Opinion
The FBI had a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, about Martin Luther King Jr. fact-checked after attempting to portray the agency’s relationship with the civil rights leader as one of support for his mission.
Perhaps the bureau was banking on the public’s short memory when they posted: “This #MLKDay, the #FBI honors one of the most prominent leaders of the Civil Rights movement and reaffirms its commitment to Dr. King’s legacy of fairness and equal justice for all.”
Community Notes stepped in brutally, highlighting the FBI’s surveillance and attempts to discredit King while he was alive, and much more.
“The FBI engaged in surveillance of King, attempted to discredit him, and used manipulation tactics to influence him to stop organizing,” Community Notes accurately responded. “King’s family believe the FBI was responsible for his death.”
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FBI Hit With Reality Over Martin Luther King Post
The FBI’s efforts to discredit King were extensive and began in the late 1950s, when King started to gain national attention for his civil rights activism.
The Bureau’s main objective was to undermine King’s influence and reputation by engaging in surveillance, wiretapping, and spreading negative information about him.
Under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program targeted King and other civil rights leaders, attempting to discredit them and disrupt their activities. The bureau investigated him for possible communist ties using wiretaps and bugs, spying on his personal life and secretly recording him.
Ah, the FBI – Trying to entrap and imprison Americans they disagree with for half a century.
In 1964, the FBI sent King an anonymous letter, along with recordings of his extramarital affairs, urging him to commit suicide.
The bureau sent a tape with evidence of King’s affairs along with a letter which read in part: “You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”
Film director Sam Pollard noted that the FBI had such extensive surveillance on King that it would be nearly impossible for their agents to be unaware of a plot to assassinate him.
“Any time King and his associates went to a new city, the FBI was manned up to go in and follow him and surveil him, so how is it possible … [for] agents constantly surveilling King in nearby hotel rooms not to be aware of someone like James Earl Ray with a rifle who’s going to shoot Dr. King?” said Pollard. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
The filmmaker added, “Obviously, somewhere in there there was some conspiracy, [which] I personally think the FBI was involved in, to take King out.”
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X users relished the new Community Notes fact-check service that lit up the FBI for trying to portray their support of King as a life-long mission.
“The FBI, who spent years spying on, harassing and even trying to get King to kill himself, is now claiming to be following in his footsteps,” wrote podcast producer Alan MacLeod. “Satire is dead.”
Twitchy’s “Grateful Calvin” argued that the FBI wasn’t simply blissfully unaware of their history, but rather, they just don’t care what the American people think of their past.
Riley Gaines, an activist for female athletes wrote, “X is the only platform where a government agency like the FBI can be fact-checked in real-time by regular ole people.”
Aside from trying to generate crimes against King and then failing to stop violence that they knew was coming, the FBI also tried to control information about the narrative against him.
The FBI’s campaign against King included attempts to influence the media and public opinion. They disseminated negative information about King to journalists and politicians, and even tried to convince universities and other organizations to withdraw invitations for King to speak.
Sound familiar at all?
Despite the FBI’s efforts, King’s influence and impact on the civil rights movement continued to grow. It was not until after his assassination in 1968 that the true extent of the FBI’s campaign against him became public knowledge.
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