Looking for the Real Dr. Martin Luther King 1 – Why Do All My Hero’s Have FBI Files ?

Read the Introductory post here

Less than a week after his death it was difficult to place our finger on who was the real Mandela because the process of white washing his legacy was already under way. Martin Luther King Jr. died over 4 decades ago and in that time has been reduced simple to the man who delivered the I Had a Dream Speech; the man who marched for the rights of black people. But the real story is much richer  especially to us living under the scrutiny of mass incarceration and surveillance, and a subversion of the Truth.

With that said we begin with Martin Luther King’s greatest detractors the United Sates government. The following is a letter the FBI sent to MLK trying to blackmail him into committing suicide.

KING,

In view of your low grade […] I will not dignify your name with either a Mr. or a Reverend or a Dr. And, your last name calls to mind only the type of King such as King Henry the VIII. […]

King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own but I am sure they don’t have one at this time that is any where [sic] near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. You could not believe in God and act as you do. Clearly you don’t believe in any personal moral principles.

King, like all frauds your end is approaching. You could have been our greatest leader. You, even at an early age have turned out to be not a leader but a dissolute, abnormal moral imbecile. We will now have to depend on our older leaders like [N.A.A.C.P. executive secretary Roy] Wilkins, a man of character and thank God we have others like him. But you are done. Your “honorary” degrees, your Nobel Prize (what a grim farce) and other awards will not save you. King, I repeat you are done.

No person can overcome facts, not even a fraud like yourself. Lend your ear to the enclosure. […] exposed on the record for all time. I repeat — no person can argue successfully against facts. You are finished. You will find on the record for all time […] to your hideous abnormalities. […] to pretend to be ministers of the Gospel. Satan could not do more. What incredible evilness. It is all there on the record, […]. King you are done.

The American public, the church organizations that have been helping — Protestant, Catholic and Jews will know you for what you are — an evil, abnormal beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done.

King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do [sic] (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [sic]). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.

Why Do My Heros have FBI Files?

From December 1963 until his death in 1968 and even after his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ‘neutralize’ him as an effective civil rights leader and discredit his legacy. The means through this was done: wire-tapping private phone conversations, breaking into his office, monitoring his movements etc shows the extent to which the government respected civilian privacy 50 years before Snowden’s epic whistle-blowing.

Moving Onward From Here

The use of American taxpayers’ dollars and two federal agencies (the FBI and the NSA) to fuel a waged campaign of disinformation, outright propaganda, blackmail, psychological warfare, and smear tactics against a civil rights leader condoned and encouraged by the highest levels of government paints a picture of a man who did more than march and deliver speeches. 

When as a senior in High School I learned that a 1999 civil jury composed of 6 blacks and 6 whites found that Martin Luther King Jr. had been the victim of assassination by a conspiracy involving the Memphis police as well as federal agencies, I had to ask myself what was MLK’s actual message ? Why was how he went about preaching his message and trying to change gross moral discrepancies such a problem ?

These are precisely the questions I will look to discuss in the next part of this series where goal will be to paint a picture of how expansive MLK’s message inclusive of course of his opposition to US militarism and imperialism, his favoring of partial reparations for slavery, his critic of capitalism and materialism, his Poor  people’s campaign that would push for a government guaranteed right to a job for all Americans, and his championing of reproductive rights, was.

Go To Part 2 Here