As more than 200,000 government documents related to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were released this week, his children are reminding the public that while their father’s death has long captivated the nation, it remains, first and foremost, a deeply personal loss.
In a joint statement Monday, Dr. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III acknowledged the continued public fascination with the 1968 assassination but emphasized the lasting grief it brings to their family. They also reiterated the family’s longstanding position that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing Dr. King, was not the shooter.
“During our father’s lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the statement reads. “The intent of the government’s COINTELPRO campaign was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle, and destroy our father’s reputation and the broader American civil rights movement.”
For the King family, the newly released documents may offer little context for what they already believe. In 1999, the family filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit in Shelby County, Tenn., against Loyd Jowers, a Memphis businessman, and unnamed co-conspirators that included government agencies. The jury unanimously found that Jowers and others conspired to assassinate Dr. King and to frame Ray.
“As we review these newly released files, we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted,” the King children said in their statement.
A statement updated in 2023 by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division dismisses the findings of the King family’s civil suit. The DOJ said it does not consider Jowers credible, citing inconsistencies in his various public statements. The department also noted that Jowers did not testify during the 1999 trial.
The King Center, also led by Dr. Bernice King, issued a statement calling the timing of the document release suspicious given the pressing “issues and injustices” affecting the U.S. and the world.
The statement warned that the release of files on the assassination of Dr. King could serve as a distraction from those more urgent matters.
Some have suggested that the timing of the FBI files released is politically motivated, particularly as President Donald Trump’s MAGA voter base has fixated on FBI files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
And there is speculation that the president wants to align himself with great figures of the past, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy.
In a Vanity Fair column published Monday, Dr. Bernice King reflected on the trauma of losing her father just seven days after celebrating her fifth birthday. As a young girl, she said she struggled to understand why someone would want to assassinate a man who sought only to make the world a better place. Over time, she came to see that “the forces of hate and injustice have no bounds,” she wrote.
She also noted that while her father’s physical life was taken, there have been continued attempts to assassinate his reputation and legacy.
On Instagram, Bernice King posted a photo of her father with a skeptical expression, captioned: “Now do the Epstein files.”
As the family continues to mourn and reflect, they are urging the public to remain vigilant — not just about the past, but about the political motives that may shape how history is presented, King Center spokeswoman Mina Bryant said.
The intent of the King Center’s statement is to encourage people to “stay focused on the main goal,” Bryant added. “Do not let it deter you from making sure that we have a [global community] that is loving, that is humane, that is just.”
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