230,000 pages made public. The Donald Trump administration declassified thousands of files about Martin Luther-Hing in 1968 on Monday, July 21, 21, despite the concerns expressed by the family of the civil rights leader.
The US President ordered on January 23 by decree the declassification of government archives about the murder of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, as well as those of his brother Robert F. Kennedy, known as Bobby, and Martin Luther-King Jr in 1968.
The 230,000 pages published on Monday are related in particular in the investigation of the FBI, the Federal Police, in the international search of the alleged murderer of Martin Luther-King, or even about the testimony of one of his fellow prisoners, according to a press release of the US National Intelligence Director of the USA. UU. Tulsi Gabbard, at the origin of the announcement.
Little new information according to historians
However, despite this unexpected gain of documents, the perspective that historians have in this matter, according to the New York Times. The latter points to the finger that the documents do not include, for example, the listening recordings of Martin Luther-King made by the FBI, so other documents that will remain sealed until 2027.
In a press release, the children of the famous civil rights defender are concerned about a possible detour from the publication of these documents to “attack their posterity or the achievements of the movement.”
During his life, Martin Luther-King was attacked by a “campaign of misinformation and surveillance” orchestrated by the director of the FBI of the time, the powerful John Edgar Hoover, intended to “discredit his reputation and more generally the movement for civil rights,” they remember.
“Never digitized” documents
Especially because in the New York Times Larry J. Sabato, director of the Policy Center of the University of Virginia, who examined the new documents this Monday with his own team of researchers, “you have to read it carefully and not take it for cash”
“I am skeptical about everything I read in FBI files in MLK that I wanted information about MLK, its movements and its associates,” said Larry J. Sabato,
The latter adds, according to the American newspaper, who suspected agents of having “inflated” or “manufactured” documents to please Hover, the agency’s director.
The relatives of Martin Luther-King also reaffirm not to believe in the fault of James Earl Ray, a white segregationist condemned by this murder, perpetrated on April 4, 1968 on the balcony of a Memphis motel (South), where Martin Luther King had come to support the garbage collectors. The latter died in prison in 1998.
In a statement, the authorities declared that the published documents “had never been digitized and that they had dust at the Federal Government’s facilities for decades.”
Source: BFM TV
