(NewsNation) — The Trump administration on Monday released more than 230,000 pages of previously classified documents related to the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the release, carried out under President Donald Trump’s executive order directing full transparency on the assassinations of King, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
The documents, now available at archives.gov/mlk, include FBI investigation details, internal memos tracking case progress and information about James Earl Ray’s former cellmate who claimed Ray discussed an assassination plot.
What are the JFK, RFK and MLK Jr. files?
The files also contain foreign evidence from Canadian police and CIA records on the international manhunt for Ray.
“The American people have waited nearly sixty years to see the full scope of the federal government’s investigation into Dr. King’s assassination,” Gabbard said in a statement.
Unlike the JFK assassination files released under federal law, the King documents had never been digitized and “sat collecting dust in facilities across the federal government for decades,” according to the announcement.
Dr. Alveda King, the civil rights leader’s niece, praised the release as “a historic step towards the truth that the American people deserve.”
‘The Cosby Show’ star Malcolm-Jamal Warner dies at 54
What happened during the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination?
King was shot on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to killing King but later tried to withdraw his guilty plea.
Conspiracy theories have circulated about King’s death, in part prompted by Ray’s claims that his confession had been forced and the revelation of illegal surveillance of King by the FBI and the CIA. The FBI also allegedly attempted to get King to commit suicide.
Some in King’s family also believe that the government and possibly the Mafia were involved in the assassination and that Ray was set up to take the fall.
The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations determined in 1979 that there was a likelihood Ray acted for monetary gain and that there was likely a conspiracy behind the shooting. The committee, however, said it was likely originating from white supremacist groups rather than the government.
KGB files on JFK to be released this fall: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna
MLK Jr.’s family urges files be viewed with ‘empathy’
King’s family, including his two living children, Martin III and Bernice, were given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records ahead of the public disclosure.
In a lengthy statement, the two living King children called their father’s case a “captivating public curiosity for decades” but called for “empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”
The pair emphasized the personal nature of the matter, urging that “these files must be viewed within their full historical context.”
NewsNation’s Stephanie Whiteside and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
