WAIT, WHAT?!

CIA releases documents showing past surveillance of Latino civil rights groups,

MLK Jr.

CIA NOT ALLOWED TO DO DOMESTIC SPYING

Kanishka Singh
Mon, January 6, 2025 

CIA's secret museum adds new spy exhibits in Virginia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has released documents showing it monitored Latino activists who had supported late civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and who opposed police brutality and the Vietnam War.

The files were reported first by Axios on Monday, posted on the CIA's website and ranged from 1968 to 1983.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Surveillance by U.S. agencies has a long history, with historians and rights advocates having condemned its sweeping and abusive nature in periods like the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, as well as the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The latest documents were requested by Democratic U.S. Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jimmy Gomez on CIA's Operation Chaos, which was a domestic espionage program that targeted American citizens and voices of dissent.

CONTEXT

The documents released by the CIA showed that the work of activists like Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and farmworker union leader Cesar Chavez was viewed by the agency as a threat and with suspicion. They also showed that the movements of those leaders were tracked.

The documents also revealed surveillance of Mexican American students in universities in that period.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

ORIGINALLY A REPUBLICAN DECLARED FEDERAL HOLIDAY

When is Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2025? Everything to know about the federal holiday

Grace Tucker and Haadiza Ogwude, Cincinnati Enquirer
Mon, January 6, 2025 

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the federal holiday honoring the life and birthday of an icon of America's civil rights movement, is this month.

The holiday, observed annually on the third Monday of January, falls on Jan. 20 this year.

Here's everything to know about Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2025, including why we celebrate it.

What day is MLK Day 2025?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed annually on the third Monday of January. This year, it takes place on Monday, Jan. 20.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed annually on the third Monday of January.

When was Martin Luther King Jr. born?

King, a civil rights icon, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 15, 1929.

Is MLK Day always on a Monday?

Yes, the holiday is observed each year on the third Monday of January due to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law in 1968. The law moved several federal holidays, including Memorial Day, Labor Day and Washington's Birthday, to Mondays to create long weekends for federal employees.

Even though King's birthday is Jan. 15, the holiday is commemorated on Monday like the other holidays under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.

When did Martin Luther King Jr. Day become a federal holiday?

Ceremonies commemorating King's birthday and legacy have been held since his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. However, the road to naming a federal holiday in his honor was a long one.

It wasn't until nearly 20 years after his assassination that Martin Luther King Jr. Day became federally recognized in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan signed it into law.

 The holiday was observed for the first time three years later, in 1986, and celebrated in every state by 2000.

Efforts from King's widow, Coretta Scott King, lawmakers, activists and others helped bring the holiday to fruition, USA TODAY reports. Stevie Wonder also played a role in the law's passage, writing about the importance of recognizing King's legacy in his 1980 song "Happy Birthday."

"I just never understood / How a man who died for good / Could not have a day that would / Be set aside for his recognition," Wonder wrote.

Why and how do we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day?

The federal holiday honors the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights leader who dedicated his life to speaking out against injustice, inequality, poverty and war. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the holiday is usually celebrated with marches, parades, speeches by civil rights leaders and politicians, volunteering and special programming at museums and other cultural institutions nationwide.

Each year, Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center hosts a King Legacy Celebration on the holiday, featuring a keynote speaker and musical performances. The MLK Coalition is also hosting its 50th anniversary Freedom March this year with the theme “Jubilee for MLK’s Beloved Community" inspired by King's 1960 Freedom Jubilee speech.

MLK Day is the only federal holiday that is "designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer and improve their communities," per the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.?

According to the National Archives, James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old convicted armed robber who escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary, pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, to shooting King nearly a year prior on April 4, 1968.

King was shot and wounded on the second-floor balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was pronounced dead at St. Joseph Hospital later that day.

Ray was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 99 years at the state prison. In 1998, he died at the age of 70 from kidney disease and liver failure after serving 29 years in prison.

The owner of an iconic DC restaurant who donated free food to Black Lives Matter protesters did the same 57 years ago for the March on Washington

Anneta Konstantinides

Virginia Ali has owned Ben's Chili Bowl for more than 60 years, feeding protesters from boththe March on Washington and the Black Lives Matter movement. Ben's Chili Bowl/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via  Getty Images

From the March on Washington in 1963 to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, Virginia Ali has been there to feed protesters. 

Ali and her husband Ben opened Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street — then known as "Black Broadway" — in 1958. 

The restaurant is now considered a landmark in DC's dining scene, famous for its half-smoke covered in the family's secret homemade chili sauce. 

Ali spoke with Insider about her restaurant's incredible legacy, what she talked about with Martin Luther King Jr., and why she has so much hope in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Virginia Ali has witnessed the course of history — both the flames of great change, and the dheartening tolerance of the status quo — through a big window at the front of Ben's Chili Bowl.is 

Ali was 24 when she and her husband Ben, yes the Ben, opened their restaurant on U Street in Washington, DC, when the city was still segregated and the neighborhood was known as "Black Broadway."

She was 29 on that historic day in August 1963, when she and Ben fed some of the hundreds of thousands of people who streamed into the city for the March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King Jr. tell the world about his dream.

Now, on the cusp of turning 87, Ali is feeding Black Lives Matter protesters who are fighting the same fight for civil rights that she has witnessed her entire life.

"It would certainly be nice to have them before I leave this earth," she told Insider. "And I'm old."

Ali spoke with Insider about her restaurant's incredible legacy, what she talked about with MLK, and why she has so much hope in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Virginia Ali left her hometown in Virginia and came to Washington, DC — which was still segregated — in 1952.

Ben and Virginia Ali on their wedding day in 1958. Ben's Chili Bowl/Instagram

It was there that she met and fell in love with Ben, who immigrated to the US from Trinidad and attended Howard University.

Shortly after they tied the knot in 1958, the newlyweds converted a former silent movie theater into their own "little restaurant" on U Street. It cost them $5,000.

"We wanted to be self-employed," Ali told Insider. "We decided on chili dogs because there were a lot of hamburger places already around."

From the cabinet maker to the electrician, the couple hired local African-American businesses to help build their restaurant.

Ben's Chili Bowl during its early days. Ben's Chili Bowl

"It was very new and modern-looking at the time," Ali recalled with a laugh. "Definitely colorful."
"And we had a big glass window in the front, you could see through the whole thing. It was a new and exciting place."
Ben's Chili Bowl became well-known (and loved) for its half-smoke, now considered a signature DC dish.

The iconic half-smoke, accompanied by potato chips, at Ben's Chili Bowl. Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images )

Tucked inside a warm steamed bun with mustard and onions, the half-smoke is topped with a generous heap of Ben's spicy homemade chili sauce — still a secret family recipe.

"Sober up with a chili dog," the restaurant's slogan used to read.

Just two blocks up from Ben's Chili Bowl was Martin Luther King Jr.'s satellite office.
Martin Luther King Jr. during CBS' "Washington Conversation" program in DC on May 20, 1962. CBS via Getty Images

"Whenever he was in town, he'd make his way to the Chili Bowl," Ali said. "I had the opportunity to sit with him and listen to his dreams and hopes, what he was going to do and accomplish."


Before they watched MLK speak during the March on Washington in 1963, Ali and her husband were handing out sandwiches to protesters as they streamed into the city.

Ali on the front grill in the early days of Ben's Chili Bowl. Ben's Chili Bowl

"It was an ecstatic day," Ali said. "Filled with hope and pride because so many people came from all walks of life. Thousands of people were there, and Dr. King delivered that amazing 'I Have a Dream' speech."

"It was just a glorious day, that's how I remember it," she added. "A history-making day, a very peaceful day of demonstration and love and hope."

Less than five years later, MLK was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1964. The mayor of DC put the city under curfew as days of protests began.

Flames engulf a building during the DC riots in 1968. Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
"I remember that evening so vividly," Ali said, speaking of the day MLK died. "When someone rushed through the front door at Ben's Chili Bowl and said, 'Dr. King has been shot.' Then we found someone with a transistor radio and heard, 'He's no longer with us.'"

"People were crying, we're all in tears. That sadness turned to frustration, the frustration turned into anger, and that rising began."

In the days following MLK's assassination, referred to as the Holy Week Uprisings, there were protests in cities across the US. The nation's capital saw days of unrest that led to 13 deaths, according to a 2018 Washington Post article, which noted that MLK's "assassination ignited an explosion of rioting, looting and burning that stunned Washington and would leave many neighborhoods in ruins for 30 years."

Civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael obtained special permission to keep Ben's Chili Bowl open after curfew to provide food and shelter. The restaurant kept its usual business hours, staying open until 3 a.m. during the week and 4 a.m. on the weekend.

"You could see the fire across the street, glass windows shattering, buildings burning, tear gas all over the place," Ali said. "It lasted for three nights. When that period was over, we noticed that a lot of the businesses didn't reopen."

In 1988, Ben's Chili Bowl was hit by another challenge. The city dug up the entire street in front of the restaurant and began building a new Metro station.

The city of DC dug up the entire street in front of Ben's to build a new Metro station in 1988. Ben's Chili Bowl
"That was very, very hard," Ali said. "But I did make them have signs made, metal signs that said, 'This way to Ben's.' And I went down blocks and blocks and directed traffic to come to the one-way street behind us. If there happened to be three cars, they'd have to wait until everyone was served."

"We managed to hold on and hang in there and survive," she added. "In 1990, the subway opened and I had a banner across the building that said, 'We survived Metro.' The new businesses began to roll in."

In the last three decades, Ali has witnessed the revitalization of U Street, celebrated the restaurant's 60th anniversary, and served President Barack Obama.

Obama orders his lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl restaurant on January 10, 2009. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Ben's Chili Bowl was one of the first establishments that Obama visited when he moved to DC two weeks before his inauguration.

"You don't get a warning or anything," Ali said. "The next thing you know, someone looks up and the Secret Service is there and he opens the door and here he comes!"

"He was escorted in by our mayor at the time and it was just, it was a dream come true to have him there," she added. "At my age, we certainly had no idea we'd see an African American become president of the United States of America."
As Obama was sworn in on his first Inauguration Day in 2009, the line was out the door to get into Ben's Chili Bowl. Many waited for up to three hours.

A line stretches around the corner at Ben's Chili Bowl on the day of Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009. Mario Tama/Getty Images

"Many people had read that his first outing in Washington, DC, had been at Ben's Chili Bowl, so can you imagine how many people wanted to come to Ben's because of that?" Ali said. "There was a line out there all day long on that cold January day."

Ben died in October 2009 from natural causes. The couple's three sons now run the restaurant.

Ben and Virginia Ali. The Washington Post/Michael Williamson/Getty Images
"I'm not in the day to day things at my age," Ali said. "I have three wonderful sons that surprised us by becoming part of the business, and their wives as well. They do the hard work now. Restaurant work is truly hard work now."

While Ali is no longer at Ben's Chili Bowl every day, she is still very much involved. This month she joined her family's efforts to feed hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters, just as she did with Ben over 50 years ago.

An image of George Floyd is seen at Ben's Chili Bowl as a customer leaves during the COVID-19 outbreak on June 15, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Ali and her family have prepared and handed out hundreds of sandwiches, chili dogs, and burgers for protesters during the demonstrations in DC.

"I'm very proud of what we're seeing today in terms of protesting," she said. "I find it rather disheartening to know that they had to come back and do this again all these many years later, and fight for the same basic human rights laws that we fought for in the '60s. But I'm proud of the fact that they're doing it, and doing it well."

Ali and her family have also been donating as much food as they can to frontline workers, even as Ben's Chili Bowl faces new businesses challenges due to the pandemic.

Ali with her sons and daughters-in-law. Ben's Chili Bowl

"The pandemic has certainly affected our business severely, as it has all businesses in our community," Ali said.

But an outpouring of donations from locals and fans has allowed Ben's Chili Bowl to keep giving back to the community that it loves so much.

"Our Ben's Chili Bowl community has been tremendous, and I'm so grateful to them for that," Ali said. "We've got donations to help us and whatever we get, we turn into feeding the community and the local hospitals."

As with the many obstacles that Ben's Chili Bowl has faced in its 62 years, Ali said she knows it will survive the pandemic as well.

Ali sits near photos of her and Ben at their restaurant during the COVID-19 outbreak on June 15, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
"This too shall pass," she said. "I'm the optimist."

And when it comes to the challenges of American society, Ali has hope that the next generation will bring change.

Ali told Insider she has hope in the next generation. Ben's Chili Bowl/Instagram
"Today we have the young people just coming out based on their own hearts, to protest for the basic human rights laws that we fought for, without that strong leadership of Dr. King that we had back then," Ali said. "And I just think that's tremendous. They're diverse — people from all walks of life, backgrounds, races. And not only is it in Washington, it's in every city in this country and all over the world."

"That's amazing to me, and that certainly has to speak to hope," she added. "And I encourage them to keep the pressure on and not give up."

"Because we need basic systemic human right laws — and we need them now."

‘Embarrassingly incompetent’: NAACP official scolds Kellyanne Conway who can’t explain Trump’s diss of MLK Day

 January 20, 2020 By David Edwards


Sherrilyn Ifill, who serves as president of the NAACP Defense Fund, on Monday lashed out at presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway after she could not explain what President Donald Trump was doing to mark Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“He’s preparing for Davos,” Conway said in a Monday morning interview, “and agrees with many of the things that Dr. Martin Luther King stood for and agreed with for many years, including unity.”

“What an embarrassingly incompetent answer,” Ifill later told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “There’s is no answer that she can give that would be acceptable because he’s doing nothing to commemorate MLK Day, and frankly, it would be hypocritical if he tried to do that.”


“Just in the last week, the tweets that he’s put up, knowing that [the pro-gun rally in Virginia] was coming today, knowing that the governor of Virginia had declared a state of emergency today because of credible threats of violence given what happened in 2017 in Charlottesville,” she continued. “We’ve now reset what the president is supposed to do. He’s not supposed to call for calm and peace.

“He just gets to tweet whatever he wants,” Ifill pointed out. “He’s not doing anything to commemorate MLK Day and that’s why it’s important that we do that work. We don’t need Mr. Trump to lead us in knowing what to do around equality and justice.”

Watch the video below from MSNBC.

Trump likens himself to Martin Luther King Jr while boasting about low black unemployment

Kellyanne Conway claims civil rights leader would not support impeachment

Alex Woodward New York Tuesday 21 January 2020 

Donald Trump has linked his achievements on the anniversary of being sworn in as president with Martin Luther King Jr‘s birthday, as the he boasted of low unemployment among black Americans.

On Twitter, the US president wrote: “It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!”

Asked how Mr Trump is celebrating this year’s nationwide memorial recognising the murdered civil rights leader, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the president “agrees with many of the things” Dr King stood for, including “unity and equality”.

Then she pivoted to the president’s upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, saying: ”He’s not the one trying to tear the country apart.”

Ms Conway said Dr King’s “vision” did not include “Americans dragged through the process where the president is not going to be removed from office”.

The adminisrion listed no public events celebrating Dr King on Monday. The president issued a proclamation on 17 January in advance of the federal holiday, writing that the administration “works each day to ensure that all Americans have every opportunity to realise a better life for themselves and their families regardless of race, class, gender, or any other barriers that have arbitrarily stood in their way”.

Mr Trump and Mike Pence, the vice president, did visit Dr King’s memorial marker in Washington DC. This year, his campaign’s Twitter account posted a photograph showing Mr Trump walking through the memorial – a photo taken at last year’s wreath-laying ceremony – to “honour the life” of Dr King, but it did not disclose that the image was from last year.

His campaign account also juxtaposed images of Dr King with footage of the president appearing with black Americans as part of a fundraising video.

Mr Trump largely spent the day in Washington in 2019 because of a government shutdown that effectively grounded the first family. In 2018, he was in Palm Beach, Florida. He spent this weekend in Florida and Texas, where he addressed the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Ms Conway said she spent the morning “reading some of the lesser-known passages by Dr King” and said that she appreciates that “we as a nation respect him by giving him his own day”.

This morning, the White House issued a message on Twitter, saying the president will “pause to honour the incredible life and accomplishments” of Dr King, who was assassinated on 4 April 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he was addressing striking sanitation workers amid preparations for a Poor People’s Campaign.

Minutes later, the president wrote his support for a “Lobby Day” rally in which thousands of gun rights activists – including far-right militia members – gathered in Virginia to protest gun control legislation in the state.

The president accused Democrats of “working hard to take away” Second Amendment rights. “This is just the beginning. Don’t let it happen, VOTE REPUBLICAN in 2020!”

   Martin Luther King's daughter calls out  Kellyanne Conway for saying her father would oppose Trump's impeachment

The youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr has condemned Kellyanne Conway after she claimed that the impeachment of Donald Trump would have been against King's values. 

Speaking to NBC News on Martin Luther King Day, Conway was asked what the president is doing to commemorate the day. In reply, she said:

I can tell you that the president is preparing for Davos and agrees with many of the things that Dr King stood for including unity and equality and he's not the one trying to tear the country apart through an impeachment process and lack of substance which is really very shameful at this point. 

I've held my opinion on it for a very long time but when you see the articles of impeachment that came out, I don't think it was within Dr King's vision to have Americans dragged through a process where the president is not going to be removed from office, is not going to be charged with bribery, extortion or high crimes and misdemeanours.

Conway's egregious and completely baseless comments on King's values sparked a strong reply from Bernice King, who is now the CEO of the King Centre in Atlanta, Georgia. 

The 56-year-old quote retweeted the above video, asking Conway and the Trump administration to refrain from using King's name to somehow justify their own issues. 

Unfortunately, Conway wasn't the only Trump loyalist to invoke King's name on Monday, as a way of almost trying to prove that nothing they have ever said could be interpreted as bigoted. 

Jeff Sessions, a former senator for Alabama and member of the Trump administration tweeted a King quote that said:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Journalist Britanny Packnett Cunningham then quote retweeted Sessions with a quote from Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr's wife, where she strongly criticised the appointment of Sessions to government. 

As an almost perfect tonic to this level of hypocrisy from modern-day Republicans, Bernice King delivered a speech complaining that due to the resurgence in racism and white supremacism, a day to celebrate the legacy of her father "is not enough."

Watch more
The story behind Martin Luther King Jr Day

 MLK’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech


SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MLK

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MLKDAY

Republicans ignore that King was concerned about more than the content of one’s character | Opinion


Leonard Pitts Jr.
Fri, January 14, 2022

Dear white conservatives:

When you’re right, you’re right. And you are definitely right about that quote from Martin Luther King.

When he stood at the temple of Lincoln in 1963 and declared his dream “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he surely spoke a word for the ages. Your fondness for that word has not gone unnoticed.


How could it? You invoke that line all the time — all ... the ... time — to show that King, had he not been murdered by a white supremacist in 1968, would have stood in solidarity with your social and political agenda.

Most recently, you’ve used it in opposing the teaching of critical race theory. You use it so much that a body might think you couldn’t name another King quote if the survival of the human species depended on it.

Well, did you know Martin Luther King said other things? It’s true! In a spirit of public service and in celebration of his birthday, here are a few of them. You’ll be happy to know that they support your right-wing agenda exactly as much as your favorite quote does.

For instance, use this one to show that King would have shared your love of capitalism:

“Something is wrong with capitalism. Maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. We must develop programs that will drive the nation to the realization of the need for a guaranteed annual income.”

And like you, he surely would’ve condemned reparations and affirmative action:

“A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”

Certainly he didn’t believe there was any such thing as white privilege:

“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a ... mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”

And he likely would have opposed ending the filibuster:

“I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.”

Surely King would have sided with the makers over the takers:

“This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”

And he would’ve shared your contempt for Black Lives Matter:

“I had seen police brutality with my own eyes and watched Negroes receive the most tragic injustice in the court. All of these things had done something to my growing personality.”

Try this quote to prove that King, like you, thought there was no such thing as systemic racism:

“For the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists.”

And if all that seems a lot to remember, well, it’s summed up in something he said on the last night of his life. He was a tired and frustrated man by then after 13 years of marches, speeches and death threats, struggling with a nation that refused to venerate its own lofty ideals. And he told an audience in Memphis:

“All we say to America is: Be true to what you said on paper.”

How Americans are tarnishing Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy for their self interest | Hill

LeBron Hill, Nashville Tennessean
Thu, January 13, 2022, 8:08 PM·3 min read

When I was in the first grade, attending Jack T. Farrar Elementary School in Tullahoma, my music teacher, Mrs. Majors, would take the lesson time in January to tell the class the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

She would start her narration with setting the scene and told us that, at the time, MLK felt compelled to go to Memphis to continue his push for racial justice. Her voice would then change into a deep, sinister cadence when she started describing James Earl Ray's evil intentions to kill King.

Mrs. Majors, a white teacher, told that story every year and I would listen to it each year like it was the first time I'd heard it.


I grew up thinking of Dr. King as a hero, just like Clark Kent and Peter Parker, who put their own ideals and desires aside for the common good.

Years later, I toured Dr. King's birth home in Atlanta and felt like I was getting to see the origin story of a superhero.

I remembered Dr. King as a superhero.

America has forgotten MLK's message and created its own

Americans all have the right to remember Dr. King the way they want to, but in the last couple of years, I've noticed that his quotes, writings and speeches have been construed to fit a political or social agenda, most of the time opposite of what Dr. King fought and stood for.

Robin Steenman presents at 'Let's Talk Wit & Wisdom," and event put on by the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty. Steenman is chair of the newly formed chapter

A recent example is Green Bay Packers' Quarterback Aaron Rodgers misusing Dr. King's quotes to push COVID-19 misinformation.

"I would add this to the mix as an aside, but the great MLK said you have a moral obligation to object to unjust rules and rules that make no sense," Rodgers said last November.

And it's not just his quotes that are being misused.

Bernice King, the youngest daughter of the civil rights icon, took to Twitter on Jan. 5 to express her frustration with the nonprofit political group Moms for Liberty's sponsored American Dream Conference Friday and Saturday in Franklin, using her father's image in a digital invitation.

Last November, the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty submitted a complaint against several books being used in a curriculum they believed violated Tennessee's new anti-critical race theory law , including a one about Dr. King, "Martin Luther King Jr. and the "March on Washington" by Frances E. Ruffin. The Tennessee Department of Education refused to investigate the complaint.

Bernice King is constantly forced to defend the work of her father. If we truly care about King's work, she wouldn't have to do so.
MLK's spirit has become politically focused

Quite frankly, we're all at fault for taking an MLK quote and posting it to our social media platforms in hopes of getting our point across. But what I find most appalling is the sheer lack of acknowledgment of what he went through.

Bernice King speaks during the release of Lee Sentell's Civil Rights Trail book in June.

During the 1960s civil rights era, Dr. King was considered a communist in many circles. Dr. King was labeled the "most dangerous" Black man in America in a 17,000-page FBI file.

I am so disgusted by the appropriation of Dr. King that I have considered ignoring the federal holiday in honor of his birthday.

If you do celebrate Martin Luther King Day on Monday, remember that in America, we have a habit of taking our heroes and martyrs and sanitizing them in our current climate without remembering what they really stood for.

If we don't stop this inauthentic and disingenuous use of Dr. King's legacy, we will tarnish the work of a man who marched in hostile streets, endured immoral arrest and jail time, and ultimately died for fighting for the civil rights of all Americans.

LeBron Hill is an opinion columnist for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and the curator of the Black Tennessee Voices newsletter. Feel free to contact him at LHill@gannett.com or 615-829-2384. Find him on Twitter at @hill_bron or Instagram at @antioniohill12.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Martin Luther King Jr. Day: How Americans are tarnishing MLK's legacy

Dr. King Aided Progress in Sports, Too

By Brad Pye Jr., Written for the Jan. 16 1975 edition of the Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper

Published January 13, 2022

Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King (File Photo)

Yesterday the world of sports and the rest of the world should have taken time off and saluted that man from Atlanta.

That man they called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If he had lived that man from Atlanta would have been 46 year old yesterday.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived, worked, and died for all of us.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped bring about progress in sports and all other walks of life.

Somewhere up there Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. must have been smiling Tuesday night when he looked on the Phoenix area in the Valley of the Sun and saw two black men—K.C. Jones of the winning East All-Stars and Al Attles of the West All-Stars coaching both teams.

Naturally, this was a first like so many of the firsts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. brought about in his much too short life on this planet.

It must have brought an equal amount of joy to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s heart earlier this season when former Grambling State University star Matt Reed helped quarterback the Birmingham Americans to the WFL title in the city where he and Mrs. Rosa Parks et al started the successful bus boycott.

A boycott that brought the walls of segregation and discrimination tumbling down.

There is a lot of progress in sports today that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped bring about because of his successful and relentless campaign to help all Americans share in that elusive American dream.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … had a dream … a dream that blacks would someday be judged not by the color of their skin but by the contents of their character.

I’m sure Dr. Martin Luther King would agree the world of sports has come as close to making this a reality as any other area of American life.

The world will long remember that another man from Atlanta via Alabama, Hank Aaron. Broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974.

And that Frank Robinson became the first black major league manager in history.

And that the St. Louis Cardinals’ Lou Brock broke Maury Willis’ all-time stolen bases record with 118.

Others will remember that Muhammad Ali upset George Foreman and the world to regain the world’s heavyweight championship.

But most of all the world should remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he tried to help us all … and he was truly a prince of peace during our lifetime.

That Time MLK Convinced Nichelle Nichols To Stay on “Star Trek”

Nichols and her character’s joint impact on pop culture continues to be felt to this day, but perhaps what’s most amazing is how fleeting it could have been if not for a random intervention by none other than MLK himself.

By Tom McKenna

Published on 8/1/2022 at 5:51 PM

Credit: Getty Images

Nichelle Nichols, a beloved actor, singer, and dancer whose career spanned six decades, passed away Saturday at the age of 89. Nichols will be best remembered for her trailblazing role as Lt. Nyota Uhura on the original “Star Trek” TV series, which aired from 1966-69.

Nichols’ performance as Uhura — a communications officer and the fourth highest-ranking member of the USS Enterprise — was a landmark moment for representation in pop culture, marking one of the first times in American history that a Black woman appeared on television in a leading role. Nichols also contributed to a watershed moment in the 1968 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” when Uhura shared what is believed to be the first interracial kiss broadcast on TV with Enterprise Capt. James T. Kirk (played by her white co-star William Shatner).

Nichols and her character’s joint impact on pop culture continues to be felt to this day, but perhaps what’s most amazing is how fleeting it could have been if not for a random intervention by none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself. According to an anecdote Nichols sharedin severalinterviews, she initially considered quitting “Star Trek” entirely after its first season. However, MLK personally urged her to stick with the show when the two spoke at an NAACP fundraiser in California, stressing her character’s importance to the cause of civil rights and representation.

“[MLK] said, ‘You can’t [quit]. Don't you know who you are to our movement, to everyone? You are there in the 23rd century. You've created a role that has such dignity and everything — it’s so powerful. You cannot leave,’” Nichols reflected in a 2011 interview. “Then he told me many other things, like, ‘This is one of his only shows that Coretta and I allow our children to stay up and watch.’ So I went back Monday morning and told [“Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry], and he said, ‘God bless Dr. Martin Luther King. Somebody sees what I'm trying to achieve.’”

Shatner was one of many of Nichols’ contemporaries to express their sorrow at her death. “I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Nichelle,” the 91-year-old actor tweeted. “She was a beautiful woman & played an admirable character that did so much for redefining social issues both here in the US & throughout the world.”

Trump administration releases FBI records on MLK Jr. despite his family's opposition


Published : July 22, 2025 
Korea Herald

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. walks across the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Georgia, April 3, 1968, a day before his assassination at the same motel. (AP-Yonhap)

The Trump administration on Monday released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.

The digital document dump includes more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

In a lengthy statement released Monday, King's two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said their father's killing has been a "captivating public curiosity for decades." But the pair emphasized the personal nature of the matter and urged that the files "be viewed within their full historical context."

The Kings got advance access to the records and had their own teams reviewing them. Those efforts continued even as the government granted public access. Among the documents are leads the FBI received after King's assassination and details of the CIA's fixation on King's pivot to international anti-war and anti-poverty movements in the years before he was killed. It was not immediately clear whether the documents shed new light on King's life, the Civil Rights Movement or his murder.

"As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief — a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met -- an absence our family has endured for over 57 years," they wrote. "We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief."

They also repeated the family's long-held contention that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if at all.

Bernice King was 5 years old when her father was killed at the age of 39. Martin III was 10.

A statement from the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called the disclosure "unprecedented" and said many of the records had been digitized for the first time. She praised President Donald Trump for pushing the issue.

Trump promised as a candidate to release files related to President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination. When Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with those associated with Robert F. Kennedy's and MLK's 1968 assassinations.

The government unsealed the JFK records in March and disclosed some RFK files in April.

The announcement from Gabbard's office included a statement from Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, who is an outspoken conservative and has broken from King's children on various topics — including the FBI files. Alveda King said she was "grateful to President Trump" for his "transparency."

Separately, Attorney General Pam Bondi's social media account featured a picture of the attorney general with Alveda King.

Besides fulfilling Trump's order, the latest release means another alternative headline for the president as he tries to mollify supporters angry over his administration's handling of records concerning the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself behind bars while awaiting trial in 2019, during Trump's first presidency. Trump last Friday ordered the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony but stopped short of unsealing the entire case file.

Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their statement Monday. But Bernice King later posted on her personal Instagram account a black-and-white photo of her father, looking annoyed, with the caption "Now, do the Epstein files."

And some civil rights activists did not spare the president.

"Trump releasing the MLK assassination files is not about transparency or justice," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "It's a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unraveling of his credibility among the MAGA base."

The King Center, founded by King's widow and now led by Bernice King, reacted separately from what Bernice said jointly with her brother. The King Center statement framed the release as a distraction — but from more than short-term political controversy.

"It is unfortunate and ill-timed, given the myriad of pressing issues and injustices affecting the United States and the global society," the King Center, linking those challenges to MLK's efforts. "This righteous work should be our collective response to renewed attention on the assassination of a great purveyor of true peace."

The King records were initially intended to be sealed until 2027, until Justice Department attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the sealing order early. Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents for new information about his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded in 1957 as the Civil Rights Movement blossomed, opposed the release. The group, along with King's family, argued that the FBI illegally surveilled King and other civil rights figures, hoping to discredit them and their movement.

It has long been established that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was intensely interested if not obsessed with King and others he considered radicals. FBI records released previously show how Hoover's bureau wiretapped King's telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to gather information, including evidence of King's extramarital affairs.

"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 King children said in their statement.

"The intent ... was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr. King's reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement," they continued. "These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth — undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo."

The Kings said they "support transparency and historical accountability" but "object to any attacks on our father's legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods."

Opposition to King intensified even after the Civil Rights Movement compelled Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After those victories, King turned his attention to economic justice and international peace. He criticized rapacious capitalism and the Vietnam War. King asserted that political rights alone were not enough to ensure a just society. Many establishment figures like Hoover viewed King as a communist threat.

King was assassinated as he was aiding striking sanitation workers in Memphis, part of his explicit turn toward economic justice.

Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder. Ray later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.

King family members and others have long questioned whether Ray acted alone, or if he was even involved. Coretta Scott King asked for the probe to be reopened, and in 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a new look. Reno's Justice Department said it "found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King."

In their latest statement, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III repeated their assertions that Ray was set up. They pointed to a 1999 civil case, brought by the King family, in which a Memphis jury concluded that Martin Luther King Jr. had been the target of a conspiracy.

"As we review these newly released files," the Kings said, "we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted." (AP)
khnews@heraldcorp.com

Trump administration releases files on Martin Luther King Jr. against family's wishes

The Trump administration has published over 240,000 pages of FBI surveillance records on Martin Luther King Jr., defying objections from his family and civil rights groups. The files, sealed since 1977, detail FBI monitoring before King’s 1968 assassination. The National Archives received the documents after a court order.


Issued on: 22/07/2025 
By:FRANCE 24

The Stone of Hope statue is seen at the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial in Washington, DC on July 2, 2018 © Mandel Ngan, AFP

The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.

The digital document dump includes more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

In a lengthy statement released Monday, King's two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said their father’s assassination has been a “captivating public curiosity for decades.” But the pair emphasised the personal nature of the matter, urging that “these files must be viewed within their full historical context.”

The Kings got advance access to the records and had their own teams reviewing them. Those efforts continued even as the government granted public access. It was not immediately clear Monday whether the documents would shed any new light on King's life, the Civil Rights Movement or his murder

Read more What remains of Martin Luther King Jr's dream, 60 years on?

“As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief – a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met – an absence our family has endured for over 57 years,” they wrote. “We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”

They also repeated the family's long-held contention that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if at all.

Bernice King was 5-years old when her father was killed at the age of 39. Martin III was 10.

A statement from the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called the disclosure “unprecedented” and said many of the records had been digitized for the first time. She praised President Donald Trump for pushing the issue.

Trump promised as a candidate to release files related to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. When Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with those associated with Robert F. Kennedy’s and MLK's 1968 assassinations.

The government unsealed the JFK records in March and disclosed some RFK files in April.

The announcement from Gabbard's office included a statement from Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, who is an outspoken conservative and has broken from King's children on various topics – including the FBI files. Alveda King said she was “grateful to President Trump” for his “transparency."

Separately, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s social media account featured a picture of the attorney general with Alveda King.

Besides fulfilling Trump's order, the latest release means another alternative headline for the president as he tries to mollify supporters angry over his administration’s handling of records concerning the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself behind bars while awaiting trial in 2019, during Trump’s first presidency. Trump last Friday ordered the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony but stopped short of unsealing the entire case file.

Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their statement Monday.

Read moreTrump signs order to declassify JFK, RFK and MLK assassination files

Some civil rights activists were not so sparing.

“Trump releasing the MLK assassination files is not about transparency or justice,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton. “It’s a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unraveling of his credibility among the MAGA base.”

The King Center, founded by King's widow and now led by Bernice King, reacted separately from what Bernice said jointly with her brother. The King Center statement framed the release as a distraction – but from more than short-term political controversy.

“It is unfortunate and ill-timed, given the myriad of pressing issues and injustices affecting the United States and the global society,” the King Center, linking those challenges to MLK's efforts. “This righteous work should be our collective response to renewed attention on the assassination of a great purveyor of true peace.”

The King records were initially intended to be sealed until 2027, until Justice Department attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the sealing order early.

Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents for new information about his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded in 1957 as the Civil Rights Movement blossomed, opposed the release. The group, along with King’s family, argued that the FBI illegally surveilled King and other civil rights figures, hoping to discredit them and their movement.

It has long been established that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was intensely interested if not obsessed with King and others he considered radicals. FBI records released previously show how Hoover’s bureau wiretapped King’s telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to gather information, including evidence of King's extramarital affairs.

“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 (FBI),” the King children said in their statement.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

Sixty years on from their only meeting, why it's time to reassess Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

Chris Harvey
Fri, 2 February 2024 

The series uses the only meeting between Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X as a hook to explore their lives - Richard DuCree/National Geographic

“My whole career has been about racism and injustice,” says Kelvin Harrison Jr. “My first job was 12 Years a Slave, my second was Roots.” Being on the set of the former set a tone for his life, he says, after coming from an educational system that didn’t want to “divulge the atrocities of what this country is built on”. Since those striking entries in his early CV, the New Orleans actor has been turning heads in almost every role, most recently as blues great BB King in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Now he’s taking on an American icon, Martin Luther King Jr, in the eight-part instalment of National Geographic’s Genius: MLK/X.

MLK/X dramatises the parallel lives of King and his radical counterpart Malcolm X. For Harrison, it was intimidating. “Dr King is more famous than Michael Jackson,” he says, adding that the singer wouldn’t have been who he was if it wasn’t for the murdered Civil Rights leader. Yet the 29-year-old notes, every time he’s seen King – who was 39 when he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 – portrayed on screen, “it’s been an older actor, someone with a bigger resumé, more mature. I immediately retreated and got so insecure and fell into my own imposter syndrome. I was like, ‘I can’t do this’”.

Like previous series of Genius, which explored the lives of Einstein, Picasso and Aretha Franklin, MLK/X is richly detailed historical drama with an emphasis on character and performance. One of the reasons Harrison took the role, he says, is because the British actor Aaron Pierre had already signed up to play Malcolm X. He recalls seeing Pierre playing the escaped slave Caesar in Barry Jenkins’s poetic, moving adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. “I remember sitting watching it in one of my friends’ living rooms, and the presence he holds and the weight he carries from our experience is so profound.”

It’s true. Pierre has a natural gravitas on screen. Jenkins, the Oscar-winning director of Moonlight, saw it at once, plucking him if not from obscurity, then from his debut stage role, as a dashing Cassio alongside André Holland’s Othello and Mark Rylance’s Iago at the London’s Globe theatre in 2018. “That was a very surreal moment,” Pierre tells me. He and Jenkins, he says, now “have a very deep friendship. I consider him a big brother”. In fact, both Pierre and Harrison will appear this year as the voice leads in Jenkins’s long-awaited prequel to The Lion King. It pits the two as warring royal brothers Mufasa (Pierre) and Taka (Harrison), before the latter takes on the identity of the usurping Scar. “Barry has a way of making everything look beautiful,” Harrison says. “I’m sorry to everyone else, but it’s the most artistic and exciting Disney movie I think I’ve seen.”

"The man had huge lungs": Kelvin Harrison Jr as Martin Luther King Jr - Richard DuCree/National Geographic

On the surface, MLK/X sets two oppositional figures on collision course towards their one and only meeting on March 26, 1964, at the seat of the US Congress in Washington DC, where, inside the Capitol, the Senate debated the passage of the Civil Rights Act, as Southern Democrats attempted to filibuster it out of existence.

Prior to their meeting, Malcolm X had openly criticised King’s strategy of non-violent resistance in the face of individual, state- and government-backed violence, in which Civil Rights activists were attacked with guns, bombs, boots, bottles, bricks, dogs, batons and water cannons. He blamed King for putting defenceless children at risk on marches and suggested that black people had a right to defend themselves “by any means necessary”. He was, of course, labelled “dangerous” for this perspective. “I think he was operating from a place of love,” Pierre says. “There is a lot of misinformation out there about both men and I think what this [series] does is reconfirm that they are not opposing forces.”

King, though, must have been stung by Malcolm X’s criticisms. “It’s hurtful when anyone you respect says something about you that is not positive,” Harrison says, noting that King’s approach was clearly strategic. “He’s trying to make sure we weren’t blowing the game.” The drama leans heavily on Peniel E Joseph’s twin history The Sword and the Shield, as well as Jeff Stetson’s 1987 play The Meeting, which imagines a secret hotel-room encounter between the two men. Stetson wrote the show’s opening episode.

Harrison says he had to have a negotiation with himself about how far towards an impersonation it was possible to go without it feeling like one, especially in relation to King’s voice, familiar to so many from his “I have a dream” speech in Washington in 1963. “I did decide ultimately that I wanted to get as close to the voice as possible,” he says. There was a biological component to think about, though. “The man had huge lungs,” he laughs.

"I walked how he walked, gestured the way he gestured": British actor Aaron Pierre as Malcolm X - Richard DuCree/National Geographic

For his part, Pierre watched countless hours of footage of Malcolm X and immersed himself deeply in the role. “I wouldn’t describe myself as a method actor,” he says, but “maybe two thirds of the crew didn’t even know I was from London, because I stayed in accent the whole time. I walked how he walked, gestured the way he gestured.” After filming ended, he says, “it took me a while to relearn my own gestures, because I’d spent six months trying to not imitate, but embody him”.

The actor grew up on a council estate in West Croydon (a stone’s throw from where Stormzy comes from, in south London) and was able to draw on being subjected to racism “multiple times” to inform his portrayal – “it’s a deeply hurtful experience, and it’s a deeply saddening experience,” he says. Yet he insists, “I’m fortunate to have grown up where I did – acceptance and understanding of race, heritage and religion wasn’t something I had to learn in my adulthood. I had friends who were Muslim, who were Christian, who were Rastafarian, it was just normality for me.”

He’s not the only Brit in the production. I May Destroy You’s Weruche Opia plays King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, and Lennie James, a veteran of Line of Duty and The Walking Dead, plays King’s father, Martin Luther King Sr. James was one of the first wave of British actors to try their hand in America, partly because of the lack of roles for black actors. Pierre notes that in theatre in the UK, “I’ve always felt I could play any role, but in terms of television and film, my opportunities seemed considerably more limited”. Harrison says that working with the Brits was a revelation. “I felt like I came into this with a lot of discipline,” he laughs. “But those are real thespians.”

The meeting: Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X shake hands in Washington DC, 

March 26, 1964 

- Universal Images Group/Marion S Trikoskor

As for his own experience of racism, he says, “I’ve always looked at people as, we’re just brothers and sisters, that’s it,” but he has experienced “people not giving me the same respect... I’ve also experienced a lot of tokenism. Now is that blatant racism? Not necessarily.” But, he adds: “I know it’s still in the air. I can feel it.” He won’t always call it out, he says, unless he thinks, “This is just disrespectful and inappropriate”. He notes that because he grew up in the 2000s, his experience of racism “is more nuanced. I don’t get it as explicitly as we get to see it in the show”.

Of course, both King and Malcolm X had direct experience of white supremacists – Malcolm’s father had been repeatedly threatened and died in a suspicious streetcar accident when his son was six, which his mother maintained was a racist murder. King’s family home was bombed when he led a city-wide bus boycott against segregation in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. I wonder if Harrison thinks that it is still a significant problem in American society, given that clear links have been established between the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and white supremacist organisations. “Yeah, of course it is still a problem,” he says. “There are people out there that believe that and feel that way.”

There is a “looming anxiety” about the possibility of a second Trump presidency in his “internal conversations”, he says, but he adds: “I think it’s one of those things, where you have to be really patient and you have to listen to what everyone has to say. And just see where we end up. I am not a believer in allowing the anxiety to create a new monster.”

Genius: MLK/X begins on National Geographic on Saturday 3 February at 9pm