Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Documents Archive USB Drive

Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Documents Archive USB Drive

This composition has a total of 67,911 pages of documentation.

Martin Luther King Jr. was American’s premiere civil rights movement activist. Dr. King encouraged nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to address racial segregation and discrimination. He is best remembered for his role in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. At the conclusion of this march, MLK Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. King played an essential role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. King was assassinated in 1968. 

This composite MLK Jr. collection contains 35,433 pages in 6 document collections from BACM Research, and an additional 32,378 pages in 5 supplementary collections.

This collection includes as a finding aid, a unified full-text index of all computer recognizable text in all documents in this collection, making it possible to quickly search all computer recognizable text across all pages of all collections in one search.

 
Martin Luther King Jr. Collections include:

Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 1: FBI Headquarters Main Files

Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 2: King Assassination - Jacksonville Mississippi FBI Bureau Files

Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 3: King & Associates

Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 4: President Lyndon Johnson White House - FBI Liaison MLK Jr. Files

Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Investigation Documents Martin Luther King Jr. State Department Files - Passport Files

Martin Luther King Jr. adjacent collections include:

Malcolm X: FBI - CIA - New York Police Dept Files

Clyde A. Tolson - J. Edgar Hoover FBI Files

Alabama Civil Rights Worker Viola Liuzzo Murder - Alabama KKK FBI Files - President Johnson Secret Audio Recordings

Viola Liuzzo-Civil Rights Worker Murder Trials Court Documents, Transcripts and Historical Files

Hugh Hefner/Playboy FBI Files

 
MLK Jr. Collections include:

Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 1: FBI Headquarters Main Files

19,000 pages of FBI files covering Martin Luther King Jr. copied from King's Main File maintained by the FBI. The files date from 1962 to 1977. The FBI began monitoring Martin Luther King, Jr., in December 1955, during his involvement with the Montgomery bus boycott, and lasted until and beyond his death.

The FBI gathered information about Dr. King's plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau's disposal in order to obtain information about the "private activities of Dr. King and his advisors" to use to "completely discredit" them, so states a February 4, 1964 memorandum from Federal Bureau of Investigation Internal Security Section chief Fred Baumgardner to assistant director of the FBI William C. Sullivan.

These files contain hundreds of substantive documents that have been characterized as an essential source for the study of Dr. King and his role in the civil rights movement.

 
Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 2: King Assassination - Jacksonville Mississippi FBI Bureau Files

3,333 pages of Jacksonville Mississippi FBI Bureau files related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., files dating from 1968 to 1977.

The files document the FBI’s investigation of leads and possible suspects in the April 4, 1968 assassination of King. The Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that James Earl Ray was the sole assassin of King. Includes documents concerning individuals some believe were complicit in the assassination of King, including Donald Nissen, Leroy McManaman, William Kenneth Knight and Don Sparks.

Highlights include:

Accounting for the whereabouts of Jacksonville and Mississippi residents who were bombing suspects, subjects having a propensity for violence, and current and former members of the Ku Klux Klan at the time of the assassination.

Early mentions of James Earl Ray refer to him by the alias Eric Starvo Galt. Interview of people in Mississippi associated with Ray.

Memorandum concerning evidence from the assassination and information about Ray, sent to the Jackson Bureau.

Memorandum on accounts given by Henry Sero of 1964 conversations between him and James Earl Ray while they were inmates in Block B of the Missouri State Penitentiary (MSP), Jefferson City, Missouri.

Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 3: King & Associates

A total of 3,732 pages of FBI files.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

221 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering Martin Luther King Jr. Files are the contents of a 201 page, 1977 report by a Department of Justice task force summarizing the FBI's Martin Luther King, Jr., security, and assassination investigations. On November 1st, 1975, former FBI Assistant Director, Domestic Intelligence Division, William C. Sullivan said King was the target of an intensive campaign by the FBI to neutralize him as an effective civil rights leader. Sullivan stated that in the war against King, "no holds were barred." This in part lead to a Department of Justice investigation. Report coverage. Includes events surrounding April 4th, 1968, FBI investigation of the assassination, James Earl Ray, FBI surveillance and harassment of King, his associates and family, and audio "bugs."

 
Stanley Levison
 
1,977 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering Stanley Levison. The FBI conducted a security investigation of Stanley Levison from the 1950's through the early 1970's. Levison was a close and key advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. In time, the FBI used surveillance of Levison to gather information on King. The files indicate that Levison's office was bugged. Memos reports on discussions between King and Levison. Files give insight on planning and strategy of various events in King's life, including the March on Washington and King's Nobel Peace Prize speech preparation.

The FBI expressed concern on how close Levison, who the FBI constantly referred to as a "secret member of the Communist Party," and King had become. Files indicated that sometime after the Department of Justice contacted King about Levison's communist ties, King ended direct contact with him. The files show heightened concern when Levison began to advise King on the Vietnam conflict. Internal security memos indicate that soon thereafter Levison's home was also bugged. Memos detail information learned about King through a tap on Levison's phone. After King's assassination, the files chronicle Levison's dealings with Coretta Scott King, and other civil rights leaders.
 

Roy Wilkins
 
967 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering Roy Wilkins. Roy Wilkins was an influential member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was a civil rights advocate who became affiliated with Martin Luther King, Jr. Files contain information concerning Wilkins’ proximity to various civil right events from 1950's through the 1970's. The FBI investigated threats against Wilkins' life and proposed extortion plots. Files contain circumscribed information on King.

The files chronicle a meeting between Wilkins and an agent at FBI headquarters concerning threats by J. Edgar Hoover to expose King as a "sexual degenerate." The agent told Wilkins that Hoover did not want to destroy the entire civil rights movement, but that the FBI “deeply and bitterly resented lies and falsehoods told by King." The agent told Wilkins that the FBI was not responsible for the rumors against King, but said, "were certainly in a position to substantiate them." The agent intimated that if Kings' criticism of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover did not end, this would be the results.

 
Coretta Scott King
 
490 pages of FBI files covering Coretta Scott King. Files date from 1962 to 1989. Coretta Scott King was born on April 27, 1927, and died on January 30, 2006. She was a writer, civil rights leader, women's movement activist and a mother of four. She is best remembered as the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, Coretta Scott King continued to advocate for a diverse number of causes until her death in January 2006.

The first 70 pages of files mostly covers extortion threats and threats against the life of Coretta Scott King.

The next 420 pages cover, "Information Concerning Subversive Control." The files contain summaries of information found elsewhere in FBI files such as, "Files of the Birmingham Office revealed that on 4/18/63 Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited her husband, Martin, who was confined in the Birmingham City Jail, and she also talked to members of the 'the press' on the outside of this jail."

 
Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files - Volume 4: President Lyndon Johnson White House - FBI Liaison MLK Jr. Files

756 pages of the Office Files of FBI liaison Mildred Stegall, related to Martin Luther King Jr. This material consists of papers collected by Mildred Stegall during her long service as a member of Lyndon B. Johnson's staff. During the years Lyndon Johnson served as President, Mildred Stegall was a Staff Assistant and served as the liaison between the White House and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and received files concerning Martin Luther King Jr.

Stegall joined Johnson's Senate staff in 1956 and worked with Walter Jenkins, a staff aide who maintained many personal financial and campaign files for the Johnsons. Stegall took custody of Jenkins files when he left Johnson's White House staff in October 1964.

Stegall joined Johnson's Post-Presidential staff in Austin, Texas, and worked closely with W. Thomas Johnson, the former Presidents Executive Assistant. The collection includes files Thomas Johnson maintained and turned over to Stegall.

The files date from 1963 to 1968.

The collection reflects Stegall’s relationship as the liaison with the FBI and contains investigative material J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, sent to Jenkins, Watson, and Stegall. Hoover often intended for the information he sent to be transmitted to President Johnson.

The documents show the coverage and tenure of the information provided to President Johnson concerning King from the FBI through summaries of FBI reports concerning King’s activities. Summaries often cite information that was said to have come from confidential sources.

The documents give substantial coverage of MLK's views, actions, and proposals concerning the Vietnam War.

Documents include a 4-page correspondence from J. Edgar Hoover to LBJ covering Hoover’s 1964 meeting with King.

Documents include memos from J. Edgar Hoover concerning MLK's views and actions concerning Civil Rights actions, Rhodesia, the Vietnam War, Logan Act, King winning the Nobel Prize and Lester Maddox.

Also covered are the actions of MLK Jr. advisors Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones.

Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Investigation Documents
 
8,121 pages of FBI reports, Memphis Police Department, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, Shelby County Prosecutors’, James Earl Ray Public Defender, and Scotland Yard files.

On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, to march in support of a labor strike organized by Memphis sanitation workers. Because a demonstration the month before erupted in violence, Dr. King, according to his associates, returned determined to lead a non-violent protest.

Dr. King and several associates checked into the Lorraine Motel on Mulberry Street, a motel in Memphis patronized primarily by African Americans. Dr. King's room, 306, was on the second floor, faced Mulberry Street, and had a door that opened onto a balcony directly above the motel's parking lot.

Across from the motel on Mulberry Street are the backyard areas of buildings that front on South Main Street. South Main and Mulberry Streets run parallel to one another. Fire Station No. 2 Faces South Main Street and is on the corner between South Main and Mulberry Streets

At the time of the shooting, a fenced-in parking area was adjacent to the fire station on South Main Street, followed by Canipe's, a record store, and Jim's Grill, a tavern. Directly above Jim's Grill, on the second floor, was a rooming house. The backdoor to Jim's Grill opened to backyards, which overlooked Mulberry Street and the Lorraine Motel.

The buildings on South Main Street, as well as their backyards, are elevated and higher than Mulberry Street. A retaining wall, approximately eight feet high, extends from the street to the ground level of the backyards on Mulberry Street opposite the Lorraine Motel. At the time of the assassination, overgrown bushes and small trees bordered the backyards and the adjacent parking lot.

Loyd Jowers, who is white, owned and operated Jim's Grill, a tavern that served a racially mixed group of customers and specialized in lunch and after-work beer drinking. After 4:00 p.m., Jowers generally worked alone or with one other person.

Sometime before 4:00 p.m. on April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray parked his white Mustang on South Main Street and, under an assumed name, rented a room in the second-floor rooming house directly above the grill. That room and the communal bathroom at the end of the hall both had windows overlooking Dr. King's motel room at the Lorraine. Shortly after renting the room, Ray purchased binoculars from a nearby store and then returned to the rooming house.

Just before 6:00 p.m., Dr. King was outside on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in front of his room. At about 6:01 p.m., while conversing with associates in the parking lot below, he was shot and fatally wounded by a single bullet fired from a 30.06 rifle. The shot came from the direction of the rear of the buildings on South Main Street across from the Lorraine.

Documents include:
 
After Action Report, Civil Disorder Operation LANTERN SPIKE, 28 March - 12 April 1968

The After-Action Report covering the Civil Disorder Operation: LANTERN SPIKE, 28 March - 12 April 1968. Lantern Spike was a U.S. Army Intelligence surveillance operation exercise in which Memphis are “racial events,” coinciding with the visit of Martin Luther King.

 
FBI Reports

4,317 pages of FBI Reports on the investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The FBI concluded that James Earl Ray was a lone, racially motivated assassin.

With the identification of Ray as the probable assassin, an extensive background investigation began. Missouri State Penitentiary inmates provided evidence indicating his distaste for association with Black inmates. Further evidence of racial incidents was developed in California and Mexico that reflected both a volatile temper and a deep-seated racial prejudice. Finally, in early interviews with the FBI, members of Ray's family, and particularly his brothers, exhibited strong strains of racism. Although he held open the possibility of conspiracy. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's views had become clear by June 20, when he wrote a memorandum summarizing a discussion with Attorney General Ramsey Clark: “I said I think Ray is a racist and detested Negroes and Martin Luther King and there is indication that prior to the Memphis situation, he had information about King speaking in other towns and then picked out Memphis.”

 
Various Agencies Reports
 

2,295 pages of reports including from agencies including Tennessee Attorney General Office, Shelby County Medical Examiner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Shelby County Sheriff Department and the Missouri State Penitentiary.

Reports include: Autopsy Report of Martin Luther King, Jr., Daily Jail Activity Reports of James Earl Ray, Forensic Examination of Martin Luther King Medical Evidence Select Committee on Assassination, Leavenworth Kansas And Missouri State Penitentiary Material James Earl Ray Files, Letters from Citizens To Memphis Police Department.

 
Memphis Police Department Crime Scene Photographs

53 photos of the crime scene, the Lorraine Motel, and key nearby locations.

 
Scotland Yard Report
 
Scotland Yard Report on the apprehension of James Earl Ray in London and his return to the United States. James Earl Ray was captured in London two months after the shooting.

Shelby County Sheriff’s Office James Earl Ray Custody Photos
 
A collection of photos taken at the direction of Shelby Country Sheriff Bill Morris.

The folder with these photos also included photos received from the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department of Sirhan Sirhan in custody. Sheriff Morris wanted to see the practices of the LA Sheriff Department’s handling of the assassin of Senator Robert Kennedy. Sheriff Morris was concern over the possibility of Ray being killed while in custody, as Lee Harvey Oswald was in 1963.

 
James Earl Ray Public Defender Files 

1,126 pages of Shelby County Public Defender James Earl Ray files. These once lost documents were discovered in 2007, at a Shelby County Archives warehouse, where they were misplaced during the process of having them microfilmed. The Public Defender office of Shelby County blocked public release of the material due to lawyer-client privilege. The PD office cleared the documents for release in 2011. James Earl Ray in the late 1970’s signed a release that allowed all his defense material to be made public.

 
James Earl Ray Correspondences
 
A collection letters written by James Earl Ray to and from his lawyers and family during the eight months he spent in Shelby County Jail before pleading guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.

 
Memphis Police Department Dispatch Recording 6:01pm – 6:55pm April4, 1968
 
Audio recording of excerpts of MPD dispatch traffic after the assassination

 

Martin Luther King Jr. State Department Files - Passport Files

Documents selected from the United States Department of State's Passport Office files on Martin Luther King Jr, dating from 2/12/1957 to 6/12/1967.

Files include passport applications and travel plans for Martin Luther King, Jr. The State Department compiled material covering biographical information of Martin Luther King Jr., a passage concerning connections between members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Communist Party, travel itineraries, photographs, and his signature.

This collection includes information regarding a protest against the issuance of a passport to Martin Luther King Jr. An FBI memorandum regarding the plans of Martin Luther King Jr. and Harry Belafonte to hold an American civil rights rally at the Plais des Sports in Port de Versailles, Paris. Travel plans of Martin Luther King Jr. to India under the sponsorship of the American Friends Service Committee. A report sent to Georgia Democratic Senator Richard B. Russell on plans of Martin Luther King Jr. to travel to West Africa, Gold Coast (later renamed Ghana) from Passport Office Director Frances G. Knight. A 1957 telegram sent to Knight regarding potential travel to India and Africa by Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Adjacent collections include:

Malcolm X: FBI - CIA - New York Police Dept Files
 
9,660 pages of FBI, CIA, and New York Police Department files covering Malcolm X. Malcolm X was a Minister of the Nation of Islam until March 1964, when he left and formed the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, while delivering a speech in New York City.

Norman Butler, Thomas Johnson, and Talmage Hayer were convicted of his murder and sentenced to life in prison.

 
Clyde A. Tolson - J. Edgar Hoover FBI Files

2,295 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering Clyde Tolson and J. Edgar Hoover.

Files are made up of Associate Director Tolson's personnel records and copies of memorandum that were maintained in his office. The collection contains approximately 2,000 discernible pages.

The files include 1,000 pages of memos written by J. Edgar Hoover from 1965 to 1972. Memos document Hoover's thoughts on various events during that period including campus demonstrations, civil disturbances, electronic surveillance, and Martin Luther King.

This set is most valuable for a collection of about 1,000 pages of memos written by J. Edgar Hoover from 1965 to 1972. These memos, written before the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, were suppose to be destroyed. However, copies were accidentally maintained in Associate Director Tolson's office files. Almost every social issue of the period garner reflection in this set. These memos document the attitude of Hoover and the FBI on various events during that period including campus demonstrations, civil disturbances, electronic surveillance, and Martin Luther King Jr.

 
Alabama Civil Rights Worker Viola Liuzzo Murder - Alabama KKK FBI Files - President Johnson Secret Audio Recordings

1,575 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering the investigation of the Viola Liuzzo murder.

Viola Gregg Liuzzo (1925-1965) was a 39-year-old white mother and a civil rights worker from Detroit who came to Alabama to help with voter registration. She was murdered March 25, 1965, enroute to a civil rights meeting, after being seen riding in a car with Leroy Moton, a black man. She was the first white woman killed during the American civil rights movement.

Her murder was allegedly committed by KKK members Eugene Thomas, Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr., and William Orville Eaton.

In May 1965, the trial of Liuzzo's killers began, but the all-white jury could not come to a decision and a mistrial was declared. At a second trial in October 1965, the men were found not guilty of murder. In a federal trial, the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Liuzzo and were sentenced to ten years in prison. Eaton died on March 9, 1966, from natural causes, before serving his sentence.

FBI File coverage includes a background investigation of Viola Liuzzo and her husband; Accounts from informants within the Klan; President Johnson's interest in the case; Alabama Governor George Wallace's response to the murder.

 
President Johnson Phone Conversation Secret Audio Recordings

45 minutes of phone conversation audio recorded by Lyndon Johnson, containing conversations related to the Liuzzo murder.

Participants include:

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

Anthony Liuzzo husband of Viola Liuzzo

United States Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach Johnson

Civil rights advisor Lee White

Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa

President Johnson advisor Jack Valenti

Congressman Adam Clayton Powell

In 1963, civil rights activists began an effort to register black voters in Dallas County, Alabama. During 1963 and 1964, although they brought potential voters by the hundreds to the registrar's office in the courthouse in Selma, they were unable to have them registered. In January and February 1965, protests were held in Selma to bring attention to this violation of rights. The protests were met by violence by Sheriff James Clark and his deputies. On February 17, a small civil rights march ended in the shooting of Jimmy Lee Jackson who died from his wounds several days later. The civil rights activists decided to hold a memorial march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery on March. 7.

Approximately 600 marchers started out on the march that Sunday morning. When the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge on the outskirts of Selma, they were met by about 200 state troopers, and Sheriff Clark and his deputies mounted on horseback, armed with tear gas, night sticks and bull whips. The marchers were ordered to turn back. When they did not, they were attacked by the law enforcement officers. The air filled with tear gas and marchers were beaten, whipped and trampled by the horses. Finally, they turned around and returned to Selma. Seventeen marchers were hospitalized.

Dr. King and his supporters filed a federal lawsuit requesting to be permitted to proceed with the march. On March 21, the march began again, with federal troops protecting the marchers, and proceeded to Montgomery. In Montgomery, a rally was held on the steps of the state capitol. However, within hours of the end of the march Liuzzo was killed.

 
Viola Liuzzo-Civil Rights Worker Murder Trials Court Documents, Transcripts and Historical Files
 
The United States v. Eaton, Wilkins & Thomas was the first conviction of Klansmen in a civil rights homicide related case in modern southern history.

4,417 pages of court documents, trial transcripts, Department of Justice and FBI Files and Congressional reporting related to the two state trials and the one federal trial of the accused murderer(s) of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo by the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Civil rights volunteer Viola Liuzzo from Detroit was shot to death as she was driving to Montgomery to pick up marchers to return to Selma. Four Ku Klux Klan members were arrested for her murder, three of whom were eventually convicted of violating Mrs. Liuzzo's civil rights and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The documents date from 1965 to 1983. Includes a report of a Department of Justice investigation into the activity of controversial FBI Klan informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. Includes court documents related to a Justice Department lawsuit against Lowndes County, Alabama, for discrimination on the basis of race

and gender in its jury selection system. Also included is the reconstitution of closing arguments made by defense counsel in the first trial.

 
Senator Robert F. Kennedy Assassination FBI - Los Angeles County District Attorney Files
 
14,321 pages of FBI and Los Angeles County District Attorney files, covering the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

 
Hugh Hefner/Playboy FBI Files
 
210 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering Hugh Hefner, Playboy magazine, and Playboy Enterprises.

Files date from 1955 to 1980. The FBI characterized the magazine as carrying "on a campaign of snide innuendoes against the FBI and at times was outright critical of the Bureau and the Director." Files chronicle the FBI's attitude toward American cultural changes of the 1960's

Files cover Hefner's 1963 obscenity arrest over the publication of photographs of Jane Mansfield, the Bureau's reactions to magazine interviews, including those with Martin Luther King Jr., Art Buchwald, Melvin Belli, Fidel Castro, Jim Garrison, and Eldridge Cleaver.

The January 1965 interview with Martin Luther King is described as, "Typical King double talk and is another classical example of the unbounded duplicity of this false prophet.