The government’s secret files on the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. could be released ahead of schedule after a federal judge in Washington indicated he was open to doing so.
In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, demanding the release of all government documents pertaining to the shootings of MLK, as well as both President John F Kennedy and his brother, Robert F Kennedy, in the 1960s.
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” Trump said in the order. “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
Dr King was shot dead on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4 1968, with the official narrative remaining that the gunman was the petty criminal James Earl Ray, who hit him with a Remington rifle fired from the window of a rented room in a boarding house standing across the street.
In 1977, a judge ordered the government to unseal all of the files it holds on the case and make them public in 2027.
However, at Wednesday’s hearing in Washington, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia suggested he was prepared to bring the release date forward to comply with Trump’s wishes, although he also emphasized the importance of sensitivity.
Judge Leon said the first step would be for the National Archives and Records Administration to show him the complete inventory of files it has in its possession on the MLK assassination and the FBI investigation that followed, so as to establish the size of the processing task ahead.
The hearing was prompted by a lawsuit filed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization based in King’s native Atlanta, Georgia, which seeks to halt the expedited release.
Before the judge’s ruling, Sumayya Saleh, a lawyer representing the conference, had argued that the push to publish the documents amounted to a “deliberate effort to undermine the civil rights movement” and to “discredit” MLK’s legacy.
Justice Department lawyer Johnny Walker proposed that officials from his agency be allowed to comb through the papers first and produce a subset that the justice and the conference could peruse before approving or challenging their release.
Judge Leon ultimately determined that he should have the first look, describing the situation as “the first few steps in a journey” that could take years and reminding both sides: “This is delicate stuff.”
“Keep the lines of communication open,” he ordered the Justice Department and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, saying he would “bless” any agreement between them to examine the files jointly.
“That’s in everyone’s interest, including the president’s.”
The King family has long contested that version of events, and the killing has been the subject of conspiracy theories ever since, with some suggesting a police sharpshooter really fired the fatal shot and others that Ray had accepted a $50,000 bounty put forward by segregationist groups to make the hit.
“The Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband… Mr Ray was set up to take the blame,” the deceased’s widow, Coretta Scott King, said in 1999.
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