Martin Luther King’s Family Speaks Out After Trump Orders MLK Assassination Files To Be Declassified

Photo of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April 1968. | (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns) | Source: Ebet Roberts / Getty

The family of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has officially responded to President Donald Trump’s executive order to have all official government files about the civil rights icon’s assassination be declassified.

Trump issued the executive order on Thursday and the White House claimed that doing so was “in the public interest” nearly 60 years after King was shot and killed in Memphis.

Also included in the same executive order were directives to declassify the assassination files for former President John F. Kennedy and his brother, former U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. All three men were assassinated within a five-year span.

Trump gave officials 15 days to present a plan to declassify the files for both Kennedys and 45 days for King’s files.

The White House said Trump was making good on a campaign promise “to release assassination records to give Americans the truth,” but it’s unclear exactly what his end game is with this political maneuver.

Hours after Trump announced the executive order to declassify King’s assassination files, his family released a statement acknowledging the decision. King’s daughter, Dr. Rev. Bernice King, shared the statement on social media:

Today, our family has learned that President Trump has ordered the declassification of the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and our father, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.

At this time, the King Family is not taking any interviews as they await further information.

Martin Luther King. Jr.’s family is joined by supporters in Memphis, Tennessee, following the assassination of the civil rights leader. The photo was taken on April 8, 1968. | Source: Santi Visalli / Getty

King’s assassination remains one of the most highly investigated and second-guessed murders of our time.

Just one day before he was assassinated, King delivered one of the most rousing speeches of his career. Some say King foretold his fortune that day; others were convinced he was murdered as part of a government plot to silence him.

At the time of his death, King was in Memphis to support a group of Black sanitation workers who launched a labor strike for fair compensation and other rights. On the night of April 3, 1968, he visited the Mason Temple to address workers about the strike. The next day, King and his close ally, Ralph David Abernathy, were rooming at the Lorraine Motel.

At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, a single .30 caliber bullet hit and struck King as he stood on the motel’s balcony. Witnesses said they saw accused gunman James Earl Ray fleeing the scene. Abernathy heard the shot from inside the room and rushed to his friend’s aid. After being rushed to a nearby hospital, King was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. after several attempts to revive him.

James Earl Ray was the target of a worldwide manhunt and was captured at London’s Heathrow Airport two months after firing the shot. The King family and other leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, have long alleged that Ray was simply a scapegoat and that the government carried out the vicious murder of the leader.

Jackson has gone on the record saying that the King assassination was plotted, and in 1999 a civil court case affirmed some of those findings. That was when a jury unanimously found that King was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy, according to the New York Times.

More from NewsOne’s coverage of that verdict:

Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim’s Grill, which was close to the Lorraine Motel, claimed that the shot which killed Dr. King was fired from behind his restaurant, and that local, state and federal U.S. government agencies, and the Mafia, were all involved. James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to assassinating King, was renting a room above Jower’s establishment and was allegedly an unwitting scapegoat.

The restaurant owner named Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as Dr. King’s assassin, according to a press conference transcript. A claim that would later be called into question along with other shocking details.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, which painstakingly attempted to dismantle Jowers’ claims and the mountain of evidence presented in the Memphis trial, Jowers insisted that “…a Memphis produce dealer, who was involved with the Mafia, gave [Jowers] $100,000 to hire an assassin and assured him that the police would not be at the scene of the shooting. Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim’s Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from someone with a name sounding like Raoul. Jowers further maintained that [James Earl] Ray did not shoot Dr. King and that he did not believe Ray knowingly participated in the conspiracy.”

King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, said at the time that the verdict showed “abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination” and that “that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.” Coretta Scott King made it clear that she and her family had “no interest in retribution.” She also called for “elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience.”

The executive order to declassify King’s assassination files came just days after Trump’s second inauguration, which also fell on the annual observation of the federal Martin Luther King holiday. During the inauguration ceremony, Trump gave a brief speech that in part vowed to make King’s “dream come true.”

SEE ALSO:

5 Facts About The Assassination Of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Coretta Scott King’s Cousin Says MLK ‘Was Assassinated By The US Government’