- When the FBI
begins wiretapping Levison,

what they're hoping
to find is evidence

that he is still in some
manner, a communist agent.

The FBI's theory was disproven.

- All right, I'll
tell him. Thank you.

- But at the same time,
King was less than honest

with both Robert Kennedy
and John Kennedy,

in telling them that
he would break off

contact with Levison.

- The FBI realizes

that the relationship continues,

'cause they're wiretapping.

They can see this
all playing out.

This of course enraged the FBI.

Hoover was very
upset about this,

because he saw it as evidence

that just as he had
suspected all along,

King was lying,
he was deceiving,

that there was in fact a plot,

that these ties were very close.

It really only
reinforced his sense

that there was something
bigger going on.

- By mid 1963, the
FBI was fully aware

that King was remaining
in touch with Levison,

through their mutual
friend, Clarence Jones.

- The FBI in Peace and War.

Tonight's story, the fixer.

- One day, I
come home and my wife says,

"I didn't know you had arranged

"for the telephone
company to come

"and put in new wiring
for our phones."

I said, "What are
you talking about?"

She said, "I don't
know, they just put in

"a whole new thing into
one of our closets."

I thought about it maybe
several hours later and I said,

I said "Ann, did they call you?"

"Yeah, they called me up.

"They said they
had talked to you."

And shortly after that,
I began to think that,

okay, my phone was tapped.

- Just a few weeks later
in early August of 1963,

Dr. King goes to stay at
Jones' home for a few days.

Hearing Dr. King on
the Jones' home wiretap

is the accidental way by
which the FBI first learns

that King has this
non-monogamous private life.

And with those intercepts of
King at Clarence Jones' home,

the Bureau's motivation shift.

- Yes.

- O'Hara?
- Yes?

- Gaines. Maybe I got something.

- I'll be right over.

- Right.

- It's crystal
clear that what the Bureau,

by the end of 1963 wants,

is to get recordings of
King having sexual relations

with various girlfriends.

- Here's the rare
opportunity we promised.

Here's one of the great
voices in America,

Dr. Martin Luther King.

- It's rare, Doctor,
that we get a chance

to see you in New York.

Are we cover,

oh yes, with the
microphone over there.

Do you visit here often?

- Oh, I'm in New York almost
every other week at least.

There's always something
happening in New York,

so you can't avoid
coming to New York.

- You've discovered
it's a fun city?

- Well, I haven't...

- I haven't quite discovered
that side of New York.

Being a Baptist clergyman,

they keep me involved
in other areas.

- Right.

- Your home is
actually in Atlanta.

- Atlanta, that's right.
- Atlanta, Georgia.

Have you lived
there all your life?

- I was born in Atlanta

and went to school in
Atlanta through college,

and then I went to
theological seminary

and graduate school
in the North.

- Mrs. King, of
course lives in Atlanta.

- Oh yes, she is from
Alabama originally, but,

- All along, I have
supported my husband.

Whatever happens to
him, it happens to me.

- And children?

- Yes, we
have four children.

- Ah, What would
their ages be, Doctor?

- 11, 9, 6 and 4.

We have two girls and two boys.

- Do you have a church
at this time in Atlanta?

- Yes, I'm the co-pastor

of Ebenezer Baptist
Church in Atlanta,

and my father is pastor.

- Both you
and your father.

- Well, he makes it clear
sometimes consciously

and sometimes unconsciously,
that he is the pastor.

- Right.
- And I'm the co-pastor.

- What has the
civil rights movement done

to the Negro individually?

- Well, I think the greatest
thing that it has done

is that it has given the Negro

a new sense of somebodiness.

The Negro has straightened
his back up, so to speak,

and you can't ride a man's
back unless it's bent.

And I'm not at all
pessimistic about the future,

because I think the Negro
has a kind of determination,

and I think there are numerous
allies in the White community

with the same kind
of determination.

And with this kind of creative
and constructive coalition,

we can move forward,

even to solve these
more difficult problems

that I have mentioned.

- Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,

to "Let's Look at Congress".

Today I have a guest for you

that I know will be
a great treat to see.

- Congressman Keating,
I am very happy indeed

to have this opportunity

of appearing with you on
your television program.

- And Mr. Hoover, to what extent

do you in your work
use wiretapping?

That's always a question
that people wonder about.

- I'm very glad you
asked me that question,

Congressman Keating.

The FBI was authorized
to utilize wiretaps

only in those cases
involving treason,

or subversive activities,
sabotage and espionage.

And I can say to you
as of this moment,

there are less than 90 wiretaps
in the entire United States

and territories of our country.

- While I'm sure that will
disabuse many people's minds

of the wide use of it,

- The FBI had sort
of interesting set of policies

about surveillance.

There'd been a lot
of public discussion,

a lot of court cases
around wiretapping.

So that's the telephone.

- Often, when the FBI was
gonna wiretap someone,

they had to get the authority
of the Attorney General.

That was policy that
was more or less law.

- My colleagues and I in
the Department of Justice

are your representatives in
the federal courts of the land.

- Citing
the danger of Levison

and King's apparent dishonesty,

Robert Kennedy authorizes
for the first time,

wiretaps on King
himself in Atlanta.

The FBI is not really telling
Attorney General Kennedy

that it has this other agenda.

- When the FBI
first started conducting

overt surveillance of King,

it really had something of
a national security logic,

or at least they
presented it that way.

The theory was,
there were communists

within the civil
rights movement,

the Communist Party was very
tied to the Soviet Union,

but one of the things that I
think we can take from this

is how easy it is for that
to morph into something else.

As those taps, and as that
surveillance really began,

the FBI found out all
sorts of things about King.

And very quickly, while
they still had some concern

with the communist question,

it begins to become something

that's much more about
King's personal life,

about him as a man,
about his sex life,

about his family,
about his confidants,

and about really
his private life.

It happened really
without the approval

or authority of anyone
outside of the FBI.

- As soon as the
wiretap on King's home

begins in late 1963,

within weeks, the FBI
begins convening meetings

to discuss, how can
we further exploit

all of these
extramarital recordings?

And that is transparently
why Bill Sullivan,

as the head of FBI
Domestic Intelligence,

made the decision that
the FBI should expand

its electronic
surveillance of Dr. King,

from just wiretapping, to also
using microphones, AKA bugs.

Sullivan's focus was collecting

salacious sexual
material on King.

- And the FBI
had a very elaborate

and very complicated process

for getting those bugs
to the right places.

- Call Blandon.

- Now, in a Willard
Hotel type of situation,

the FBI and its buddies
on the hotel staff

could decide in advance,

what room is Martin Luther
King gonna be assigned to,

and have the
microphones in place.

- They would set up
the bugs in his hotel rooms,

and usually would take
the room either next door

or downstairs somewhere,

where they could affect
listen to the recordings,

monitor what was going on,

and sometimes, you know,

observe physically who was
going in and out of the room,

'cause when you
have a recording,

all you have are
a bunch of voices.

One of the challenges
of those recordings

is trying to figure out,

particularly in
sexual situations

with more than a couple
of people involved,

who's saying what,
who's doing what?

And so there was physical
surveillance then involved,

to know who was in the room,
who appeared to sound what way,

and what they might be up to.

- Down this
Avenue of sadness,

they bring President John
F. Kennedy, martyred hero,

to lie in state under the
great dome of the Capitol.

- No memorial, oration or eulogy

could more eloquently honor
President Kennedy's memory,

than the earliest
possible passage

of the Civil Rights Bill
for which he fought so long.

- Congress passes

the most sweeping
civil rights bill

ever to be written into the law.

And thus reaffirms
the conception of
equality for all men,

that began with Lincoln and
the Civil War, 100 years ago.

The Negro won his freedom then,

he wins his dignity now.

Five hours after the
House passes the measure,

the Civil Rights Act of 1964
is signed at the white House

by President Johnson.

Before an audience
of legislators and
civil rights leaders

who have labored long and
hard for passage of the bill,

President Johnson calls
for all Americans,

to back what he calls, "A
turning point in history."

Integration leader, Martin
Luther King, receives his pen,

a gift he said he would cherish.

The Department of Justice will
enforce the law if necessary,

And G-man chief, J.
Edgar Hoover, is present.

Now in this summer of 1964,

the Civil Rights Bill
is the law of the land.

In the words of the president,

it restricts no one's freedom,

so long as he respects
the rights of others.

- This is an extremely
moving moment in my life.

- We didn't
know anything about it.

We didn't even know that
Dr. King had been nominated

until it was announced that he
had received the Nobel Prize.

- I do not consider this, merely
an honor to me personally,

but a tribute to the
discipline, wise restraint

and majestic courage of the
millions of gallant Negros

and White persons of goodwill

who have followed a
non-violent course

in seeking to establish
the reign of justice

and the rule of love
across this nation of ours.

- Do you plan
to go personally, do you?

- Yes, I definitely plan to go.

- The
missus can go with you?

- Well, I certainly hope so,

and I'm sure that
we can work out

a way for her to get there,

being a mother
and four children,

it's not easy to get
away all the time,

but I'm sure that
on this occasion,

she will be accompanying me.

- I was with
him down in Bimini,

shortly after the announcement.

Bimini didn't have any phones
and there was no television.

There was nothing
much to do on Bimini,

and he was working on
his Nobel Prize speech,

but all of a sudden,

you know, these helicopters
started coming in.

It was all the national press

that had found
out where we were.

And they came and they told us

that Hoover had made the speech
to a women's organization,

that Martin Luther King was the
world's most notorious liar.

Well, I don't know what
he was lying about.

- Well, naturally I was
shocked and greatly surprised

that Mr. Hoover would
make such an unwarranted

and vicious accusation.

I don't think Mr. Hoover would
have made such a statement

if he had not been under
a great deal of pressure.

- Do you believe the
FBI is doing all it can

to resolve civil
rights complaints?

- While I don't know all of
the inner workings of the FBI,

I do know that in cases

that do not involve
Negros and civil rights,

the FBI moves with dispatch,

it has the machinery,
the know-how.

The fact remains that in spite

of all of the brutalities
we faced in Albany, Georgia,

not a single arrest was made,

in spite of the fact that four

unoffending innocent Negro girls

were brutally murdered in a
church in Birmingham, Alabama,

not a single arrest
has been made.

And in spite of the fact
that the civil rights workers

were killed this
summer in Mississippi,

we haven't seen a single arrest.

- After Hoover denounced
Martin Luther King

as the most notorious
liar in the United States,

it produced a real showdown
between Hoover and King.

- I have an old comment
to make on that.

- How are you
feeling, Mr. Hoover?

- Excellent.

- Is there any
response on your part

to the suggestions
that you resign?

- That's the wish.

- Thank you very much, sir.

- Hoover and King
only met face-to-face once.

They agreed to sit
down on Hoover's turf
in Hoover's office,

and try to make peace.

King showed up.

He brought a few of his closest
advisers and aides with him.

There was no press
inside that office

when they sat down together.

By all accounts, Hoover kinda
talked at them for awhile,

and then King emerged saying,

You know, all good.

- Did he apologize to you or
in any way indicate regret

for what he had said?

- Well, I must say that
the conference was friendly

and that Mr. Hoover talked
in a very amiable away,

so that, in a very
friendly manner.

The whole talk
was very friendly,

and I think he saw it to get
over through some of the,

- Do you feel your visit
here then was a success,

or how would you
characterize it?

- Well, I would say
it was a success

in the sense that I
think we developed

new levels of understanding,

and as I said to him
in the beginning,

I felt that this was
a basic necessity.

- Did he specifically
mention his comment

about being a liar?

- I think we'll
have to end it here.

- Ultimately
King and Hoover

pretended to come to some
sort of accord out of that,

but it was a big controversy

and it was a
polarizing controversy.

- What do you
think of Martin Luther King?

- Well sir, I don't know.

I read a lot about him.

- Well, I don't care
for him. He's too bossy.

Thinks he's too smart.

- I think he's a very wonderful
man trying to help our race.

- Well, you know what
Hoover thought about him.

I think he's about 10 times
as bad as Hoover said.

- Wait, why do
you feel that way, sir?

- Well, I guess
from all the trouble

he's caused in this country,

all this rioting and things,

I just think he's
about the worst,

if he is a human, about
the worst in the world.

- Probably my
favorite public opinion poll,

which tells us something

about how radically
different this moment was,

in the aftermath
of that showdown,

fully 50% of the public
sided with J. Edgar Hoover,

around 15, 20% sided
with Martin Luther King,

and a bunch of other people

said they weren't following
it and didn't know,

but Hoover was the
universally beloved figure,

King was the
controversial figure,

and I think we tend
to forget that.

- One of the things

that's helped to
legitimize the FBI

is American popular culture.

- The FBI.

- I think that
we're constantly battling

with popular representations
of police, FBI,

and federal agents,

- NY-20, go ahead.

- As our saviors.

- The FBI was
incredibly good under Hoover

at promoting an image of itself,

really as the heroes of America.

- Hey Mr. Hoover, your
G-men sure are good.

I'd like to be one
when I grow up.

- If you work hard, play
hard, you're gonna one.

- one of the most
important things that Hoover did

was to create a Bureau,
really in his own image.

That meant that he hired a
very particular kind of person

as an agent.

A relatively
conservative White man

of a certain height
and a certain weight.

He particularly liked fraternity
boys and football players,

but there's a reason
that people know

when you say that's a G-man,

there's something
that you have in mind.

It's a man in a
suit, a White man,

probably about six feet
tall, buff, conservative,

that was what Hoover wanted.

- Time Magazine
says that
Martin Luther King, Jr.

has made himself the
unchallenged voice
of the Negro people.

That he has become to millions

in the North and in the South,

the symbol of the
Negro revolution.

He is a member of the clergy,

he has been called
the American Gandhi,

he is with us today
from Atlanta, Georgia,

where he is president

of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference.

We'll have a question
now from Gay Pauley.

- The non-violence always
end up with violence,

or almost always, Dr. King.

What excuse or what reason

do you offer for this approach

of creating a crisis
atmosphere in a community,

which leads to bloodshed,

as it has in many Southern
cities and some Northern?

- Well, I think we should see

the source of the
bloodshed first,

and we must understand the
real non-violent creed.

- Well, doesn't this
crisis atmosphere though,

create or endanger
the Negro's cause

by creating among the
Whites a resentment

or feeling that the Negro
is moving too rapidly,

asking too much so suddenly?

Does this worry you
that this atmosphere

could be created, or is?

- Well, I think this
is a temporary response

in any social revolution.

- Or doesn't it hurt your cause?

- I don't think so.

Ultimately I think it helps it

in the final analysis.

The only way people can
grapple with their prejudices

is to admit that they have them.

And so often people don't
realize they have them,

and so often people
don't realize

or honestly acknowledge
that that is a problem.

And it is necessary, in
the nonviolent movement,

to bring the issue
to the surface

so that people are
forced to deal with it,

and to deal with their
conscience on the issue.

- I call upon you.

I have the great honor on
behalf of the Nobel Committee,

to hand over to you the insignia
of the Nobel Peace Prize,

the Diploma and the gold medal.

- Thank you very much.
- Thank you very much.

- Now, this is the greatest
honor that King has received.

And the fact that
King is now being

internationally celebrated
as a moral leader,

deeply angers and offends
both Hoover and Sullivan.

- He was upset
that this young Black man,

who I think at that
time was 34, 35,

is being recognized
around the world

as a pioneer in
peace and justice.

Hoover was being ignored,
and he blamed us.

- Now, what am I gonna do
about Martin Luther King

with all these reports that
are coming in on him all night?

And there's somebody,

did somebody tell him,
watch his conduct?

now, they're pressing me to
attend a dinner in his honor

in New York.

I can't do that, can I?

- I would think you could,

but I wouldn't advise you to.

I'd find some other
reason why you can't.

- The FBI is frustrated

that even though they've
successfully caught King

in 15 or more hotel rooms,

and they've distributed
this behind the scenes

to church leaders, to reporters,

nothing's publicly happened.

That despite all of the hundreds
and hundreds of man hours

that they've put into this,

King has not been
personally destroyed.

- For Hoover, you
know, a lot of this is framed

as a matter of hypocrisy.

Here's the sainted minister

presenting himself as this
great moral authority,

but we actually
know he's this sick,

dirty, perverted creature.

And you see that kind of
language all over FBI documents.

- The FBI
surveillance of Dr. King,

it was special in the fact
that whatever city he went to,

it was all hands on deck.

Everything else stopped.

Hoover was obsessed
with Martin Luther King

and his activities.

From what I heard, there
were some photographs,

whoever was in them,

that just kind of fed
that mindset of Hoover

but this was a dangerous man

and they need to be removed.

- Now,
this is not the way

that Sullivan or Hoover
themselves would have said it,

but there was a radicalism
to King's sexuality

that they viewed as offensive.

- For
Hoover in particular,

he himself tried to be a very
tightly controlled person

when it came to matters
of his personal life

and his sexuality

and the way that he policed
the boundaries of that.

Now that's a complicated
story in its own right.

- Hoover, and
particularly Bill Sullivan,

the head of Domestic
Intelligence,

paternalistically thought
that Martin Luther King Jr.

was morally unfit to be a
leader of Black America.

- I think
for Hoover as well,

who was really raised

in a Southern
segregationist tradition,

a set of really outsized fears

about Black men's sexuality,

about Black men as rapists,

as people who don't
know how to control

their sexual appetites, right?

They're looking at what
they're finding out about King

and sort of seeing
it through that lens

and narrating it through
that kind of language.

- Dr. Martin Luther King can
call himself a Christian,

and he mixes White
women, colored women

and men and women all together.

- I think
that this interest

in the sexual life of King,

this is just inseparable

from the history of racial
violence in the United States.

- Now, can you look in these
stripes of red on this flag,

knowing very well
that your forefathers,

yes, yours, not mine,
yours, all of them,

that that stripe
represents that blood

that they spilled on
this soil, American soil,

something that you
have never had to do

to give you this God-given right

of racial character
and a inheritance.

- When we
think about the U.S.

as it emerges from
the Civil War,

you have this idea that
formerly enslaved people

should be integrated
into the body politic.

And there is an
enormous pushback,

not only from supporters
of the Confederacy,

but the problem of race is
a national problem as well.

One of the core justifications

for preventing Black male
suffrage was deviance.

That Black people are deviant.

That Black men in
the state house

are a threat to White women.

And it's this representation

of Black political
aspiration as sexual threat.

And unfortunately, that's
an ever recurring theme.

This mobilization
of black sexuality

as a justification for
murder, for exclusion,

for discrimination
and for incarceration.

This is a fabric of
American history.

- This was a way
that you could bring down

a very successful, influential
Black civil rights leader,

and contain the movement by
destroying its figurehead.

And so it's at that
moment that the FBI decide

that they're really
gonna operationalize,

and go quite overtly after King.

- When you stand up
against the forces of evil,

you will be persecuted
for righteousness' sake.

In the words of the spiritual,

you will be buked and scorned.

You will be talked about,
you will be lied on,

you will be persecuted
in many ways,

you will be thrown again,

maybe into narrowed and
frustrating jail cells.

I can't promise you
that you can avoid this.

- We used to
have these conference calls

at least three times
a week late at night.

10 or 11 o'clock at night.

And I was convinced then, the
FBI was tapping our phones.

I just said, "I'm sure
they're doing it."

Dr. King became so annoyed at
me for repeatedly saying this.

"Clarence," he said,
"Don't you know the FBI

"has got more important
and better things to do

"than to be wiretapping
our phones?"

But there did come a day when
he became more suspicious.

And then there came
a day, certain.

When the FBI mailed the tape
of Dr. King with other women,

mailed it to him and to Coretta,

with an advice that he
should go kill himself,

that's when he knew.

- I think
there've always been

a couple of really important
tensions within the FBI.

One is being a very
rule-bound organization,

a very professional
organization,

an organization very attuned
to jurisdiction and law,

and then being an organization
that was almost law-less.

- The Bureau
has all of these

hotel room recordings,

and so Sullivan
has his underlings

compose a greatest
hits compendium tape,

and then sits down on
his own typewriter,

to draft an anonymous
threatening letter to King.

- This is a reportedly

from an admirer
within the movement

who has found out about
King's sexual indiscretions,

feels betrayed by it,

and writes this full page,
really scurrilous letter

denouncing King as a
beast and a pervert,

and a monster, a hypocrite,

and in fact saying, "I
know what you've done."

- It's clearly a
very poor quality attempt

of someone who is sort
of culturally clueless

to pass as Black.

- They put
this package together
and send it off,

saying, "King, you know
what you have to do."

and giving him a deadline
by which he needs to do it.

Many people have
interpreted that

to be that you need
to kill yourself.

And this is one of
the ways that King

and his confidants who saw
this letter interpreted it.

There's some ambiguity there,

but it is one of the most
notorious and dirty tricks

that the FBI ever, ever
conducted in the 1960s.

- Have
you read that letter?

- Yes, I have.

I was sick to my
stomach, actually.

I mean, I didn't throw up,
but I felt ill reading it,

and that's what I
mean when I say,

I think this entire episode

represents the darkest part
of the Bureau's history.

- The package
was sent to the office.

I think it was mailed to us
from somewhere in Florida.

We never saw it.

It was put in a box,
and sent to Coretta.

So she opened it up
and she played it,

and then she called
the office and said,

"Look, somebody has
sent a tape in here

"trying to get Martin
to kill himself.

"And they have a recording

of some man and
woman in the bed."

I didn't even want
to hear it, you know?

This was designed to upset him.

We always assume that
Hoover was behind it.

My philosophy about
the movement is that

unless I saw something
with my own eyes,

you really have to be
careful what you believe.

- I'm here because
I want you to know

that I'm with you and
that I am with my husband.

As the wife a major symbol
of the civil rights movement,

I think I can say
that, without boasting,

I think it's a fact,

I have had the privilege
of being perhaps

closer to him than anybody else,

and perhaps that
maybe I understand him

better than anyone else.

And therefore, I think I have
a pretty good understanding

of the whole struggle.

- In the immediate
wake of Mrs. King,

Dr. King and King's
closest aides

listening to the anonymous,

embarrassing tape
recording from the FBI,

Dr. King undergoes a
real emotional crisis.

And it's an emotional crisis

that the FBI is listening in on,

thanks to its
telephone wiretaps.

Dr. King is desperately afraid

that his sex life is going
to be exposed in raw detail

to the American public.

Now, his life is so busy
on a day-to-day basis

in early 1965,

that he's not able
to worry about this

24 hours a day,
seven days a week.

He's distracted from his worries

a good portion of the time.

But the emotional impact on King

of what the FBI
was doing to him,

cannot be gainsaid.

King was clearly in very
serious emotional turmoil

or emotional fear,

and even as a few weeks went
by and nothing happened,

King always has that worry
in the back of his mind,

that at some point the
FBI is going to get lucky,

and some journalist,
some magazine

is going to print all of this.

- This is Highway number 80,
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

You can fly it in a
matter of minutes.

You can drive it in
less than an hour,

or you can walk it in five days,

which is what this is all about.

- We knew that the
FBI was following closely.

Almost everywhere we went,

we identified the agents.

We assumed that the
rooms were bugged,

we knew that the
telephones were tapped.

Dick Gregory said that,

if you're Black and
not slightly paranoid,

you're really sick.

And we were slightly paranoid,

but we never let that paranoia

interfere with what
we were trying to do.

- We've lived with slavery
and segregation 345 years.

We've waited a long
time for freedom.

Now is the time.

Make real the
promises of democracy.

Now is the time to
make justice a reality

for all of God's children.

- Today is a
triumph for freedom,

as huge as any victory

that's ever been won
on any battlefield.

- The triumphal
passage of the Voting Rights Act

really highlights what a
close political alliance

has developed between
Martin Luther King

and President Lyndon
Johnson's administration.

- Okay, hold on for this.

- Hello?
- Hello?

- Is this Dr. King?

- Yeah, it's pretty
bad. How are you today?

- Well, I'm
doing pretty good,

and you better get thinking
cap on on this conference,

because we're gonna
have to rush it.

We don't wanna
rush you too much,

we wanna have plenty
of preliminary work

on the panels and things,

but you better, you can see here

that my Howard University speech

wasn't any too early.

- That's
right, that's right.

You said, you said
it right there.

That's right.

- But you put

a little of that
stuff into your thing.

Refer that Howard
university speech.

Nobody ever publicized that.

- Almost every
speech I've made,

it's because I think
it's the best statement

and analysis of the
problem I've seen anywhere.

Certainly, no president has
ever said it like that before.

- But if you
got any suggestions

or recommendation,

why, I'm just as
close as the telephone

if you got enough
money to pay it,

you have my call collect.

- All right.
- Goodbye.

- Increasingly now, Americans
are functioning directly

in the fight for freedom

on this far forlorn
corner of the earth.

The risks are real.

- We intend to
convince the communists

that we cannot be
defeated by force of arms

or by superior power.

They're not easily convinced.

- When
Martin Luther King Jr.

first speaks out publicly
against the Vietnam war

in August, 1965,

he quite quickly is
forced back into line

by hostile criticism
directed at him

by democratic allies
of President Johnson.

- We will not be forced
out of South Vietnam.

- And so King then
remains silent about Vietnam,

for almost 18 months.

- During our tour in
the Republic of Vietnam,

we have all seen
what communism can do

to a struggling nation
in our world community.

- When King is on his
way to Jamaica in early 1967,

and while waiting for a flight,

he buys some magazines
in an airport gift shop.

And in an issue of
Ramparts magazine,

he sees a whole series of
photos about the impact

of US Air Force napalm bombing
on Vietnamese civilians.

Non-violence for
King was not simply

a civil rights protest tactic.

King believed that nonviolence
was a Christian ethic

that should be applied
around the world,

not just by Black demonstrators.

- Let us pray.

- Only in early
1967 does King's conscience

begin to so trouble him
about his prolonged silence,

that he forces himself
to go public once again,

knowing full well
that in doing so,

it will break his political
alliance with Lyndon Johnson,

and bring down very widespread

political criticism on his head.

- And of course, it's always
good to come back to Riverside.

- The worst press

that Martin Luther
King received, I
think in his lifetime,

was exactly one year
before his assassination.

- I come to this magnificent
house of worship tonight,

because my conscience
leaves me no other choice.

A time comes when
silence is betrayal.

And that time has come for
us, in relation to Vietnam.

- He
reminded President
Johnson, he could count.

- How was there gonna be any
money for the war on poverty

when all the money

that was being set aside
for the war on poverty

was being spent to build bombs?

- You know, America
is a rich nation.

The richest nation
on the face of earth.

Now, you know what's wrong?

Our national priorities
are mixed up.

And I'm afraid the national
administration of our country

is more concerned about
winning the war in Vietnam

than winning the
war against poverty

right here in the United States.

- He was attacked
from coast to coast,

simply from describing
the world as it really is.

And this was not the
racist Southern press.

This was the New York Times
and the Washington Post

and the LA Times, and you know?

I mean, everybody blasted
him for having an opinion.

- King went to communist
training school,

and I don't want anything
to do with communists.

- Are you sure of this?

- Look right here.

- Is that your only proof?

- We have proof, and we are
satisfied that it's true proof.

- When he publicly
spoke out against the war,

the persons he had known
and been close to for years,

turned against him.

- And we don't see any reason

for downgrading civil rights

and elevating the peace
movement above it,

especially the indignities
our people are suffering.

The main show for us is right
here, it's civil rights.

- Yeah, he was
hurting and depressed,

and he is, you know,
the pressure of the home

and his marriage and so forth.

You know, it was getting to him.

- It wasn't that
he was right or wrong.

He didn't have any business
having an opinion.

see?

He realized how sick
this country was,

and he felt that he
couldn't slow down

and he had the
push on regardless.

- I weighed the criticisms
that I would get.

I thought about even the fact

that some Negroes
wouldn't understand,

and some respectable
Negro leaders

who are more concerned

about being invited
to the White House

than invited to the calls of
justice would be against me.

- In the
wake of Dr. King's

Riverside Church speech,

Lyndon Johnson's White House,

very explicitly identifies King

as a major threat to the
president's policies.

- I'm convinced that it will
lead to widespread discontent

and disenchantment
with administration

if there isn't a
change in the policy,

and an all out effort
to deescalate the war

and bring an end to it.

- Stick
with civil rights.

Leave the war to the generals.

- Now, Lyndon
Johnson's White House

had always been
privy to the FBI's

sexual surveillance of Dr. King.

But now, Lyndon Johnson comes
to view Martin Luther King

as an enemy.

And the FBI is
eager to strengthen

its own relationship
with president Johnson,

by jumping on this anti-King
bandwagon with greater fervor.

- I just got word
that Martin Luther King

will give a press conference

at 11 o'clock this
morning in Atlanta.

King was told by Levison,

who is his principal advisor,

and who is a secret communist,

that he has more
to gain nationally

by agreeing with the violence

that is coming out against it.

That's the substance
of information.

We've got that
highly confidentially

over the technicals.

Well, I'll have for you tomorrow

that memorandum you want on
all the riots in the country.

- That's right,

and I want you to
keep your men busy

to find a central connection.

I wouldn't be a
damn bit surprised

that this poverty group here

is not stirring up some of this.

- We'll dig into
that very thoroughly.

- Okay.

- Fine, thank
you, Mr. President.

- So many
resources are mobilized

against suppressing
dissent in the U. S.

The FBI has done
extensive surveillance

of all kinds of
Black organizations.

- Don't be afraid.
Don't be ashamed.

We want Black power.

Black power!

- We want Black power.

- Black power!

- We want Black power.

- Black power!

- We want Black power.

- When you look
at the social movements

from the point of view of
these law enforcement agencies,

it looks very different.

- We stand on the eve of a
Black revolution, brothers.

Masses of our people
are in the streets.

They're fighting tit-for-tat,

tooth for tooth, an eye for
an eye and a life for a life.

The rebellions that we see
are merely dress rehearsals

for the revolution
that's to come.

We better get ourselves some
guns and prepare ourselves.

- The Bureau was
of course anticommunist,

but I'd say it's most
consistent campaigns

were against Black people.

Whether it's William
Sullivan or J. Edgar Hoover,

the policy was consistent.

They saw African Americans as,

you know, J. Edgar Hoover

has said about the
Black Panther Party,

that they were the
greatest threat

to the internal security
of the United States.

- The use of informants has
existed for years and years

by law enforcement agencies.

You even find reference
to it in the Bible.

In the time of Moses.

Certainly you cannot expect
to be able to penetrate

the secret, conspiratorial
organizations

without using secret agents.

- There were
FBI informants in
most domestic groups

in the United States.

That was the only way
you can investigate them,

especially if they were
Black organizations.

You know, we didn't have that
many Black agents back then,

so you had to have individuals
inside that organization

to get inside information.

It was just, you had to.

- The general strategy
of intelligence services

is that they use surveillance
in order to figure out

how to break apart
these organizations.

So it's not just surveillance
for surveillance sake.

It is to observe
the organizations

to figure out what their
points of vulnerability are,

and then purposely insert
people into those conflicts.

- It's in the
late 1950s that the FBI

founds this super secret
program, COINTELPRO,

counter-intelligence program,

that allows them not just
to conduct surveillance,

but to begin to disrupt the
organizations quite explicitly.

Spread rumors within
the organization,

foment violence, et cetera.

- You have
to be astonished

just at the number of
sources that they had.

When you look through
these FBI reports,

I mean, they've got scores
and scores of people.

Ernest Withers was probably
the most successful

civil rights photographer
you never heard of.

He was very much
a movement insider

and covered the
civil rights movement

from its very dawn.

He shot a very monumental
picture of Dr. King on the bus

at the end of the
Montgomery bus boycott.

You know, a very radical,

revolutionary moment
in American history,

and Ernest Withers was right
there in the middle of it.

Ernest had a completely
different side to him

that no one knew about,

and that was that he doubled
as an informant for the FBI

for as many as 18 years.

- We had an
informant in our office.

- James Harrison?

- I'm not
calling the names.

- Jim Harrison
is a paid FBI informant

in SCLC's office

sitting a few yards from
Martin Luther King, Jr..

Having someone like Harrison,

would allow for a very
efficient daily reporting

on where's King
gonna be traveling,

what's he gonna be doing?

What are people in the
office concerned about?

- I did not know

that he was in fact,
an FBI informant.

I did not know in fact,

but I believed that he was.

And I tried to counsel Martin,

to don't let him know more
than he needs to know.

- We now know
that Harrison had worked

as an informant for the
FBI in two other cities.

It seems beyond a
possible coincidence

that he moves to Atlanta

and volunteers to work at SCLC

without some suggestion or
instruction from the FBI.

- It's not
really that surprising,

knowing now what we know
about what the FBI was doing.

Anybody who was to the
left of mainstream,

anyone who supported
the anti-war movement,

anyone who got what
they considered
militant in civil rights

was deemed a subversive.

And they were keeping
files on them.

They were running a
surveillance state.

- This is where it
began, the rural South.

And here where it began,

for the Negro, the
problem remains.

There's no ghetto
here, just poverty.

The worst kind of poverty.

The kind of poverty
that makes you wonder,

can this be the United
States of America,

the richest country in the
world in the year 1967?

It is not just material poverty,

there is also a
poverty of the spirit.

- What is it about the Negro?

I mean, every other group that
came as an immigrant somehow,

not easily, but
somehow got around it.

Is it just the fact that
the Negroes are Black?

- The fact is that the Negro

was a slave in this
country for 244 years.

That led to the
thingification of the Negro.

So he was not looked
upon as a person,

he was not looked
upon as a human being

with the same status and
worth as other human beings.

And it seems to me that
White America must see

that no other ethnic group

has been a slave
on American soil.

And so emancipation
for the Negro

was really freedom to hunger.

It was freedom to the
winds and rains of heaven.

It was freedom without food,
deed, a land to cultivate,

and therefore it was freedom
and famine at the same time.

And when White
Americans tell the Negro

to lift themselves by
his own bootstraps,

they don't look over the legacy
of slavery and segregation.

I believe we ought
to do all we can,

and seek to lift ourselves
by our own bootstraps,

but it's a cruel jest
to say to a bootless man

that he ought to lift himself
by his own bootstraps.

- King is
deeply pessimistic

that America will ever undertake

the pursuit of real
equality for Black people.

- Ladies and gentlemen
of the press,

I'm gonna read an
opening statement.

- And that leads
him to announce the idea

of holding a poor people's
campaign in Washington,

in the spring of 1968.

- The Southern Christian
Leadership Conference

will lead waves of the
nation's poor and disinherited

to Washington D. C. next spring

do demand redress of grievances

by the United States government.

We will go there, we
will demand to be heard,

and we will stay until
America responds.

- The FBI was
deeply alarmed by these plans.

For Hoover, you know,
this was his home turf.

But they're also very concerned
about the kind of conflict

that might emerge out of this.

They thought it could
be a significant threat

to the national
Capitol in particular.

- Powerful poor people,

well really means having the
ability, the togetherness,

the assertiveness and
the aggressiveness

to make the power structure
of this nation say, yes,

when they may be
desirous of saying, no.

Black people, Mexican Americans,

American Indians, Puerto
Ricans, Appalachian Whites,

all working together to
solve the problem of poverty.

- It bears emphasis
that William Sullivan,

the head of American
Domestic Intelligence,

in late March of 1968,

begins revising and expanding
the FBI's primary document

to indict Dr. King.

And chooses to add
for the first time,

the rape participation
allegation

to his revision
of this document.

- It's unclear how
much we're ever going to know

about any particular incident
in Kings sexual history,

particularly the most explosive
allegation that's been made.

- Handwritten
annotations on this document,

alleged that King was
present at the rape

of a black female parishioner
by a Baltimore minister,

and that he "Looked
on and laughed."

I have many, many
questions about this.

It's supposed to
be an audio tape,

but concluded within
this document,

is the assertion
that King looked on,

which I thought was strange.

That in itself to me
was a huge red flag.

- The agents who were
listening in in live time,

in a room right next door to
where this was taking place,

did nothing.

Their focus was on gaining
embarrassing material.

- We are
gonna have to not assume

that everything that's said
in those documents is true.

I think also not
assume that everything

that's said in those
documents is false.

And I also think that
we have to understand

that FBI agents were making

their own very
subjective judgements

about what's actually happening.

- One of the things
I was really struck by this

is how much it adheres
to J. Edgar Hoover

and William C. Sullivan

and the FBI's
representations of King.

The agents were really rewarded

for finding this
kind of material

that would undermine the
civil rights movement

and other Black organizations.

And so in some ways, it
provides this grand narrative

that has this allegedly
big revelation

in the context of this
larger life of misconduct.

- Sullivan is updating
and expanding this document,

because of the political threat

to the Johnson administration

that this Poor People's
Campaign represents.

All of a sudden, Sullivan's
work on this revision halts.

And it halts because
Dr. King is murdered.

- The night
before his assassination,

King gave one of the
most remarkable speeches

of his whole career.

One of the themes was the idea

that protest itself
was really in peril.

You were seeing crackdowns
all across the country

increasing concerns
about violence,

and he was really making
a claim that in Memphis,

it wasn't just the
rights of workers,

it wasn't just racial
justice that was on the line,

but it was also the
right to speech,

the right to protest, the
First Amendment itself.

- If I lived in
China or even Russia,

or any totalitarian country,

Maybe I could
understand the denial

of certain basic First
Amendment privileges,

because they hadn't committed
themselves to that over there.

But somewhere I read of
the freedom of assembly.

Somewhere I read of
the freedom of speech.

Somewhere I read of
the freedom of press.

Somewhere I read that
the greatness of America

is the right to
protest for right.

- Good evening.

The Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King, 39 years old,

and a Nobel Peace Prize winner,

and the leader of the nonviolent

civil rights movement
in the United States

was assassinated
in Memphis tonight.

A sniper's bullet
cut down Dr. King,

as he stood on a hotel
balcony in Memphis.

- The special bulletin
phrased on the television

that Dr. King had been shot.

And I just stood there,
you know, a long time.

And then little while later,

they said Dr. King was dead.

And I was angry.

There was a whole lot of
other people who were angry.

- We are very upset today,

because we've lost
in our generation,

somebody like a father.

In our lifetimes,
people 25 and 26,

he's the first major
man we ever saw

who started a bus ride
and everything like that.

And today, many people
are out here on the street

wondering which way
they're going to turn,

because we don't know
where we're going to go.

Do we go to the right,
do we go to the left?

We're not sure today.

- I don't think
the FBI had a deep interest

in protecting King.

In fact, there are many moments

in which the FBI refused to act

in a kind of bodyguard capacity
or even a warning capacity

when King was under threat.

In the end, after Hoover felt

that he was under
enormous pressure,

the FBI did conduct a
pretty decent, wide-ranging,

incredibly labor
intensive investigation

to find someone who was involved
in King's assassination.

- The man named
as James Earl Ray

was arrested at quarter
past 11 this morning

by two Scotland Yard detectives

as he passed through the
British immigration offices

for a flight to Brussels.

An announcement

by the American FBI
Director, J. Edgar Hoover,

said the man was fully
armed with a loaded pistol,

and he carried two
Canadian passports

and a false name.

- I think
once they understood

that the FBI's
investigative reputation

was gonna be at
stake in this case,

they poured enormous resources

to try and to bring
that case home.

- Ray's
life and civil rights

were being guarded more closely

than those of
Martin Luther King,

whom Ray is accused
of murdering.

- I was amazed that with
the surveillance by the FBI,

24/7 around Dr.
King and the SCLC,

that they wouldn't be
aware of James Earl Ray

and the Lorraine Motel.

- I don't think James Earl Ray

had anything to do with
Dr. King's assassination.

So I can't really
comment on that.

- The
assassination of King

and the fact that we were
doing surveillance that day

when he was shot,

it's always been in the
back of your mind going,

you know, did we not know this?

Could we not prevent this?

I didn't hear anything
that would indicate

that headquarters knew and
chose not to do anything.

I'd never saw that,
I never heard that,

but it was a question
everybody had,

because it was a
legitimate question.

You know, why did we not
intercede if we were there?

- This was an emotional,

frustrated, outraged nation.

Other people were trying
to incite to violence.

We always said that the only
thing that could defeat us

was violence.

And I think that's still
true in this country.

I don't think,

violence will not succeed
in changing this nation.

Whether it's White
violence or Black violence,

or any other color violence.

- Dr. King used to
laugh and joke about his death.

He said, "Look,
you're gonna die.

"Death is the
ultimate democracy.

"Everybody's got to die and
you don't have anything to say

"about when you
die, where you die.

"Your own choice is,

"what is it you
give your life for?"

- Here's
my first question to you.

What do you see your
responsibility as a historian

when you're dealing with
someone like Martin Luther King,

what's your responsibility?

- Hmm.

It varies over time.

- So, when these tapes
come out in 2027,

I think it's gonna
be very interesting

to see what the reaction is.

I don't know that it will create

a fundamental re-understanding

of King as a political figure,

but I do think that it
will probably give us

a slightly more complicated
sense of him as a human being.

- There's always been
this unresolved tension

in who we are and
who we say we are,

and who we wanna be.

But there was always
this emotional enthusiasm

that we could change the world.

- Did he have sexual
relationships with women

other than his married wife?

Yes, he did.

I can't change that.

That's a matter of
factual history.

Does that make him, in my mind,

less of an historic
civil leader?

No, it does not.

- I just don't
think that the tapes

should see the light of day.

As I said, they would serve
no purpose whatsoever.

And I don't see anything
good that can come about it.

I see bad things that
could come about it.

- I don't know enough about

what might be in
the tapes to react,

except I'd say this:

I've never met a perfect human.

There are no perfect humans.

There's not one
speaking to you now,

and so I would hope that
no matter what is revealed,

and maybe there'll be nothing
new revealed about Dr. King,

people are able to understand
that people are complex,

and it doesn't detract from
what a person did for the good.

- I think it's easy
for us to look back

at what the FBI was doing
during Hoover's years

and be outraged by
it, and rightly so,

but I also think
there's an image

of J. Edgar Hoover as being
some sort of rogue actor,

behind the scenes,

and being kind of out of step
with the American mainstream.

But the truth is
that a lot of this

wasn't particularly secret.

A lot of people understood
what the FBI was up to,

and in fact, they supported it.

- The FBI was not
a renegade agency.

It was fundamentally
a part, a core part

of the existing mainstream
American political order.

- I don't know what's
in the 2027 releases,

but I don't think
that this will impact

the assessment of
Dr. King's legacy.

The 1960s, the post-war years

are a period of
real transformation.

One thing that's really
important is that we acknowledge

that Black people have only
truly had citizen rights

for the last 50 plus
years. It's so recent.

Looking at the FBI
campaigns against King,

the Black Panther Party,
and many other people,

I think there's a
core component to this

that really is structural
and functional.

People hold these attitudes,

and we focus on
J. Edgar Hoover's

own particular
history and person,

but I think that
these are attitudes

that have been core to
how the racial order

operates in the U. S.

What helped motivate these
campaigns was the real fear

that Black people
could undermine

the way the country
wanted to see itself.

And this manifested itself,

not only in the
targeting of leaders

and people that were visible,

but of ordinary people.

So these core fear
and aggressions

towards African-Americans,

I think has a lot to
do with White people's

own conception of themselves,

and the danger of Black people

forcing a reckoning with the
violence of the American past.