1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:45,562 --> 00:00:49,049 - At this time I have the honor to present to you, 4 00:00:49,083 --> 00:00:51,706 the moral leader of our nation. 5 00:01:08,413 --> 00:01:13,280 - From 1955 to 1968, Martin Luther King led a peaceful 6 00:01:13,314 --> 00:01:15,282 20th century American revolution. 7 00:01:16,352 --> 00:01:20,666 In the short span of 13 years, 8 00:01:20,701 --> 00:01:23,566 the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he headed, 9 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:25,775 changed the face of American society. 10 00:01:53,043 --> 00:01:54,528 - You know, when you construct a man as a great man, 11 00:01:54,562 --> 00:01:56,185 there's nothing almost more satisfying 12 00:01:56,219 --> 00:01:58,635 than also seeing him represented as the opposite. 13 00:02:24,005 --> 00:02:26,284 - When the National Archives 14 00:02:26,318 --> 00:02:32,152 puts government documents up on the web, in public, 15 00:02:32,186 --> 00:02:33,118 one has to confront them. 16 00:02:35,189 --> 00:02:37,950 One cannot pretend they don't exist. 17 00:02:42,507 --> 00:02:44,992 - I think one of the difficulties for historians 18 00:02:45,026 --> 00:02:46,821 in dealing with really, 19 00:02:46,856 --> 00:02:50,204 the fruits of all of this surveillance of King, 20 00:02:50,239 --> 00:02:54,588 is whether or not we then become complicit 21 00:02:54,622 --> 00:02:58,212 in what the FBI was doing. 22 00:02:58,247 --> 00:02:59,489 - But you know this about humans. 23 00:02:59,524 --> 00:03:01,215 What we're best at is convincing ourselves 24 00:03:01,250 --> 00:03:02,699 of our own righteousness. 25 00:03:03,942 --> 00:03:06,496 I think this entire episode 26 00:03:06,531 --> 00:03:09,050 represents the darkest part of the Bureau's history. 27 00:03:13,952 --> 00:03:15,333 - Tapes from the hotel rooms, 28 00:03:15,367 --> 00:03:18,232 the FBI reports of what was going on, 29 00:03:18,267 --> 00:03:22,823 those are pieces of information that we shouldn't have. 30 00:03:25,550 --> 00:03:27,759 Whatever comes out will certainly help us 31 00:03:27,793 --> 00:03:29,864 understand him as a person, 32 00:03:29,899 --> 00:03:33,558 and that's kind of our duty, is to understand. 33 00:06:07,643 --> 00:06:08,954 - Hello. 34 00:06:08,989 --> 00:06:11,301 In the traditional motion picture story, 35 00:06:11,336 --> 00:06:13,200 the villains are usually defeated, 36 00:06:13,234 --> 00:06:15,305 and the ending is a happy one. 37 00:06:15,340 --> 00:06:16,686 I can make no such promise 38 00:06:16,721 --> 00:06:18,964 for the picture you're about to watch. 39 00:06:18,999 --> 00:06:20,069 The story isn't over. 40 00:06:26,731 --> 00:06:29,389 - They came from Los Angeles and San Francisco, 41 00:06:29,423 --> 00:06:31,563 or about the distance from Moscow to Bombay. 42 00:06:34,152 --> 00:06:36,879 They came from Cleveland, from Chicago, 43 00:06:36,913 --> 00:06:38,225 or about the distance 44 00:06:38,259 --> 00:06:40,227 from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro. 45 00:06:40,261 --> 00:06:42,056 They came from Jackson, Mississippi, 46 00:06:42,091 --> 00:06:43,541 from Birmingham, Alabama, 47 00:06:43,575 --> 00:06:47,199 or about the distance from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam. 48 00:06:54,103 --> 00:06:56,416 He had been insulted, beaten, jailed, 49 00:06:56,450 --> 00:06:58,728 drenched with water, chased by dogs, 50 00:06:58,763 --> 00:07:00,799 but he was coming to Washington, he said, 51 00:07:00,834 --> 00:07:02,629 to swallow up hatred in love, 52 00:07:02,663 --> 00:07:04,803 to overcome violence by peaceful protest. 53 00:07:07,392 --> 00:07:08,324 - We are not gonna fight 54 00:07:08,358 --> 00:07:10,430 out White brethren with malice, 55 00:07:10,464 --> 00:07:12,086 nor are we gonna fight them 56 00:07:12,121 --> 00:07:14,192 with any falsified stories, 57 00:07:14,226 --> 00:07:16,159 nor are we gonna fight them with hatred, 58 00:07:16,194 --> 00:07:17,747 but we are gonna fight them with love. 59 00:07:17,782 --> 00:07:21,095 When they hate us, we're gonna absorb their hatred in love. 60 00:07:21,130 --> 00:07:22,442 When they speak against us, 61 00:07:22,476 --> 00:07:25,272 we're gonna speak things of love toward them. 62 00:07:25,306 --> 00:07:27,447 We're not gonna let their hatred turn us around, 63 00:07:27,481 --> 00:07:29,414 but we're gonna love them on every side. 64 00:07:33,798 --> 00:07:37,111 - We had been through the battles in Birmingham. 65 00:07:37,146 --> 00:07:38,630 We thought that was the movement. 66 00:07:39,562 --> 00:07:40,805 And it was, 67 00:07:43,152 --> 00:07:44,464 but after it was over, 68 00:07:44,498 --> 00:07:46,707 we realized that what had happened was 69 00:07:46,742 --> 00:07:48,226 that the March on Washington 70 00:07:48,260 --> 00:07:50,435 took a Black Southern movement 71 00:07:51,747 --> 00:07:53,783 and turned it into a national, 72 00:07:53,818 --> 00:07:56,648 and international movement for human rights. 73 00:08:00,341 --> 00:08:02,412 - One day right there in Alabama, 74 00:08:02,447 --> 00:08:04,898 little Black boys and Black girls 75 00:08:04,932 --> 00:08:06,382 will be able to join hands 76 00:08:06,416 --> 00:08:08,557 with little White boys and White girls 77 00:08:08,591 --> 00:08:09,903 as sisters and brothers. 78 00:08:09,937 --> 00:08:11,974 I have a dream today. 79 00:08:16,668 --> 00:08:20,983 - The FBI was most alarmed about King 80 00:08:21,017 --> 00:08:22,536 because of his success. 81 00:08:24,262 --> 00:08:25,815 And they were particularly concerned 82 00:08:25,850 --> 00:08:28,887 that he was this powerful, charismatic figure 83 00:08:28,922 --> 00:08:32,166 who had the ability to mobilize people. 84 00:08:32,201 --> 00:08:34,893 - And if America is to be a great nation, 85 00:08:34,928 --> 00:08:37,171 this must become true. 86 00:08:37,206 --> 00:08:39,277 So let freedom ring. 87 00:08:41,762 --> 00:08:43,902 - When you look at the social movements 88 00:08:43,937 --> 00:08:46,111 from the point of view of the FBI, 89 00:08:46,146 --> 00:08:48,838 it looks very different. 90 00:08:48,873 --> 00:08:50,530 You know, J. Edgar Hoover is famous for saying 91 00:08:50,564 --> 00:08:53,671 that he feared the rise of a Black Messiah. 92 00:08:53,705 --> 00:08:56,536 - Free at last, free at last. 93 00:08:56,570 --> 00:08:59,953 Thank God Almighty. We are free at last. 94 00:09:05,165 --> 00:09:06,442 - After Dr. King gave 95 00:09:06,476 --> 00:09:09,376 his famous March on Washington speech, 96 00:09:09,410 --> 00:09:12,172 Wednesday, August 28th, 1963, 97 00:09:14,243 --> 00:09:18,696 in a memo dated the 30th of August, no later than that, 98 00:09:18,730 --> 00:09:22,562 the second person in the FBI, Bill Sullivan, 99 00:09:22,596 --> 00:09:26,635 sends a urgent memo in which he says, 100 00:09:26,669 --> 00:09:29,223 "After the March on Washington, 101 00:09:29,258 --> 00:09:31,881 "it's clear that Martin Luther King Jr., 102 00:09:31,916 --> 00:09:35,575 "is the most dangerous Negro in America. 103 00:09:39,095 --> 00:09:42,892 "And we have to use every resource at our disposal 104 00:09:42,927 --> 00:09:44,307 "to destroy him." 105 00:09:57,113 --> 00:10:00,807 - 1956, 20,000 Blacks 106 00:10:00,841 --> 00:10:02,912 walk the streets of Montgomery, Alabama 107 00:10:02,947 --> 00:10:06,329 to protest segregation on city buses. 108 00:10:06,364 --> 00:10:07,917 The Montgomery bus boycott 109 00:10:07,952 --> 00:10:10,437 focuses national attention on its leader, 110 00:10:10,471 --> 00:10:13,198 a 27 year old Baptist minister, 111 00:10:13,233 --> 00:10:14,786 Martin Luther King, Jr.. 112 00:10:20,896 --> 00:10:22,656 - Is this just a test that we're getting ready to go. 113 00:10:22,691 --> 00:10:23,933 - That's what we've done. 114 00:10:23,968 --> 00:10:25,486 Next time we go, it will be for real. 115 00:10:30,491 --> 00:10:32,114 - I'm sure that I voice the sentiment 116 00:10:32,148 --> 00:10:36,843 of more than 40,000 Negro citizens of Montgomery. 117 00:10:36,877 --> 00:10:39,121 We still have the attitude of love, 118 00:10:39,155 --> 00:10:43,194 we still have the method of passive resistance, 119 00:10:43,228 --> 00:10:46,715 and we are still insisting, emphatically, 120 00:10:46,749 --> 00:10:49,856 that violence is self-defeating. 121 00:10:49,890 --> 00:10:53,273 That he will lives by the sword, will perish by the sword. 122 00:10:55,068 --> 00:10:56,483 - He let us accept the fact, 123 00:10:56,517 --> 00:10:57,795 and made us accept the fact, 124 00:10:57,829 --> 00:11:01,661 that what we were doing was insane. 125 00:11:01,695 --> 00:11:04,560 He'd say you've got to be certifiably insane 126 00:11:04,594 --> 00:11:09,082 to think that a bunch of crazy folk like you all, 127 00:11:09,116 --> 00:11:13,017 with no money and no guns, no political power, 128 00:11:14,294 --> 00:11:16,020 are gonna change this nation. 129 00:11:19,609 --> 00:11:22,578 We were trusting in the power of God 130 00:11:22,612 --> 00:11:26,513 and only a kind of crazy people of faith 131 00:11:26,547 --> 00:11:28,826 would be willing to put their lives on the line 132 00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:30,862 and trust in God. 133 00:11:34,866 --> 00:11:38,836 In an era of science and technology, 134 00:11:38,870 --> 00:11:42,425 ambiguous spiritual phenomena like moral power, 135 00:11:44,807 --> 00:11:46,429 you know, it didn't make sense. 136 00:11:49,570 --> 00:11:51,952 - This morning, the long-awaited mandate 137 00:11:51,987 --> 00:11:56,060 from the United States Supreme Court came to Montgomery. 138 00:11:57,578 --> 00:11:59,788 Segregation in public transportation 139 00:11:59,822 --> 00:12:03,930 is both legally and sociologically invalid. 140 00:12:03,964 --> 00:12:06,139 In the light of this mandate, 141 00:12:06,173 --> 00:12:09,556 the Negro citizens of Montgomery 142 00:12:09,590 --> 00:12:13,111 are urged to return to the buses tomorrow morning 143 00:12:13,146 --> 00:12:15,493 on a non-segregated basis. 144 00:12:22,534 --> 00:12:23,639 - As the boycott wins 145 00:12:23,673 --> 00:12:26,400 in the United States Supreme Court 146 00:12:26,435 --> 00:12:29,231 come the end of 1956, 147 00:12:29,265 --> 00:12:32,648 civil rights activists take a strong interest 148 00:12:32,682 --> 00:12:36,341 in this unprecedented community action 149 00:12:36,376 --> 00:12:38,758 in the capital of the old Confederacy. 150 00:12:40,449 --> 00:12:42,658 Now, one of the most important 151 00:12:42,692 --> 00:12:45,074 of those long time civil rights activists 152 00:12:45,109 --> 00:12:47,145 who took a real interest in Montgomery 153 00:12:47,180 --> 00:12:50,010 was Byard Rustin. 154 00:12:50,045 --> 00:12:54,670 And it's through Rustin that Stanley Levison meets Dr. King. 155 00:13:00,641 --> 00:13:07,096 - Stanley David Levison was White, he was Jewish, 156 00:13:07,131 --> 00:13:09,305 he was a lawyer who was a certified public accountant, 157 00:13:10,824 --> 00:13:15,518 and unsung hero in the civil rights movement 158 00:13:15,553 --> 00:13:18,487 as related to Martin Luther King, Jr.. 159 00:13:21,490 --> 00:13:23,423 And Dr. King adored him. 160 00:13:27,496 --> 00:13:30,292 - From 1955 forward, 161 00:13:30,326 --> 00:13:33,467 the FBI takes some degree of interest 162 00:13:33,502 --> 00:13:36,539 in local Black protest movements in the South, 163 00:13:36,574 --> 00:13:39,197 in Montgomery, in Birmingham, 164 00:13:39,232 --> 00:13:41,579 in Nashville, Tennessee. 165 00:13:41,613 --> 00:13:47,965 But it's standard FBI vacuum cleaner information gathering. 166 00:13:47,999 --> 00:13:51,589 They're not particularly focused on Martin Luther King Jr. 167 00:13:51,623 --> 00:13:54,626 in those mid and late 1950 years. 168 00:13:56,352 --> 00:13:58,872 Even though Stanley Levison and King 169 00:13:58,907 --> 00:14:04,982 have a very close personal relationship from 1957 forward, 170 00:14:05,016 --> 00:14:09,089 only at the very beginning of 1962, 171 00:14:09,124 --> 00:14:11,091 four or five years later, 172 00:14:11,126 --> 00:14:17,511 does the FBI tardily realize that Levison 173 00:14:17,546 --> 00:14:19,720 has become a very important advisor to King. 174 00:14:29,213 --> 00:14:30,524 - I always tell people 175 00:14:30,559 --> 00:14:32,181 I was strolling down the student union one day 176 00:14:32,216 --> 00:14:35,805 and the Bureau had a table there and they were recruiting, 177 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:37,773 so I filled out the application 178 00:14:37,807 --> 00:14:41,535 and lo and behold, a week later, I get a phone call. 179 00:14:41,570 --> 00:14:42,536 They told me that they will accept me 180 00:14:42,571 --> 00:14:43,848 if I pass the physical. 181 00:14:46,402 --> 00:14:48,818 On my gosh, 21st birthday, 182 00:14:48,853 --> 00:14:51,891 I was driving my car to Washington D. C., 183 00:14:51,925 --> 00:14:55,032 took an oath of office and almost quit that day 184 00:14:55,066 --> 00:14:57,655 because it was just very surreal. 185 00:14:57,689 --> 00:14:59,070 And they were talking about 186 00:14:59,105 --> 00:15:01,383 when the bomb goes off, where to go and stuff like that, 187 00:15:01,417 --> 00:15:03,592 and I'm thinking, "This is like out of a movie." 188 00:15:06,595 --> 00:15:10,150 - The new FBI will not be the product of one individual. 189 00:15:10,185 --> 00:15:13,464 No one man can build it, but one man can pull it down. 190 00:15:15,259 --> 00:15:17,813 - There were two big themes that came across 191 00:15:17,847 --> 00:15:20,920 in the popular culture that was produced about the FBI. 192 00:15:22,162 --> 00:15:23,992 One of those was crime, 193 00:15:24,026 --> 00:15:26,787 and the other was the struggle against communism. 194 00:15:28,962 --> 00:15:29,825 - Mm hmm. 195 00:15:32,276 --> 00:15:37,246 - Sometime in 1962, Levison got a subpoena 196 00:15:37,281 --> 00:15:39,662 from the House Un-American Activities Committee. 197 00:15:41,802 --> 00:15:44,081 And he was really, I don't wanna say petrified, 198 00:15:44,115 --> 00:15:46,255 but he was very concerned. 199 00:15:46,290 --> 00:15:48,326 - Are you now, or have you ever been 200 00:15:48,361 --> 00:15:50,294 a member of the Communist Party? 201 00:15:51,743 --> 00:15:53,607 - I stand on my constitutional rights 202 00:15:53,642 --> 00:15:54,988 under the Fifth Amendment. 203 00:15:57,818 --> 00:15:59,441 - There was an old saying 204 00:15:59,475 --> 00:16:00,787 that once you're a member of the communist Party, 205 00:16:00,821 --> 00:16:03,341 you're always a member of the Communist Party. 206 00:16:03,376 --> 00:16:04,756 That's what everybody believed. 207 00:16:06,586 --> 00:16:07,967 - And it's pretty clear, in fact, 208 00:16:08,001 --> 00:16:10,693 that Stanley Levison was deeply involved 209 00:16:10,728 --> 00:16:13,662 in communist politics in the 1950s. 210 00:16:15,250 --> 00:16:17,114 - He had dropped off the radar, 211 00:16:17,148 --> 00:16:21,014 but even after he went totally off the grid, if you will, 212 00:16:21,049 --> 00:16:23,051 when the relationship with Dr. King started, 213 00:16:23,085 --> 00:16:24,362 they would still get reports 214 00:16:24,397 --> 00:16:25,812 from people inside the Communist Party 215 00:16:25,846 --> 00:16:27,710 of what Levison was doing. 216 00:16:29,505 --> 00:16:31,128 The concern with Dr. King 217 00:16:31,162 --> 00:16:33,302 and his connections with Stanley Levison 218 00:16:33,337 --> 00:16:36,340 was that he was being influenced by the Communist Party. 219 00:16:38,169 --> 00:16:39,929 - The growing menace of communism 220 00:16:39,964 --> 00:16:41,483 arouses the the House of Representatives 221 00:16:41,517 --> 00:16:43,554 Un-American Activities Committee. 222 00:16:43,588 --> 00:16:45,763 Among the well-informed witnesses testifying 223 00:16:45,797 --> 00:16:47,144 is J. Edgar Hoover, 224 00:16:47,178 --> 00:16:49,767 head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. 225 00:16:49,801 --> 00:16:52,252 Mr. Hoover speaks with authority on the subject. 226 00:16:52,287 --> 00:16:54,841 - The Communist Party of the United States 227 00:16:54,875 --> 00:16:58,051 is a fifth column if there ever was one. 228 00:16:58,086 --> 00:17:00,847 It is far better organized than were the Nazis 229 00:17:00,881 --> 00:17:04,333 in occupied countries prior to their capitulation. 230 00:17:04,368 --> 00:17:07,060 They are seeking to weaken America. 231 00:17:07,095 --> 00:17:10,374 Their goal is the overflow of our government. 232 00:17:12,652 --> 00:17:14,412 - To some people, J. Edgar Hoover 233 00:17:14,447 --> 00:17:15,931 was a great American, 234 00:17:15,965 --> 00:17:18,554 a hero who stood up against crime and communism. 235 00:17:20,073 --> 00:17:22,972 To others, he was a figure of profound evil 236 00:17:23,007 --> 00:17:24,871 who terrified those he disapproved of 237 00:17:24,905 --> 00:17:26,907 with police powers at his command. 238 00:17:28,392 --> 00:17:30,739 To everybody, he symbolized the FBI. 239 00:17:32,913 --> 00:17:34,191 - The Federal Bureau of Investigations 240 00:17:34,225 --> 00:17:37,435 is as close to you as your nearest telephone. 241 00:17:37,470 --> 00:17:39,058 It seeks to be your protector 242 00:17:39,092 --> 00:17:41,370 in all matters with its jurisdiction. 243 00:17:41,405 --> 00:17:42,578 It belongs to you. 244 00:17:44,408 --> 00:17:47,307 - J. Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI 245 00:17:47,342 --> 00:17:52,243 for 48 years, from 1924 to 1972. 246 00:17:53,589 --> 00:17:57,455 And it's a really astounding span of time. 247 00:17:57,490 --> 00:17:59,837 He went from a period in which Washington 248 00:17:59,871 --> 00:18:01,804 was kind of a nothing backwater 249 00:18:01,839 --> 00:18:03,323 to a moment when it was really 250 00:18:03,358 --> 00:18:05,014 the pinnacle of American power, 251 00:18:05,049 --> 00:18:06,878 and he helped build a lot of that. 252 00:18:13,161 --> 00:18:15,749 - The communists have been, still are, 253 00:18:15,784 --> 00:18:18,925 and always will be a menace to freedom, 254 00:18:18,959 --> 00:18:21,755 to democratic ideal, to the worship of God 255 00:18:21,790 --> 00:18:24,137 and to America's way of life. 256 00:18:24,172 --> 00:18:26,243 - From the moment that he entered government, 257 00:18:26,277 --> 00:18:29,246 it was his job to figure out 258 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:32,352 who was dangerous to the country, who was too revolutionary, 259 00:18:32,387 --> 00:18:35,114 who belonged to a subversive organization. 260 00:18:36,080 --> 00:18:38,255 Hoover understood himself really 261 00:18:38,289 --> 00:18:42,880 as the guardian of the American way of life. 262 00:18:42,914 --> 00:18:46,401 But he had a very particular vision of what that meant. 263 00:18:47,885 --> 00:18:51,164 He understood it really as a society 264 00:18:51,199 --> 00:18:56,445 of certain kinds of racial and gender hierarchies, 265 00:18:56,480 --> 00:19:00,863 a society in which White men were the natural actors, 266 00:19:00,898 --> 00:19:02,486 the natural rulers. 267 00:19:06,490 --> 00:19:09,078 - I want to talk to you, fighting men and women, 268 00:19:09,113 --> 00:19:11,011 about the battle of the United States. 269 00:19:12,392 --> 00:19:13,911 - I think for Hoover, 270 00:19:13,945 --> 00:19:15,982 particularly in his early years, 271 00:19:16,016 --> 00:19:18,364 communists were in some sense, 272 00:19:18,398 --> 00:19:20,538 the ultimate subversives. 273 00:19:23,438 --> 00:19:28,097 He saw them as disruptive of a kind of law and order, 274 00:19:28,132 --> 00:19:30,410 of a certain kind of social order. 275 00:19:30,445 --> 00:19:36,934 He saw them as disruptive on questions of race. 276 00:19:36,968 --> 00:19:38,246 - The Workers Communist Party of America 277 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:41,007 puts forward correctly as it's central slogan, 278 00:19:41,041 --> 00:19:44,597 abolition of the whole system of race discrimination, 279 00:19:44,631 --> 00:19:48,117 full racial, social and political equality 280 00:19:48,152 --> 00:19:49,153 for the Negro people. 281 00:19:51,638 --> 00:19:54,020 - Black America was always 282 00:19:54,054 --> 00:19:58,266 a particular focus of the FBI, 283 00:19:58,300 --> 00:20:02,339 because there was the presumption that Black people 284 00:20:02,373 --> 00:20:06,239 are somehow more susceptible to recruitment 285 00:20:06,274 --> 00:20:09,208 for a dangerous ideology. 286 00:20:14,558 --> 00:20:16,215 - We are all familiar with the fact 287 00:20:16,249 --> 00:20:19,252 that the communists have been agitating racial problems, 288 00:20:19,287 --> 00:20:21,254 racial disunity in our nation 289 00:20:21,289 --> 00:20:23,222 for the last several years. 290 00:20:23,256 --> 00:20:24,740 That's the reason that you've seen 291 00:20:24,775 --> 00:20:28,227 racial agitators like Martin Luther King rise on the scene 292 00:20:28,261 --> 00:20:29,987 and get all kinds of national publicity. 293 00:20:30,021 --> 00:20:32,127 This was intended. 294 00:20:32,161 --> 00:20:35,130 They would like nothing more than to see a civil war 295 00:20:35,164 --> 00:20:37,028 in the 1960s in the United States. 296 00:20:39,272 --> 00:20:43,794 - The FBI quite understandably asks itself, 297 00:20:43,828 --> 00:20:47,004 How come has someone who was once 298 00:20:47,038 --> 00:20:49,662 so important in American communism 299 00:20:49,696 --> 00:20:52,734 now turned up at the right hand 300 00:20:52,768 --> 00:20:54,114 of Martin Luther King Jr.? 301 00:20:55,944 --> 00:20:57,394 Within a few weeks, 302 00:20:57,428 --> 00:21:00,914 the FBI goes to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy 303 00:21:00,949 --> 00:21:02,744 for Kennedy's approval 304 00:21:02,778 --> 00:21:05,402 to begin wiretapping Levison 305 00:21:05,436 --> 00:21:08,059 at his home and office in New York. 306 00:21:09,509 --> 00:21:11,580 - Among the most familiar words 307 00:21:11,615 --> 00:21:13,755 of the founders of the Republic, 308 00:21:13,789 --> 00:21:17,862 are those affirming that all men are created equal, 309 00:21:17,897 --> 00:21:20,279 and that they are endowed with certain rights 310 00:21:20,313 --> 00:21:22,073 of which they can not be deprived. 311 00:21:25,145 --> 00:21:27,665 It is a sad shortcoming of our history, 312 00:21:27,700 --> 00:21:31,117 that while asserting these high principles of equality, 313 00:21:31,151 --> 00:21:35,121 we have never completely lived up to them, 314 00:21:35,155 --> 00:21:37,951 nor have these injustices and discriminations 315 00:21:37,986 --> 00:21:40,160 been peculiar to any one part of our country. 316 00:21:41,714 --> 00:21:44,786 - How bad is the complaint today? 317 00:21:44,820 --> 00:21:47,444 After all, the United States has changed a lot, 318 00:21:47,478 --> 00:21:50,447 the Negro's rights are protected under the law. 319 00:21:50,481 --> 00:21:53,450 What exactly, how much has this system changed 320 00:21:53,484 --> 00:21:54,658 between then and now? 321 00:21:56,004 --> 00:21:59,628 - Well, it has changed a good deal. 322 00:21:59,663 --> 00:22:01,320 It is far from what it ought to be, 323 00:22:01,354 --> 00:22:05,462 but I can see many, many changes 324 00:22:05,496 --> 00:22:08,913 that have taken place over the last few years. 325 00:22:08,948 --> 00:22:13,332 And the problem now is to move from token integration 326 00:22:13,366 --> 00:22:15,575 to overall integration, 327 00:22:15,610 --> 00:22:18,475 where it involves more than just 328 00:22:18,509 --> 00:22:20,373 a few students in a school. 329 00:22:20,408 --> 00:22:23,342 More than just a few lunch counters open, 330 00:22:23,376 --> 00:22:26,828 more than gaining justice in the courts 331 00:22:26,862 --> 00:22:31,591 in a few situations, but in every situation. 332 00:22:31,626 --> 00:22:33,110 - The next target of the civil rights movement 333 00:22:33,144 --> 00:22:35,423 was Birmingham, Alabama. 334 00:22:35,457 --> 00:22:39,737 In 1963, the most segregated city in the nation, 335 00:22:39,772 --> 00:22:41,946 and for Blacks, a place to die 336 00:22:41,981 --> 00:22:43,223 if you tried to be a person. 337 00:22:45,329 --> 00:22:47,676 - Staying calm under fire 338 00:22:47,711 --> 00:22:52,129 is necessary for your survival. 339 00:22:52,163 --> 00:22:54,062 It's also necessary for your success, 340 00:22:56,236 --> 00:22:59,205 but it's very hard not to get emotional 341 00:22:59,239 --> 00:23:01,587 when people are trying to kill you. 342 00:23:03,243 --> 00:23:06,039 - There is no middle ground in this fight, 343 00:23:06,074 --> 00:23:09,388 there's no middle ground in this struggle. 344 00:23:09,422 --> 00:23:12,287 You're either for us, or you're against us. 345 00:23:12,321 --> 00:23:15,152 You've heard that said time and time again. 346 00:23:15,186 --> 00:23:19,294 Yes my friends, you are either for us, 347 00:23:20,260 --> 00:23:22,228 or you are against us. 348 00:23:24,092 --> 00:23:26,646 - We will trying to reveal the truth 349 00:23:26,681 --> 00:23:28,579 about segregation in the South. 350 00:23:29,994 --> 00:23:32,894 - I will not rest 351 00:23:32,928 --> 00:23:37,243 until we are able to make this kind of witness in this city, 352 00:23:37,277 --> 00:23:41,420 so that the power structure downtown will have to say, 353 00:23:41,454 --> 00:23:43,456 we can't stop this movement, 354 00:23:43,491 --> 00:23:45,424 and the only way to deal it 355 00:23:45,458 --> 00:23:48,565 is to give these people what we owe them 356 00:23:48,599 --> 00:23:50,152 and what their God-given rights 357 00:23:50,187 --> 00:23:52,983 and their constitutional rights demand. 358 00:23:56,676 --> 00:23:59,990 - In a very emotional and volatile environment, 359 00:24:00,024 --> 00:24:03,096 it was important for us to come off 360 00:24:03,131 --> 00:24:07,307 as reasonable, sane and patriotic. 361 00:24:08,136 --> 00:24:09,137 'Cause we were. 362 00:24:12,692 --> 00:24:14,936 We just wanted America to be what America 363 00:24:14,970 --> 00:24:16,178 said it was supposed to be. 364 00:24:18,974 --> 00:24:23,151 - And they go talking about these little levels of progress 365 00:24:25,049 --> 00:24:27,120 that we see here and there and they say, 366 00:24:27,155 --> 00:24:30,952 you know, you've made great progress. 367 00:24:30,986 --> 00:24:32,436 Aren't you satisfied? 368 00:24:34,887 --> 00:24:36,198 No, we are not satisfied. 369 00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:44,690 - Well, of course, I feel that the communist movement 370 00:24:44,724 --> 00:24:48,314 is behind all of the racial demonstrations in this country, 371 00:24:48,348 --> 00:24:50,972 and I have only, I have a statement here 372 00:24:51,006 --> 00:24:53,802 that J. Edgar Hoover made in 1958. 373 00:24:53,837 --> 00:24:56,529 "The Negro situation is also being exploited 374 00:24:56,564 --> 00:24:59,981 "fully and continuously by communists on a national scale. 375 00:25:00,015 --> 00:25:03,156 "So as to create unrest, dissension and confusion 376 00:25:03,191 --> 00:25:05,193 "in the minds of the American people." 377 00:25:06,539 --> 00:25:08,161 - Both Bobby Kennedy 378 00:25:08,196 --> 00:25:10,163 and his brother, the president, 379 00:25:10,198 --> 00:25:13,995 were on record as supporters of Dr. King. 380 00:25:14,029 --> 00:25:16,653 As supporters of the civil rights movement. 381 00:25:16,687 --> 00:25:20,415 But when the FBI begins insisting, 382 00:25:20,449 --> 00:25:23,832 that King is susceptible to influence 383 00:25:23,867 --> 00:25:28,181 from this dangerous Soviet-connected figure, 384 00:25:28,216 --> 00:25:32,116 Robert Kennedy, and in time his brother, the president too, 385 00:25:32,151 --> 00:25:35,292 tell him that he needs to distance himself, 386 00:25:35,326 --> 00:25:38,502 and really sever his connection with Levison. 387 00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,955 - The leaders of the march are now coming 388 00:25:42,989 --> 00:25:47,028 down the northwest driveway of the white House. 389 00:25:47,062 --> 00:25:49,686 They'll shortly be going in to see the president. 390 00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,516 - It was June 22nd, 1963. 391 00:25:54,138 --> 00:25:55,381 President Kennedy is meeting 392 00:25:55,415 --> 00:25:57,866 with several civil rights leaders. 393 00:25:57,901 --> 00:26:00,041 - They are being led by Walter Reuther of the UAW, 394 00:26:00,075 --> 00:26:02,491 Martin Luther King, James Farmer, 395 00:26:02,526 --> 00:26:03,803 Whitney Young of the Urban League. 396 00:26:03,838 --> 00:26:04,873 - President Kennedy, 397 00:26:04,908 --> 00:26:06,875 he asked Dr. King to stay behind 398 00:26:06,910 --> 00:26:09,257 and he and Dr. King went for a walk in the Rose Garden. 399 00:26:11,259 --> 00:26:12,640 And Kennedy said, 400 00:26:12,674 --> 00:26:17,127 My brother, the Attorney General and J. Edgar Hoover, 401 00:26:17,161 --> 00:26:19,750 we have some, we've got some bad news. 402 00:26:21,752 --> 00:26:26,205 Some people you're very close to are openly communist. 403 00:26:28,448 --> 00:26:30,416 Kennedy said, you know, we're in this thing 404 00:26:30,450 --> 00:26:32,418 together pretty closely, you know? 405 00:26:32,452 --> 00:26:33,661 Anything happens to you 406 00:26:33,695 --> 00:26:35,835 is gonna reflect very badly on myself 407 00:26:35,870 --> 00:26:37,803 and Bobby as Attorney General. 408 00:26:37,837 --> 00:26:39,183 You gotta distance yourself. 409 00:26:39,218 --> 00:26:40,944 You can't have anything to do with these people. 410 00:26:45,396 --> 00:26:47,744 - Even hearing it from President Kennedy, 411 00:26:47,778 --> 00:26:50,539 King is unwilling to believe 412 00:26:50,574 --> 00:26:54,440 that these FBI allegations about Levison 413 00:26:54,474 --> 00:26:57,616 have any real truth to them. 414 00:26:57,650 --> 00:26:59,928 - Dr. King, it's been alleged that you have been slow 415 00:26:59,963 --> 00:27:02,344 to sever your ties with alleged communists 416 00:27:02,379 --> 00:27:03,691 in the civil rights movement, 417 00:27:03,725 --> 00:27:05,278 even after government officials 418 00:27:05,313 --> 00:27:06,625 have warned you against them. 419 00:27:06,659 --> 00:27:09,110 - The only person that they identified 420 00:27:09,144 --> 00:27:10,767 that had any connection 421 00:27:10,801 --> 00:27:12,354 with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 422 00:27:12,389 --> 00:27:14,011 was removed. 423 00:27:14,046 --> 00:27:17,187 - Dr. King was advised again and again, 424 00:27:17,221 --> 00:27:23,711 to avoid getting into any public spat with J. Edgar Hoover. 425 00:27:23,745 --> 00:27:25,954 - Well, this places you in the direct opposite position 426 00:27:25,989 --> 00:27:27,956 of the Director of the federal Bureau of Investigations, 427 00:27:27,991 --> 00:27:30,407 J. Edgar Hoover, who gave some testimony recently 428 00:27:30,441 --> 00:27:31,684 to the contrary. 429 00:27:31,719 --> 00:27:34,791 - I would hope that the FBI would come out 430 00:27:34,825 --> 00:27:38,311 and say something that I think is much more significant. 431 00:27:38,346 --> 00:27:40,417 And that is that it is amazing 432 00:27:40,451 --> 00:27:43,662 that so few Negroes have turned to communism 433 00:27:43,696 --> 00:27:45,077 in the light of their desperate plight. 434 00:27:45,111 --> 00:27:47,320 I think it is one of the amazing developments 435 00:27:47,355 --> 00:27:48,667 of the 20th century, 436 00:27:48,701 --> 00:27:51,497 how loyal the Negro has remained to America, 437 00:27:51,531 --> 00:27:54,949 in spite of his long night of oppression and discrimination. 438 00:27:58,435 --> 00:28:02,335 - When the FBI begins wiretapping Levison, 439 00:28:02,370 --> 00:28:05,684 what they're hoping to find is evidence 440 00:28:05,718 --> 00:28:09,860 that he is still in some manner, a communist agent. 441 00:28:11,034 --> 00:28:14,693 The FBI's theory was disproven. 442 00:28:14,727 --> 00:28:17,937 - All right, I'll tell him. Thank you. 443 00:28:17,972 --> 00:28:24,081 - But at the same time, King was less than honest 444 00:28:24,116 --> 00:28:26,635 with both Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy, 445 00:28:26,670 --> 00:28:29,362 in telling them that he would break off 446 00:28:29,397 --> 00:28:31,710 contact with Levison. 447 00:28:31,744 --> 00:28:32,849 - The FBI realizes 448 00:28:32,883 --> 00:28:34,264 that the relationship continues, 449 00:28:34,298 --> 00:28:35,714 'cause they're wiretapping. 450 00:28:35,748 --> 00:28:38,717 They can see this all playing out. 451 00:28:38,751 --> 00:28:41,720 This of course enraged the FBI. 452 00:28:41,754 --> 00:28:43,376 Hoover was very upset about this, 453 00:28:43,411 --> 00:28:45,724 because he saw it as evidence 454 00:28:45,758 --> 00:28:48,140 that just as he had suspected all along, 455 00:28:48,174 --> 00:28:50,659 King was lying, he was deceiving, 456 00:28:50,694 --> 00:28:52,558 that there was in fact a plot, 457 00:28:52,592 --> 00:28:55,388 that these ties were very close. 458 00:28:55,423 --> 00:28:57,390 It really only reinforced his sense 459 00:28:57,425 --> 00:28:59,427 that there was something bigger going on. 460 00:29:01,498 --> 00:29:07,676 - By mid 1963, the FBI was fully aware 461 00:29:07,711 --> 00:29:10,507 that King was remaining in touch with Levison, 462 00:29:10,541 --> 00:29:12,923 through their mutual friend, Clarence Jones. 463 00:29:17,928 --> 00:29:19,896 - The FBI in Peace and War. 464 00:29:19,930 --> 00:29:22,761 Tonight's story, the fixer. 465 00:29:24,383 --> 00:29:29,284 - One day, I come home and my wife says, 466 00:29:31,459 --> 00:29:34,082 "I didn't know you had arranged 467 00:29:34,117 --> 00:29:35,739 "for the telephone company to come 468 00:29:37,051 --> 00:29:40,123 "and put in new wiring for our phones." 469 00:29:41,469 --> 00:29:43,678 I said, "What are you talking about?" 470 00:29:43,712 --> 00:29:45,542 She said, "I don't know, they just put in 471 00:29:45,576 --> 00:29:48,648 "a whole new thing into one of our closets." 472 00:29:50,374 --> 00:29:53,515 I thought about it maybe several hours later and I said, 473 00:29:55,310 --> 00:29:57,554 I said "Ann, did they call you?" 474 00:29:57,588 --> 00:29:59,211 "Yeah, they called me up. 475 00:29:59,245 --> 00:30:00,799 "They said they had talked to you." 476 00:30:03,836 --> 00:30:09,635 And shortly after that, I began to think that, 477 00:30:09,669 --> 00:30:12,500 okay, my phone was tapped. 478 00:30:16,780 --> 00:30:23,235 - Just a few weeks later in early August of 1963, 479 00:30:23,269 --> 00:30:26,825 Dr. King goes to stay at Jones' home for a few days. 480 00:30:28,412 --> 00:30:33,141 Hearing Dr. King on the Jones' home wiretap 481 00:30:33,176 --> 00:30:39,251 is the accidental way by which the FBI first learns 482 00:30:39,285 --> 00:30:42,564 that King has this non-monogamous private life. 483 00:30:45,015 --> 00:30:49,709 And with those intercepts of King at Clarence Jones' home, 484 00:30:50,779 --> 00:30:52,954 the Bureau's motivation shift. 485 00:30:55,198 --> 00:30:56,164 - Yes. 486 00:30:56,199 --> 00:30:57,510 - O'Hara? - Yes? 487 00:30:57,545 --> 00:31:00,099 - Gaines. Maybe I got something. 488 00:31:00,134 --> 00:31:00,928 - I'll be right over. 489 00:31:00,962 --> 00:31:02,619 - Right. 490 00:31:02,653 --> 00:31:04,276 - It's crystal clear that what the Bureau, 491 00:31:04,310 --> 00:31:07,693 by the end of 1963 wants, 492 00:31:07,727 --> 00:31:11,524 is to get recordings of King having sexual relations 493 00:31:11,559 --> 00:31:12,871 with various girlfriends. 494 00:31:19,222 --> 00:31:21,810 - Here's the rare opportunity we promised. 495 00:31:21,845 --> 00:31:23,536 Here's one of the great voices in America, 496 00:31:23,571 --> 00:31:24,779 Dr. Martin Luther King. 497 00:31:38,966 --> 00:31:39,898 - It's rare, Doctor, that we get a chance 498 00:31:39,932 --> 00:31:41,727 to see you in New York. 499 00:31:41,761 --> 00:31:42,935 Are we cover, 500 00:31:42,970 --> 00:31:43,867 oh yes, with the microphone over there. 501 00:31:44,937 --> 00:31:46,559 Do you visit here often? 502 00:31:46,594 --> 00:31:51,116 - Oh, I'm in New York almost every other week at least. 503 00:31:51,150 --> 00:31:53,739 There's always something happening in New York, 504 00:31:53,773 --> 00:31:56,224 so you can't avoid coming to New York. 505 00:31:56,259 --> 00:31:58,571 - You've discovered it's a fun city? 506 00:31:58,606 --> 00:31:59,987 - Well, I haven't... 507 00:32:01,781 --> 00:32:05,233 - I haven't quite discovered that side of New York. 508 00:32:05,268 --> 00:32:06,855 Being a Baptist clergyman, 509 00:32:06,890 --> 00:32:08,927 they keep me involved in other areas. 510 00:32:08,961 --> 00:32:09,824 - Right. 511 00:32:11,274 --> 00:32:13,932 - Your home is actually in Atlanta. 512 00:32:13,966 --> 00:32:15,347 - Atlanta, that's right. - Atlanta, Georgia. 513 00:32:15,381 --> 00:32:16,969 Have you lived there all your life? 514 00:32:19,385 --> 00:32:20,766 - I was born in Atlanta 515 00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:24,149 and went to school in Atlanta through college, 516 00:32:24,183 --> 00:32:27,324 and then I went to theological seminary 517 00:32:27,359 --> 00:32:29,809 and graduate school in the North. 518 00:32:31,225 --> 00:32:33,606 - Mrs. King, of course lives in Atlanta. 519 00:32:33,641 --> 00:32:37,886 - Oh yes, she is from Alabama originally, but, 520 00:32:37,921 --> 00:32:40,613 - All along, I have supported my husband. 521 00:32:40,648 --> 00:32:43,513 Whatever happens to him, it happens to me. 522 00:32:44,997 --> 00:32:46,171 - And children? 523 00:32:46,205 --> 00:32:47,517 - Yes, we have four children. 524 00:32:47,551 --> 00:32:50,451 - Ah, What would their ages be, Doctor? 525 00:32:50,485 --> 00:32:54,903 - 11, 9, 6 and 4. 526 00:32:54,938 --> 00:32:59,115 We have two girls and two boys. 527 00:32:59,149 --> 00:33:01,117 - Do you have a church at this time in Atlanta? 528 00:33:01,151 --> 00:33:03,982 - Yes, I'm the co-pastor 529 00:33:04,016 --> 00:33:06,639 of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, 530 00:33:06,674 --> 00:33:08,710 and my father is pastor. 531 00:33:08,745 --> 00:33:11,058 - Both you and your father. 532 00:33:11,092 --> 00:33:15,890 - Well, he makes it clear sometimes consciously 533 00:33:15,924 --> 00:33:22,000 and sometimes unconsciously, that he is the pastor. 534 00:33:22,034 --> 00:33:23,070 - Right. - And I'm the co-pastor. 535 00:33:26,590 --> 00:33:29,007 - What has the civil rights movement done 536 00:33:29,041 --> 00:33:32,148 to the Negro individually? 537 00:33:32,182 --> 00:33:34,495 - Well, I think the greatest thing that it has done 538 00:33:34,529 --> 00:33:36,842 is that it has given the Negro 539 00:33:36,876 --> 00:33:41,088 a new sense of somebodiness. 540 00:33:41,122 --> 00:33:43,159 The Negro has straightened his back up, so to speak, 541 00:33:43,193 --> 00:33:47,025 and you can't ride a man's back unless it's bent. 542 00:33:47,059 --> 00:33:50,269 And I'm not at all pessimistic about the future, 543 00:33:50,304 --> 00:33:54,515 because I think the Negro has a kind of determination, 544 00:33:54,549 --> 00:34:00,762 and I think there are numerous allies in the White community 545 00:34:00,797 --> 00:34:02,350 with the same kind of determination. 546 00:34:02,385 --> 00:34:08,046 And with this kind of creative and constructive coalition, 547 00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:09,530 we can move forward, 548 00:34:09,564 --> 00:34:11,877 even to solve these more difficult problems 549 00:34:11,911 --> 00:34:13,154 that I have mentioned. 550 00:34:38,835 --> 00:34:40,216 - Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, 551 00:34:40,250 --> 00:34:42,390 to "Let's Look at Congress". 552 00:34:42,425 --> 00:34:45,083 Today I have a guest for you 553 00:34:45,117 --> 00:34:48,396 that I know will be a great treat to see. 554 00:34:48,431 --> 00:34:50,398 - Congressman Keating, I am very happy indeed 555 00:34:50,433 --> 00:34:51,917 to have this opportunity 556 00:34:51,951 --> 00:34:54,816 of appearing with you on your television program. 557 00:34:54,851 --> 00:34:57,509 - And Mr. Hoover, to what extent 558 00:34:57,543 --> 00:35:00,581 do you in your work use wiretapping? 559 00:35:00,615 --> 00:35:02,997 That's always a question that people wonder about. 560 00:35:03,031 --> 00:35:04,343 - I'm very glad you asked me that question, 561 00:35:04,378 --> 00:35:06,104 Congressman Keating. 562 00:35:06,138 --> 00:35:09,245 The FBI was authorized to utilize wiretaps 563 00:35:09,279 --> 00:35:11,868 only in those cases involving treason, 564 00:35:11,902 --> 00:35:15,251 or subversive activities, sabotage and espionage. 565 00:35:15,285 --> 00:35:16,838 And I can say to you as of this moment, 566 00:35:16,873 --> 00:35:20,118 there are less than 90 wiretaps in the entire United States 567 00:35:20,152 --> 00:35:22,258 and territories of our country. 568 00:35:22,292 --> 00:35:25,123 - While I'm sure that will disabuse many people's minds 569 00:35:25,157 --> 00:35:27,435 of the wide use of it, 570 00:35:27,470 --> 00:35:31,129 - The FBI had sort of interesting set of policies 571 00:35:31,163 --> 00:35:32,958 about surveillance. 572 00:35:32,992 --> 00:35:35,029 There'd been a lot of public discussion, 573 00:35:35,063 --> 00:35:37,031 a lot of court cases around wiretapping. 574 00:35:37,065 --> 00:35:39,965 So that's the telephone. 575 00:35:39,999 --> 00:35:42,692 - Often, when the FBI was gonna wiretap someone, 576 00:35:42,726 --> 00:35:46,144 they had to get the authority of the Attorney General. 577 00:35:46,178 --> 00:35:49,285 That was policy that was more or less law. 578 00:35:49,319 --> 00:35:52,529 - My colleagues and I in the Department of Justice 579 00:35:52,564 --> 00:35:56,637 are your representatives in the federal courts of the land. 580 00:35:56,671 --> 00:35:58,811 - Citing the danger of Levison 581 00:35:58,846 --> 00:36:01,952 and King's apparent dishonesty, 582 00:36:03,333 --> 00:36:06,819 Robert Kennedy authorizes for the first time, 583 00:36:06,854 --> 00:36:10,202 wiretaps on King himself in Atlanta. 584 00:36:14,033 --> 00:36:19,832 The FBI is not really telling Attorney General Kennedy 585 00:36:19,867 --> 00:36:24,009 that it has this other agenda. 586 00:36:24,043 --> 00:36:27,012 - When the FBI first started conducting 587 00:36:27,046 --> 00:36:29,670 overt surveillance of King, 588 00:36:29,704 --> 00:36:32,845 it really had something of a national security logic, 589 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,193 or at least they presented it that way. 590 00:36:35,227 --> 00:36:38,023 The theory was, there were communists 591 00:36:38,057 --> 00:36:39,438 within the civil rights movement, 592 00:36:39,473 --> 00:36:43,339 the Communist Party was very tied to the Soviet Union, 593 00:36:43,373 --> 00:36:46,342 but one of the things that I think we can take from this 594 00:36:46,376 --> 00:36:52,279 is how easy it is for that to morph into something else. 595 00:36:52,313 --> 00:36:55,627 As those taps, and as that surveillance really began, 596 00:36:55,661 --> 00:36:59,424 the FBI found out all sorts of things about King. 597 00:36:59,458 --> 00:37:02,979 And very quickly, while they still had some concern 598 00:37:03,013 --> 00:37:04,981 with the communist question, 599 00:37:05,015 --> 00:37:07,225 it begins to become something 600 00:37:07,259 --> 00:37:09,951 that's much more about King's personal life, 601 00:37:09,986 --> 00:37:13,058 about him as a man, about his sex life, 602 00:37:13,092 --> 00:37:16,268 about his family, about his confidants, 603 00:37:16,303 --> 00:37:18,926 and about really his private life. 604 00:37:20,755 --> 00:37:23,171 It happened really without the approval 605 00:37:23,206 --> 00:37:25,933 or authority of anyone outside of the FBI. 606 00:37:36,495 --> 00:37:39,395 - As soon as the wiretap on King's home 607 00:37:39,429 --> 00:37:42,915 begins in late 1963, 608 00:37:42,950 --> 00:37:49,163 within weeks, the FBI begins convening meetings 609 00:37:49,197 --> 00:37:51,821 to discuss, how can we further exploit 610 00:37:51,855 --> 00:37:53,995 all of these extramarital recordings? 611 00:37:56,135 --> 00:38:00,278 And that is transparently why Bill Sullivan, 612 00:38:00,312 --> 00:38:03,591 as the head of FBI Domestic Intelligence, 613 00:38:03,626 --> 00:38:07,043 made the decision that the FBI should expand 614 00:38:07,077 --> 00:38:10,322 its electronic surveillance of Dr. King, 615 00:38:10,357 --> 00:38:15,016 from just wiretapping, to also using microphones, AKA bugs. 616 00:38:17,881 --> 00:38:20,884 Sullivan's focus was collecting 617 00:38:20,919 --> 00:38:24,336 salacious sexual material on King. 618 00:38:28,236 --> 00:38:30,031 - And the FBI had a very elaborate 619 00:38:30,066 --> 00:38:32,137 and very complicated process 620 00:38:32,171 --> 00:38:35,105 for getting those bugs to the right places. 621 00:38:38,730 --> 00:38:41,629 - Call Blandon. 622 00:38:41,664 --> 00:38:45,046 - Now, in a Willard Hotel type of situation, 623 00:38:45,081 --> 00:38:49,154 the FBI and its buddies on the hotel staff 624 00:38:49,188 --> 00:38:51,398 could decide in advance, 625 00:38:51,432 --> 00:38:55,160 what room is Martin Luther King gonna be assigned to, 626 00:38:55,194 --> 00:38:58,128 and have the microphones in place. 627 00:39:00,855 --> 00:39:04,928 - They would set up the bugs in his hotel rooms, 628 00:39:04,963 --> 00:39:07,759 and usually would take the room either next door 629 00:39:07,793 --> 00:39:09,657 or downstairs somewhere, 630 00:39:09,692 --> 00:39:11,763 where they could affect listen to the recordings, 631 00:39:11,797 --> 00:39:13,005 monitor what was going on, 632 00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:14,593 and sometimes, you know, 633 00:39:14,628 --> 00:39:18,494 observe physically who was going in and out of the room, 634 00:39:18,528 --> 00:39:20,185 'cause when you have a recording, 635 00:39:20,219 --> 00:39:21,773 all you have are a bunch of voices. 636 00:39:21,807 --> 00:39:24,189 One of the challenges of those recordings 637 00:39:24,223 --> 00:39:25,915 is trying to figure out, 638 00:39:25,949 --> 00:39:28,193 particularly in sexual situations 639 00:39:28,227 --> 00:39:30,437 with more than a couple of people involved, 640 00:39:30,471 --> 00:39:32,749 who's saying what, who's doing what? 641 00:39:32,784 --> 00:39:34,958 And so there was physical surveillance then involved, 642 00:39:34,993 --> 00:39:39,031 to know who was in the room, who appeared to sound what way, 643 00:39:39,066 --> 00:39:40,378 and what they might be up to. 644 00:39:42,828 --> 00:39:44,451 - Down this Avenue of sadness, 645 00:39:44,485 --> 00:39:47,143 they bring President John F. Kennedy, martyred hero, 646 00:39:47,177 --> 00:39:50,802 to lie in state under the great dome of the Capitol. 647 00:39:50,836 --> 00:39:54,392 - No memorial, oration or eulogy 648 00:39:54,426 --> 00:39:58,982 could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory, 649 00:39:59,017 --> 00:40:02,607 than the earliest possible passage 650 00:40:02,641 --> 00:40:05,713 of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long. 651 00:40:10,856 --> 00:40:12,168 - Congress passes 652 00:40:12,202 --> 00:40:13,238 the most sweeping civil rights bill 653 00:40:13,272 --> 00:40:15,343 ever to be written into the law. 654 00:40:15,378 --> 00:40:18,554 And thus reaffirms the conception of equality for all men, 655 00:40:18,588 --> 00:40:22,454 that began with Lincoln and the Civil War, 100 years ago. 656 00:40:22,489 --> 00:40:24,422 The Negro won his freedom then, 657 00:40:24,456 --> 00:40:26,113 he wins his dignity now. 658 00:40:28,702 --> 00:40:30,566 Five hours after the House passes the measure, 659 00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,811 the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed at the white House 660 00:40:34,846 --> 00:40:36,641 by President Johnson. 661 00:40:36,675 --> 00:40:39,333 Before an audience of legislators and civil rights leaders 662 00:40:39,367 --> 00:40:42,440 who have labored long and hard for passage of the bill, 663 00:40:42,474 --> 00:40:44,925 President Johnson calls for all Americans, 664 00:40:44,959 --> 00:40:48,653 to back what he calls, "A turning point in history." 665 00:40:52,898 --> 00:40:55,867 Integration leader, Martin Luther King, receives his pen, 666 00:40:55,901 --> 00:40:57,765 a gift he said he would cherish. 667 00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,355 The Department of Justice will enforce the law if necessary, 668 00:41:01,389 --> 00:41:03,495 And G-man chief, J. Edgar Hoover, is present. 669 00:41:07,810 --> 00:41:10,122 Now in this summer of 1964, 670 00:41:10,157 --> 00:41:12,780 the Civil Rights Bill is the law of the land. 671 00:41:12,815 --> 00:41:14,230 In the words of the president, 672 00:41:14,264 --> 00:41:16,301 it restricts no one's freedom, 673 00:41:16,335 --> 00:41:18,510 so long as he respects the rights of others. 674 00:41:25,655 --> 00:41:30,418 - This is an extremely moving moment in my life. 675 00:41:38,910 --> 00:41:40,498 - We didn't know anything about it. 676 00:41:40,532 --> 00:41:44,502 We didn't even know that Dr. King had been nominated 677 00:41:44,536 --> 00:41:47,021 until it was announced that he had received the Nobel Prize. 678 00:41:48,747 --> 00:41:53,234 - I do not consider this, merely an honor to me personally, 679 00:41:53,269 --> 00:41:57,653 but a tribute to the discipline, wise restraint 680 00:41:57,687 --> 00:42:03,417 and majestic courage of the millions of gallant Negros 681 00:42:03,451 --> 00:42:05,523 and White persons of goodwill 682 00:42:05,557 --> 00:42:08,353 who have followed a non-violent course 683 00:42:08,387 --> 00:42:11,736 in seeking to establish the reign of justice 684 00:42:11,770 --> 00:42:16,775 and the rule of love across this nation of ours. 685 00:42:16,810 --> 00:42:19,019 - Do you plan to go personally, do you? 686 00:42:19,053 --> 00:42:20,261 - Yes, I definitely plan to go. 687 00:42:20,296 --> 00:42:21,849 - The missus can go with you? 688 00:42:21,884 --> 00:42:24,542 - Well, I certainly hope so, 689 00:42:24,576 --> 00:42:28,131 and I'm sure that we can work out 690 00:42:28,166 --> 00:42:29,616 a way for her to get there, 691 00:42:29,650 --> 00:42:32,101 being a mother and four children, 692 00:42:32,135 --> 00:42:33,930 it's not easy to get away all the time, 693 00:42:33,965 --> 00:42:36,864 but I'm sure that on this occasion, 694 00:42:36,899 --> 00:42:38,348 she will be accompanying me. 695 00:42:42,629 --> 00:42:45,217 - I was with him down in Bimini, 696 00:42:45,252 --> 00:42:47,703 shortly after the announcement. 697 00:42:47,737 --> 00:42:51,154 Bimini didn't have any phones and there was no television. 698 00:42:51,189 --> 00:42:53,087 There was nothing much to do on Bimini, 699 00:42:54,433 --> 00:42:58,541 and he was working on his Nobel Prize speech, 700 00:43:00,025 --> 00:43:02,718 but all of a sudden, 701 00:43:02,752 --> 00:43:04,754 you know, these helicopters started coming in. 702 00:43:09,034 --> 00:43:11,727 It was all the national press 703 00:43:11,761 --> 00:43:13,383 that had found out where we were. 704 00:43:15,282 --> 00:43:16,801 And they came and they told us 705 00:43:16,835 --> 00:43:22,738 that Hoover had made the speech to a women's organization, 706 00:43:22,772 --> 00:43:25,706 that Martin Luther King was the world's most notorious liar. 707 00:43:28,571 --> 00:43:33,231 Well, I don't know what he was lying about. 708 00:43:35,854 --> 00:43:39,617 - Well, naturally I was shocked and greatly surprised 709 00:43:39,651 --> 00:43:43,655 that Mr. Hoover would make such an unwarranted 710 00:43:43,690 --> 00:43:46,175 and vicious accusation. 711 00:43:46,209 --> 00:43:49,350 I don't think Mr. Hoover would have made such a statement 712 00:43:49,385 --> 00:43:52,837 if he had not been under a great deal of pressure. 713 00:43:52,871 --> 00:43:55,633 - Do you believe the FBI is doing all it can 714 00:43:55,667 --> 00:43:58,843 to resolve civil rights complaints? 715 00:43:58,877 --> 00:44:01,397 - While I don't know all of the inner workings of the FBI, 716 00:44:01,431 --> 00:44:04,849 I do know that in cases 717 00:44:04,883 --> 00:44:08,473 that do not involve Negros and civil rights, 718 00:44:08,507 --> 00:44:10,371 the FBI moves with dispatch, 719 00:44:10,406 --> 00:44:12,650 it has the machinery, the know-how. 720 00:44:12,684 --> 00:44:14,790 The fact remains that in spite 721 00:44:14,824 --> 00:44:17,655 of all of the brutalities we faced in Albany, Georgia, 722 00:44:17,689 --> 00:44:19,242 not a single arrest was made, 723 00:44:19,277 --> 00:44:21,659 in spite of the fact that four 724 00:44:21,693 --> 00:44:24,213 unoffending innocent Negro girls 725 00:44:24,247 --> 00:44:27,423 were brutally murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 726 00:44:27,457 --> 00:44:29,805 not a single arrest has been made. 727 00:44:29,839 --> 00:44:32,980 And in spite of the fact that the civil rights workers 728 00:44:33,015 --> 00:44:35,500 were killed this summer in Mississippi, 729 00:44:35,534 --> 00:44:38,054 we haven't seen a single arrest. 730 00:44:40,539 --> 00:44:42,818 - After Hoover denounced Martin Luther King 731 00:44:42,852 --> 00:44:47,236 as the most notorious liar in the United States, 732 00:44:47,270 --> 00:44:51,378 it produced a real showdown between Hoover and King. 733 00:44:52,862 --> 00:44:55,106 - I have an old comment to make on that. 734 00:44:55,140 --> 00:44:56,521 - How are you feeling, Mr. Hoover? 735 00:44:56,555 --> 00:44:57,695 - Excellent. 736 00:44:57,729 --> 00:44:59,731 - Is there any response on your part 737 00:44:59,766 --> 00:45:02,596 to the suggestions that you resign? 738 00:45:02,630 --> 00:45:03,666 - That's the wish. 739 00:45:05,323 --> 00:45:07,325 - Thank you very much, sir. 740 00:45:10,155 --> 00:45:15,747 - Hoover and King only met face-to-face once. 741 00:45:15,782 --> 00:45:20,131 They agreed to sit down on Hoover's turf in Hoover's office, 742 00:45:20,165 --> 00:45:22,098 and try to make peace. 743 00:45:28,656 --> 00:45:30,210 King showed up. 744 00:45:30,244 --> 00:45:34,973 He brought a few of his closest advisers and aides with him. 745 00:45:35,008 --> 00:45:37,562 There was no press inside that office 746 00:45:37,596 --> 00:45:40,738 when they sat down together. 747 00:45:40,772 --> 00:45:44,362 By all accounts, Hoover kinda talked at them for awhile, 748 00:45:46,088 --> 00:45:48,746 and then King emerged saying, 749 00:45:48,780 --> 00:45:51,749 You know, all good. 750 00:45:51,783 --> 00:45:54,165 - Did he apologize to you or in any way indicate regret 751 00:45:54,199 --> 00:45:55,822 for what he had said? 752 00:45:55,856 --> 00:45:58,790 - Well, I must say that the conference was friendly 753 00:45:58,825 --> 00:46:04,692 and that Mr. Hoover talked in a very amiable away, 754 00:46:04,727 --> 00:46:08,489 so that, in a very friendly manner. 755 00:46:08,524 --> 00:46:10,975 The whole talk was very friendly, 756 00:46:11,009 --> 00:46:14,772 and I think he saw it to get over through some of the, 757 00:46:14,806 --> 00:46:17,671 - Do you feel your visit here then was a success, 758 00:46:17,705 --> 00:46:19,362 or how would you characterize it? 759 00:46:19,397 --> 00:46:21,157 - Well, I would say it was a success 760 00:46:21,192 --> 00:46:24,851 in the sense that I think we developed 761 00:46:24,885 --> 00:46:26,853 new levels of understanding, 762 00:46:26,887 --> 00:46:28,440 and as I said to him in the beginning, 763 00:46:28,475 --> 00:46:30,788 I felt that this was a basic necessity. 764 00:46:30,822 --> 00:46:32,099 - Did he specifically mention his comment 765 00:46:32,134 --> 00:46:33,135 about being a liar? 766 00:46:34,653 --> 00:46:37,484 - I think we'll have to end it here. 767 00:46:40,418 --> 00:46:42,178 - Ultimately King and Hoover 768 00:46:42,213 --> 00:46:45,872 pretended to come to some sort of accord out of that, 769 00:46:45,906 --> 00:46:47,563 but it was a big controversy 770 00:46:47,597 --> 00:46:50,048 and it was a polarizing controversy. 771 00:46:50,083 --> 00:46:52,948 - What do you think of Martin Luther King? 772 00:46:52,982 --> 00:46:54,397 - Well sir, I don't know. 773 00:46:54,432 --> 00:46:55,709 I read a lot about him. 774 00:46:55,743 --> 00:46:59,817 - Well, I don't care for him. He's too bossy. 775 00:46:59,851 --> 00:47:01,404 Thinks he's too smart. 776 00:47:01,439 --> 00:47:05,753 - I think he's a very wonderful man trying to help our race. 777 00:47:05,788 --> 00:47:09,827 - Well, you know what Hoover thought about him. 778 00:47:09,861 --> 00:47:13,209 I think he's about 10 times as bad as Hoover said. 779 00:47:13,244 --> 00:47:15,591 - Wait, why do you feel that way, sir? 780 00:47:15,625 --> 00:47:18,387 - Well, I guess from all the trouble 781 00:47:18,421 --> 00:47:19,940 he's caused in this country, 782 00:47:20,941 --> 00:47:23,081 all this rioting and things, 783 00:47:23,116 --> 00:47:25,394 I just think he's about the worst, 784 00:47:25,428 --> 00:47:27,223 if he is a human, about the worst in the world. 785 00:47:29,812 --> 00:47:32,090 - Probably my favorite public opinion poll, 786 00:47:32,125 --> 00:47:33,678 which tells us something 787 00:47:33,712 --> 00:47:36,439 about how radically different this moment was, 788 00:47:36,474 --> 00:47:39,097 in the aftermath of that showdown, 789 00:47:39,132 --> 00:47:43,239 fully 50% of the public sided with J. Edgar Hoover, 790 00:47:43,274 --> 00:47:46,691 around 15, 20% sided with Martin Luther King, 791 00:47:46,725 --> 00:47:48,175 and a bunch of other people 792 00:47:48,210 --> 00:47:49,694 said they weren't following it and didn't know, 793 00:47:49,728 --> 00:47:53,698 but Hoover was the universally beloved figure, 794 00:47:53,732 --> 00:47:56,183 King was the controversial figure, 795 00:47:56,218 --> 00:47:58,047 and I think we tend to forget that. 796 00:48:12,510 --> 00:48:13,891 - One of the things 797 00:48:13,925 --> 00:48:15,547 that's helped to legitimize the FBI 798 00:48:15,582 --> 00:48:17,549 is American popular culture. 799 00:48:17,584 --> 00:48:19,275 - The FBI. 800 00:48:19,310 --> 00:48:21,139 - I think that we're constantly battling 801 00:48:21,174 --> 00:48:24,315 with popular representations of police, FBI, 802 00:48:24,349 --> 00:48:25,385 and federal agents, 803 00:48:25,419 --> 00:48:26,558 - NY-20, go ahead. 804 00:48:26,593 --> 00:48:28,491 - As our saviors. 805 00:48:33,013 --> 00:48:36,568 - The FBI was incredibly good under Hoover 806 00:48:36,603 --> 00:48:39,571 at promoting an image of itself, 807 00:48:39,606 --> 00:48:44,404 really as the heroes of America. 808 00:48:44,438 --> 00:48:48,235 - Hey Mr. Hoover, your G-men sure are good. 809 00:48:48,270 --> 00:48:50,997 I'd like to be one when I grow up. 810 00:48:51,031 --> 00:48:54,379 - If you work hard, play hard, you're gonna one. 811 00:48:56,209 --> 00:49:00,938 - one of the most important things that Hoover did 812 00:49:00,972 --> 00:49:06,771 was to create a Bureau, really in his own image. 813 00:49:06,805 --> 00:49:09,947 That meant that he hired a very particular kind of person 814 00:49:09,981 --> 00:49:11,603 as an agent. 815 00:49:11,638 --> 00:49:14,434 A relatively conservative White man 816 00:49:14,468 --> 00:49:17,264 of a certain height and a certain weight. 817 00:49:17,299 --> 00:49:22,442 He particularly liked fraternity boys and football players, 818 00:49:22,476 --> 00:49:25,203 but there's a reason that people know 819 00:49:25,238 --> 00:49:27,792 when you say that's a G-man, 820 00:49:27,826 --> 00:49:29,897 there's something that you have in mind. 821 00:49:29,932 --> 00:49:33,108 It's a man in a suit, a White man, 822 00:49:33,142 --> 00:49:36,559 probably about six feet tall, buff, conservative, 823 00:49:36,594 --> 00:49:38,078 that was what Hoover wanted. 824 00:49:43,152 --> 00:49:45,534 - Time Magazine says that Martin Luther King, Jr. 825 00:49:45,568 --> 00:49:48,813 has made himself the unchallenged voice of the Negro people. 826 00:49:48,847 --> 00:49:50,746 That he has become to millions 827 00:49:50,780 --> 00:49:52,920 in the North and in the South, 828 00:49:52,955 --> 00:49:54,992 the symbol of the Negro revolution. 829 00:49:55,026 --> 00:49:56,821 He is a member of the clergy, 830 00:49:56,855 --> 00:49:58,823 he has been called the American Gandhi, 831 00:49:58,857 --> 00:50:01,067 he is with us today from Atlanta, Georgia, 832 00:50:01,101 --> 00:50:02,654 where he is president 833 00:50:02,689 --> 00:50:04,415 of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 834 00:50:04,449 --> 00:50:06,934 We'll have a question now from Gay Pauley. 835 00:50:06,969 --> 00:50:10,007 - The non-violence always end up with violence, 836 00:50:10,041 --> 00:50:11,629 or almost always, Dr. King. 837 00:50:13,700 --> 00:50:16,944 What excuse or what reason 838 00:50:16,979 --> 00:50:18,912 do you offer for this approach 839 00:50:18,946 --> 00:50:21,673 of creating a crisis atmosphere in a community, 840 00:50:21,708 --> 00:50:23,399 which leads to bloodshed, 841 00:50:23,434 --> 00:50:25,850 as it has in many Southern cities and some Northern? 842 00:50:25,884 --> 00:50:27,162 - Well, I think we should see 843 00:50:27,196 --> 00:50:29,854 the source of the bloodshed first, 844 00:50:29,888 --> 00:50:34,169 and we must understand the real non-violent creed. 845 00:50:34,203 --> 00:50:37,172 - Well, doesn't this crisis atmosphere though, 846 00:50:37,206 --> 00:50:39,795 create or endanger the Negro's cause 847 00:50:39,829 --> 00:50:42,177 by creating among the Whites a resentment 848 00:50:42,211 --> 00:50:45,042 or feeling that the Negro is moving too rapidly, 849 00:50:46,388 --> 00:50:48,355 asking too much so suddenly? 850 00:50:48,390 --> 00:50:50,530 Does this worry you that this atmosphere 851 00:50:50,564 --> 00:50:52,532 could be created, or is? 852 00:50:52,566 --> 00:50:55,052 - Well, I think this is a temporary response 853 00:50:55,086 --> 00:50:56,984 in any social revolution. 854 00:50:57,019 --> 00:50:58,538 - Or doesn't it hurt your cause? 855 00:50:58,572 --> 00:50:59,780 - I don't think so. 856 00:50:59,815 --> 00:51:01,437 Ultimately I think it helps it 857 00:51:01,472 --> 00:51:02,990 in the final analysis. 858 00:51:03,025 --> 00:51:06,373 The only way people can grapple with their prejudices 859 00:51:06,408 --> 00:51:09,066 is to admit that they have them. 860 00:51:09,100 --> 00:51:12,552 And so often people don't realize they have them, 861 00:51:12,586 --> 00:51:15,002 and so often people don't realize 862 00:51:15,037 --> 00:51:18,385 or honestly acknowledge that that is a problem. 863 00:51:18,420 --> 00:51:22,562 And it is necessary, in the nonviolent movement, 864 00:51:22,596 --> 00:51:24,391 to bring the issue to the surface 865 00:51:24,426 --> 00:51:29,016 so that people are forced to deal with it, 866 00:51:29,051 --> 00:51:32,330 and to deal with their conscience on the issue. 867 00:52:37,119 --> 00:52:38,672 - I call upon you. 868 00:52:56,587 --> 00:53:01,385 I have the great honor on behalf of the Nobel Committee, 869 00:53:06,286 --> 00:53:10,635 to hand over to you the insignia of the Nobel Peace Prize, 870 00:53:14,432 --> 00:53:17,539 the Diploma and the gold medal. 871 00:53:19,057 --> 00:53:23,200 - Thank you very much. - Thank you very much. 872 00:53:31,380 --> 00:53:35,936 - Now, this is the greatest honor that King has received. 873 00:53:37,662 --> 00:53:39,975 And the fact that King is now being 874 00:53:40,009 --> 00:53:44,531 internationally celebrated as a moral leader, 875 00:53:44,566 --> 00:53:48,190 deeply angers and offends both Hoover and Sullivan. 876 00:53:50,675 --> 00:53:53,713 - He was upset that this young Black man, 877 00:53:53,747 --> 00:53:58,442 who I think at that time was 34, 35, 878 00:53:58,476 --> 00:54:01,238 is being recognized around the world 879 00:54:01,272 --> 00:54:05,380 as a pioneer in peace and justice. 880 00:54:05,414 --> 00:54:08,866 Hoover was being ignored, and he blamed us. 881 00:54:13,526 --> 00:54:16,391 - Now, what am I gonna do about Martin Luther King 882 00:54:16,425 --> 00:54:19,739 with all these reports that are coming in on him all night? 883 00:54:19,773 --> 00:54:21,085 And there's somebody, 884 00:54:21,119 --> 00:54:24,882 did somebody tell him, watch his conduct? 885 00:54:48,319 --> 00:54:51,011 now, they're pressing me to attend a dinner in his honor 886 00:54:51,046 --> 00:54:51,978 in New York. 887 00:54:53,635 --> 00:54:54,981 I can't do that, can I? 888 00:54:57,155 --> 00:54:58,950 - I would think you could, 889 00:54:58,985 --> 00:55:00,297 but I wouldn't advise you to. 890 00:55:00,331 --> 00:55:02,160 I'd find some other reason why you can't. 891 00:55:10,410 --> 00:55:12,447 - The FBI is frustrated 892 00:55:12,481 --> 00:55:16,968 that even though they've successfully caught King 893 00:55:17,003 --> 00:55:19,557 in 15 or more hotel rooms, 894 00:55:19,592 --> 00:55:22,457 and they've distributed this behind the scenes 895 00:55:22,491 --> 00:55:24,804 to church leaders, to reporters, 896 00:55:24,838 --> 00:55:27,324 nothing's publicly happened. 897 00:55:27,358 --> 00:55:31,466 That despite all of the hundreds and hundreds of man hours 898 00:55:31,500 --> 00:55:33,088 that they've put into this, 899 00:55:33,122 --> 00:55:35,021 King has not been personally destroyed. 900 00:55:37,195 --> 00:55:40,267 - For Hoover, you know, a lot of this is framed 901 00:55:40,302 --> 00:55:42,546 as a matter of hypocrisy. 902 00:55:42,580 --> 00:55:44,755 Here's the sainted minister 903 00:55:44,789 --> 00:55:47,240 presenting himself as this great moral authority, 904 00:55:47,274 --> 00:55:49,104 but we actually know he's this sick, 905 00:55:49,138 --> 00:55:51,002 dirty, perverted creature. 906 00:55:51,037 --> 00:55:56,111 And you see that kind of language all over FBI documents. 907 00:55:56,145 --> 00:55:57,906 - The FBI surveillance of Dr. King, 908 00:55:57,940 --> 00:56:01,012 it was special in the fact that whatever city he went to, 909 00:56:01,047 --> 00:56:03,083 it was all hands on deck. 910 00:56:03,118 --> 00:56:04,361 Everything else stopped. 911 00:56:06,397 --> 00:56:09,193 Hoover was obsessed with Martin Luther King 912 00:56:09,227 --> 00:56:10,505 and his activities. 913 00:56:10,539 --> 00:56:13,128 From what I heard, there were some photographs, 914 00:56:13,162 --> 00:56:14,509 whoever was in them, 915 00:56:14,543 --> 00:56:17,960 that just kind of fed that mindset of Hoover 916 00:56:17,995 --> 00:56:19,962 but this was a dangerous man 917 00:56:19,997 --> 00:56:21,550 and they need to be removed. 918 00:56:23,241 --> 00:56:24,967 - Now, this is not the way 919 00:56:25,002 --> 00:56:29,109 that Sullivan or Hoover themselves would have said it, 920 00:56:29,144 --> 00:56:34,943 but there was a radicalism to King's sexuality 921 00:56:34,977 --> 00:56:37,290 that they viewed as offensive. 922 00:56:37,324 --> 00:56:38,705 - For Hoover in particular, 923 00:56:38,740 --> 00:56:42,537 he himself tried to be a very tightly controlled person 924 00:56:42,571 --> 00:56:45,609 when it came to matters of his personal life 925 00:56:45,643 --> 00:56:47,231 and his sexuality 926 00:56:47,265 --> 00:56:49,233 and the way that he policed the boundaries of that. 927 00:56:49,267 --> 00:56:52,547 Now that's a complicated story in its own right. 928 00:56:52,581 --> 00:56:55,342 - Hoover, and particularly Bill Sullivan, 929 00:56:55,377 --> 00:56:57,828 the head of Domestic Intelligence, 930 00:56:57,862 --> 00:57:01,348 paternalistically thought that Martin Luther King Jr. 931 00:57:01,383 --> 00:57:06,043 was morally unfit to be a leader of Black America. 932 00:57:08,459 --> 00:57:10,737 - I think for Hoover as well, 933 00:57:10,772 --> 00:57:12,152 who was really raised 934 00:57:12,187 --> 00:57:15,017 in a Southern segregationist tradition, 935 00:57:15,052 --> 00:57:17,088 a set of really outsized fears 936 00:57:17,123 --> 00:57:19,436 about Black men's sexuality, 937 00:57:19,470 --> 00:57:22,266 about Black men as rapists, 938 00:57:22,300 --> 00:57:24,371 as people who don't know how to control 939 00:57:24,406 --> 00:57:26,857 their sexual appetites, right? 940 00:57:26,891 --> 00:57:29,653 They're looking at what they're finding out about King 941 00:57:29,687 --> 00:57:31,827 and sort of seeing it through that lens 942 00:57:31,862 --> 00:57:34,451 and narrating it through that kind of language. 943 00:57:37,971 --> 00:57:41,458 - Dr. Martin Luther King can call himself a Christian, 944 00:57:41,492 --> 00:57:44,288 and he mixes White women, colored women 945 00:57:44,322 --> 00:57:46,255 and men and women all together. 946 00:57:47,981 --> 00:57:49,776 - I think that this interest 947 00:57:49,811 --> 00:57:51,951 in the sexual life of King, 948 00:57:51,985 --> 00:57:53,780 this is just inseparable 949 00:57:53,815 --> 00:57:56,265 from the history of racial violence in the United States. 950 00:57:58,060 --> 00:58:00,407 - Now, can you look in these stripes of red on this flag, 951 00:58:00,442 --> 00:58:03,376 knowing very well that your forefathers, 952 00:58:03,410 --> 00:58:07,484 yes, yours, not mine, yours, all of them, 953 00:58:07,518 --> 00:58:09,727 that that stripe represents that blood 954 00:58:09,762 --> 00:58:12,972 that they spilled on this soil, American soil, 955 00:58:13,006 --> 00:58:15,492 something that you have never had to do 956 00:58:15,526 --> 00:58:17,804 to give you this God-given right 957 00:58:17,839 --> 00:58:19,841 of racial character and a inheritance. 958 00:58:23,534 --> 00:58:25,053 - When we think about the U.S. 959 00:58:25,087 --> 00:58:26,641 as it emerges from the Civil War, 960 00:58:26,675 --> 00:58:30,265 you have this idea that formerly enslaved people 961 00:58:30,299 --> 00:58:33,993 should be integrated into the body politic. 962 00:58:34,027 --> 00:58:36,443 And there is an enormous pushback, 963 00:58:36,478 --> 00:58:39,516 not only from supporters of the Confederacy, 964 00:58:39,550 --> 00:58:42,311 but the problem of race is a national problem as well. 965 00:58:43,312 --> 00:58:45,280 One of the core justifications 966 00:58:45,314 --> 00:58:49,353 for preventing Black male suffrage was deviance. 967 00:58:49,387 --> 00:58:51,424 That Black people are deviant. 968 00:58:51,458 --> 00:58:53,357 That Black men in the state house 969 00:58:53,391 --> 00:58:54,910 are a threat to White women. 970 00:58:54,945 --> 00:58:56,602 And it's this representation 971 00:58:56,636 --> 00:58:59,397 of Black political aspiration as sexual threat. 972 00:59:01,399 --> 00:59:04,161 And unfortunately, that's an ever recurring theme. 973 00:59:06,128 --> 00:59:09,097 This mobilization of black sexuality 974 00:59:09,131 --> 00:59:13,377 as a justification for murder, for exclusion, 975 00:59:13,411 --> 00:59:17,208 for discrimination and for incarceration. 976 00:59:17,243 --> 00:59:18,934 This is a fabric of American history. 977 00:59:24,595 --> 00:59:27,046 - This was a way that you could bring down 978 00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:31,947 a very successful, influential Black civil rights leader, 979 00:59:31,982 --> 00:59:36,780 and contain the movement by destroying its figurehead. 980 00:59:36,814 --> 00:59:39,886 And so it's at that moment that the FBI decide 981 00:59:39,921 --> 00:59:41,716 that they're really gonna operationalize, 982 00:59:41,750 --> 00:59:45,720 and go quite overtly after King. 983 00:59:45,754 --> 00:59:50,483 - When you stand up against the forces of evil, 984 00:59:50,517 --> 00:59:54,073 you will be persecuted for righteousness' sake. 985 00:59:54,107 --> 00:59:55,902 In the words of the spiritual, 986 00:59:55,937 --> 00:59:58,974 you will be buked and scorned. 987 00:59:59,009 --> 01:00:01,425 You will be talked about, you will be lied on, 988 01:00:01,459 --> 01:00:04,324 you will be persecuted in many ways, 989 01:00:04,359 --> 01:00:06,257 you will be thrown again, 990 01:00:06,292 --> 01:00:10,089 maybe into narrowed and frustrating jail cells. 991 01:00:10,123 --> 01:00:12,609 I can't promise you that you can avoid this. 992 01:00:15,542 --> 01:00:18,166 - We used to have these conference calls 993 01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:22,791 at least three times a week late at night. 994 01:00:23,965 --> 01:00:26,830 10 or 11 o'clock at night. 995 01:00:26,864 --> 01:00:30,454 And I was convinced then, the FBI was tapping our phones. 996 01:00:30,488 --> 01:00:34,113 I just said, "I'm sure they're doing it." 997 01:00:34,147 --> 01:00:38,980 Dr. King became so annoyed at me for repeatedly saying this. 998 01:00:41,741 --> 01:00:44,468 "Clarence," he said, "Don't you know the FBI 999 01:00:44,502 --> 01:00:47,540 "has got more important and better things to do 1000 01:00:49,059 --> 01:00:51,440 "than to be wiretapping our phones?" 1001 01:00:53,684 --> 01:00:57,343 But there did come a day when he became more suspicious. 1002 01:01:00,001 --> 01:01:04,902 And then there came a day, certain. 1003 01:01:04,937 --> 01:01:09,527 When the FBI mailed the tape of Dr. King with other women, 1004 01:01:16,362 --> 01:01:19,848 mailed it to him and to Coretta, 1005 01:01:22,782 --> 01:01:25,060 with an advice that he should go kill himself, 1006 01:01:26,475 --> 01:01:27,856 that's when he knew. 1007 01:01:33,551 --> 01:01:35,174 - I think there've always been 1008 01:01:35,208 --> 01:01:40,524 a couple of really important tensions within the FBI. 1009 01:01:40,558 --> 01:01:43,458 One is being a very rule-bound organization, 1010 01:01:43,492 --> 01:01:45,702 a very professional organization, 1011 01:01:45,736 --> 01:01:50,396 an organization very attuned to jurisdiction and law, 1012 01:01:52,743 --> 01:01:57,161 and then being an organization that was almost law-less. 1013 01:02:01,131 --> 01:02:02,926 - The Bureau has all of these 1014 01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:05,135 hotel room recordings, 1015 01:02:05,169 --> 01:02:08,138 and so Sullivan has his underlings 1016 01:02:08,172 --> 01:02:13,488 compose a greatest hits compendium tape, 1017 01:02:13,522 --> 01:02:15,870 and then sits down on his own typewriter, 1018 01:02:15,904 --> 01:02:19,356 to draft an anonymous threatening letter to King. 1019 01:02:23,601 --> 01:02:24,741 - This is a reportedly 1020 01:02:24,775 --> 01:02:27,744 from an admirer within the movement 1021 01:02:27,778 --> 01:02:31,402 who has found out about King's sexual indiscretions, 1022 01:02:31,437 --> 01:02:33,059 feels betrayed by it, 1023 01:02:33,094 --> 01:02:37,339 and writes this full page, really scurrilous letter 1024 01:02:37,374 --> 01:02:40,515 denouncing King as a beast and a pervert, 1025 01:02:40,549 --> 01:02:42,517 and a monster, a hypocrite, 1026 01:02:42,551 --> 01:02:46,417 and in fact saying, "I know what you've done." 1027 01:02:46,452 --> 01:02:50,318 - It's clearly a very poor quality attempt 1028 01:02:50,352 --> 01:02:53,183 of someone who is sort of culturally clueless 1029 01:02:53,217 --> 01:02:56,600 to pass as Black. 1030 01:02:56,634 --> 01:02:59,776 - They put this package together and send it off, 1031 01:02:59,810 --> 01:03:02,502 saying, "King, you know what you have to do." 1032 01:03:02,537 --> 01:03:06,541 and giving him a deadline by which he needs to do it. 1033 01:03:06,575 --> 01:03:08,370 Many people have interpreted that 1034 01:03:08,405 --> 01:03:10,614 to be that you need to kill yourself. 1035 01:03:10,648 --> 01:03:12,547 And this is one of the ways that King 1036 01:03:12,581 --> 01:03:16,516 and his confidants who saw this letter interpreted it. 1037 01:03:16,551 --> 01:03:18,173 There's some ambiguity there, 1038 01:03:18,208 --> 01:03:21,452 but it is one of the most notorious and dirty tricks 1039 01:03:21,487 --> 01:03:25,008 that the FBI ever, ever conducted in the 1960s. 1040 01:03:25,042 --> 01:03:26,181 - Have you read that letter? 1041 01:03:26,216 --> 01:03:27,734 - Yes, I have. 1042 01:03:27,769 --> 01:03:29,564 I was sick to my stomach, actually. 1043 01:03:29,598 --> 01:03:32,878 I mean, I didn't throw up, but I felt ill reading it, 1044 01:03:32,912 --> 01:03:34,638 and that's what I mean when I say, 1045 01:03:34,672 --> 01:03:37,641 I think this entire episode 1046 01:03:37,675 --> 01:03:40,368 represents the darkest part of the Bureau's history. 1047 01:03:44,406 --> 01:03:47,996 - The package was sent to the office. 1048 01:03:50,171 --> 01:03:53,174 I think it was mailed to us from somewhere in Florida. 1049 01:03:54,623 --> 01:03:56,867 We never saw it. 1050 01:03:56,902 --> 01:03:59,697 It was put in a box, and sent to Coretta. 1051 01:04:01,182 --> 01:04:04,771 So she opened it up and she played it, 1052 01:04:04,806 --> 01:04:06,843 and then she called the office and said, 1053 01:04:06,877 --> 01:04:10,156 "Look, somebody has sent a tape in here 1054 01:04:10,191 --> 01:04:13,228 "trying to get Martin to kill himself. 1055 01:04:14,885 --> 01:04:17,888 "And they have a recording 1056 01:04:17,923 --> 01:04:22,203 of some man and woman in the bed." 1057 01:04:25,551 --> 01:04:27,864 I didn't even want to hear it, you know? 1058 01:04:29,555 --> 01:04:32,385 This was designed to upset him. 1059 01:04:33,800 --> 01:04:37,045 We always assume that Hoover was behind it. 1060 01:04:40,738 --> 01:04:45,053 My philosophy about the movement is that 1061 01:04:46,744 --> 01:04:49,264 unless I saw something with my own eyes, 1062 01:04:52,060 --> 01:04:55,167 you really have to be careful what you believe. 1063 01:05:15,359 --> 01:05:18,638 - I'm here because I want you to know 1064 01:05:18,673 --> 01:05:22,263 that I'm with you and that I am with my husband. 1065 01:05:24,092 --> 01:05:30,236 As the wife a major symbol of the civil rights movement, 1066 01:05:30,271 --> 01:05:33,515 I think I can say that, without boasting, 1067 01:05:33,550 --> 01:05:34,620 I think it's a fact, 1068 01:05:37,105 --> 01:05:40,074 I have had the privilege of being perhaps 1069 01:05:40,108 --> 01:05:41,834 closer to him than anybody else, 1070 01:05:41,868 --> 01:05:44,492 and perhaps that maybe I understand him 1071 01:05:44,526 --> 01:05:46,183 better than anyone else. 1072 01:05:46,218 --> 01:05:48,772 And therefore, I think I have a pretty good understanding 1073 01:05:48,806 --> 01:05:49,911 of the whole struggle. 1074 01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:57,091 - In the immediate wake of Mrs. King, 1075 01:05:57,125 --> 01:05:59,714 Dr. King and King's closest aides 1076 01:05:59,748 --> 01:06:02,441 listening to the anonymous, 1077 01:06:02,475 --> 01:06:05,892 embarrassing tape recording from the FBI, 1078 01:06:05,927 --> 01:06:09,793 Dr. King undergoes a real emotional crisis. 1079 01:06:09,827 --> 01:06:11,381 And it's an emotional crisis 1080 01:06:11,415 --> 01:06:14,453 that the FBI is listening in on, 1081 01:06:14,487 --> 01:06:17,628 thanks to its telephone wiretaps. 1082 01:06:17,663 --> 01:06:21,356 Dr. King is desperately afraid 1083 01:06:21,391 --> 01:06:27,017 that his sex life is going to be exposed in raw detail 1084 01:06:27,052 --> 01:06:28,260 to the American public. 1085 01:06:31,849 --> 01:06:35,992 Now, his life is so busy on a day-to-day basis 1086 01:06:36,026 --> 01:06:38,304 in early 1965, 1087 01:06:38,339 --> 01:06:41,928 that he's not able to worry about this 1088 01:06:41,963 --> 01:06:45,242 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 1089 01:06:45,277 --> 01:06:47,900 He's distracted from his worries 1090 01:06:47,934 --> 01:06:49,626 a good portion of the time. 1091 01:06:50,696 --> 01:06:53,768 But the emotional impact on King 1092 01:06:53,802 --> 01:06:57,427 of what the FBI was doing to him, 1093 01:06:57,461 --> 01:06:58,807 cannot be gainsaid. 1094 01:07:02,535 --> 01:07:08,162 King was clearly in very serious emotional turmoil 1095 01:07:08,196 --> 01:07:11,406 or emotional fear, 1096 01:07:11,441 --> 01:07:15,514 and even as a few weeks went by and nothing happened, 1097 01:07:15,548 --> 01:07:19,863 King always has that worry in the back of his mind, 1098 01:07:19,897 --> 01:07:23,177 that at some point the FBI is going to get lucky, 1099 01:07:23,211 --> 01:07:26,525 and some journalist, some magazine 1100 01:07:26,559 --> 01:07:28,044 is going to print all of this. 1101 01:07:29,838 --> 01:07:36,052 - This is Highway number 80, Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. 1102 01:07:36,086 --> 01:07:38,882 You can fly it in a matter of minutes. 1103 01:07:38,916 --> 01:07:41,057 You can drive it in less than an hour, 1104 01:07:42,334 --> 01:07:47,063 or you can walk it in five days, 1105 01:07:47,097 --> 01:07:49,720 which is what this is all about. 1106 01:07:49,755 --> 01:07:52,516 - We knew that the FBI was following closely. 1107 01:07:53,517 --> 01:07:54,760 Almost everywhere we went, 1108 01:07:56,106 --> 01:07:58,902 we identified the agents. 1109 01:07:58,936 --> 01:08:02,940 We assumed that the rooms were bugged, 1110 01:08:04,149 --> 01:08:06,082 we knew that the telephones were tapped. 1111 01:08:07,842 --> 01:08:10,155 Dick Gregory said that, 1112 01:08:10,189 --> 01:08:12,640 if you're Black and not slightly paranoid, 1113 01:08:12,674 --> 01:08:14,297 you're really sick. 1114 01:08:14,331 --> 01:08:15,850 And we were slightly paranoid, 1115 01:08:15,884 --> 01:08:17,921 but we never let that paranoia 1116 01:08:17,955 --> 01:08:22,339 interfere with what we were trying to do. 1117 01:08:22,374 --> 01:08:28,311 - We've lived with slavery and segregation 345 years. 1118 01:08:28,345 --> 01:08:30,623 We've waited a long time for freedom. 1119 01:08:31,624 --> 01:08:33,937 Now is the time. 1120 01:08:33,971 --> 01:08:37,009 Make real the promises of democracy. 1121 01:08:37,043 --> 01:08:40,323 Now is the time to make justice a reality 1122 01:08:40,357 --> 01:08:42,290 for all of God's children. 1123 01:09:01,930 --> 01:09:04,140 - Today is a triumph for freedom, 1124 01:09:05,831 --> 01:09:09,145 as huge as any victory 1125 01:09:09,179 --> 01:09:10,836 that's ever been won on any battlefield. 1126 01:09:17,843 --> 01:09:20,294 - The triumphal passage of the Voting Rights Act 1127 01:09:20,328 --> 01:09:23,193 really highlights what a close political alliance 1128 01:09:23,228 --> 01:09:25,471 has developed between Martin Luther King 1129 01:09:25,506 --> 01:09:28,716 and President Lyndon Johnson's administration. 1130 01:09:32,202 --> 01:09:34,480 - Okay, hold on for this. 1131 01:09:34,515 --> 01:09:35,826 - Hello? - Hello? 1132 01:09:35,861 --> 01:09:37,483 - Is this Dr. King? 1133 01:09:37,518 --> 01:09:38,726 - Yeah, it's pretty bad. How are you today? 1134 01:09:38,760 --> 01:09:40,486 - Well, I'm doing pretty good, 1135 01:09:40,521 --> 01:09:44,663 and you better get thinking cap on on this conference, 1136 01:09:44,697 --> 01:09:46,906 because we're gonna have to rush it. 1137 01:09:46,941 --> 01:09:48,218 We don't wanna rush you too much, 1138 01:09:48,253 --> 01:09:49,840 we wanna have plenty of preliminary work 1139 01:09:49,875 --> 01:09:51,739 on the panels and things, 1140 01:09:51,773 --> 01:09:52,843 but you better, you can see here 1141 01:09:52,878 --> 01:09:55,777 that my Howard University speech 1142 01:09:55,812 --> 01:09:57,123 wasn't any too early. 1143 01:09:57,158 --> 01:09:58,746 - That's right, that's right. 1144 01:09:58,780 --> 01:10:01,024 You said, you said it right there. 1145 01:10:01,058 --> 01:10:02,232 That's right. 1146 01:10:02,267 --> 01:10:03,440 - But you put 1147 01:10:03,475 --> 01:10:05,028 a little of that stuff into your thing. 1148 01:10:05,062 --> 01:10:06,788 Refer that Howard university speech. 1149 01:10:06,823 --> 01:10:08,514 Nobody ever publicized that. 1150 01:10:08,549 --> 01:10:10,206 - Almost every speech I've made, 1151 01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:14,210 it's because I think it's the best statement 1152 01:10:14,244 --> 01:10:17,420 and analysis of the problem I've seen anywhere. 1153 01:10:17,454 --> 01:10:20,457 Certainly, no president has ever said it like that before. 1154 01:10:20,492 --> 01:10:21,286 - But if you got any suggestions 1155 01:10:21,320 --> 01:10:23,046 or recommendation, 1156 01:10:23,080 --> 01:10:24,979 why, I'm just as close as the telephone 1157 01:10:25,013 --> 01:10:27,050 if you got enough money to pay it, 1158 01:10:27,084 --> 01:10:28,879 you have my call collect. 1159 01:10:28,914 --> 01:10:30,398 - All right. - Goodbye. 1160 01:10:44,343 --> 01:10:46,794 - Increasingly now, Americans are functioning directly 1161 01:10:46,828 --> 01:10:48,244 in the fight for freedom 1162 01:10:48,278 --> 01:10:50,418 on this far forlorn corner of the earth. 1163 01:10:53,939 --> 01:10:55,458 The risks are real. 1164 01:10:58,599 --> 01:11:01,360 - We intend to convince the communists 1165 01:11:03,051 --> 01:11:06,883 that we cannot be defeated by force of arms 1166 01:11:07,711 --> 01:11:09,955 or by superior power. 1167 01:11:11,336 --> 01:11:13,130 They're not easily convinced. 1168 01:11:14,339 --> 01:11:16,410 - When Martin Luther King Jr. 1169 01:11:16,444 --> 01:11:19,413 first speaks out publicly against the Vietnam war 1170 01:11:19,447 --> 01:11:21,760 in August, 1965, 1171 01:11:21,794 --> 01:11:24,176 he quite quickly is forced back into line 1172 01:11:24,210 --> 01:11:27,283 by hostile criticism directed at him 1173 01:11:27,317 --> 01:11:29,768 by democratic allies of President Johnson. 1174 01:11:29,802 --> 01:11:32,149 - We will not be forced out of South Vietnam. 1175 01:11:33,806 --> 01:11:37,534 - And so King then remains silent about Vietnam, 1176 01:11:37,569 --> 01:11:39,260 for almost 18 months. 1177 01:11:41,918 --> 01:11:44,886 - During our tour in the Republic of Vietnam, 1178 01:11:44,921 --> 01:11:47,510 we have all seen what communism can do 1179 01:11:47,544 --> 01:11:50,306 to a struggling nation in our world community. 1180 01:11:53,550 --> 01:11:57,968 - When King is on his way to Jamaica in early 1967, 1181 01:11:58,003 --> 01:11:59,970 and while waiting for a flight, 1182 01:12:00,005 --> 01:12:03,249 he buys some magazines in an airport gift shop. 1183 01:12:03,284 --> 01:12:05,804 And in an issue of Ramparts magazine, 1184 01:12:05,838 --> 01:12:09,463 he sees a whole series of photos about the impact 1185 01:12:09,497 --> 01:12:14,191 of US Air Force napalm bombing on Vietnamese civilians. 1186 01:12:28,274 --> 01:12:30,898 Non-violence for King was not simply 1187 01:12:30,932 --> 01:12:33,556 a civil rights protest tactic. 1188 01:12:33,590 --> 01:12:38,250 King believed that nonviolence was a Christian ethic 1189 01:12:38,284 --> 01:12:42,012 that should be applied around the world, 1190 01:12:42,047 --> 01:12:45,637 not just by Black demonstrators. 1191 01:12:49,123 --> 01:12:50,055 - Let us pray. 1192 01:12:52,644 --> 01:12:55,854 - Only in early 1967 does King's conscience 1193 01:12:55,888 --> 01:13:00,134 begin to so trouble him about his prolonged silence, 1194 01:13:00,168 --> 01:13:03,102 that he forces himself to go public once again, 1195 01:13:03,137 --> 01:13:06,451 knowing full well that in doing so, 1196 01:13:06,485 --> 01:13:09,971 it will break his political alliance with Lyndon Johnson, 1197 01:13:10,006 --> 01:13:12,111 and bring down very widespread 1198 01:13:12,146 --> 01:13:14,251 political criticism on his head. 1199 01:13:22,743 --> 01:13:26,471 - And of course, it's always good to come back to Riverside. 1200 01:13:31,993 --> 01:13:33,719 - The worst press 1201 01:13:33,754 --> 01:13:36,550 that Martin Luther King received, I think in his lifetime, 1202 01:13:36,584 --> 01:13:40,036 was exactly one year before his assassination. 1203 01:13:42,279 --> 01:13:48,424 - I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight, 1204 01:13:48,458 --> 01:13:52,876 because my conscience leaves me no other choice. 1205 01:13:55,292 --> 01:14:01,367 A time comes when silence is betrayal. 1206 01:14:01,402 --> 01:14:05,786 And that time has come for us, in relation to Vietnam. 1207 01:14:09,479 --> 01:14:12,586 - He reminded President Johnson, he could count. 1208 01:14:12,620 --> 01:14:15,105 - How was there gonna be any money for the war on poverty 1209 01:14:15,140 --> 01:14:16,452 when all the money 1210 01:14:16,486 --> 01:14:18,177 that was being set aside for the war on poverty 1211 01:14:18,212 --> 01:14:21,940 was being spent to build bombs? 1212 01:14:21,974 --> 01:14:24,943 - You know, America is a rich nation. 1213 01:14:24,977 --> 01:14:28,671 The richest nation on the face of earth. 1214 01:14:28,705 --> 01:14:31,121 Now, you know what's wrong? 1215 01:14:31,156 --> 01:14:33,641 Our national priorities are mixed up. 1216 01:14:36,092 --> 01:14:42,616 And I'm afraid the national administration of our country 1217 01:14:42,650 --> 01:14:45,239 is more concerned about winning the war in Vietnam 1218 01:14:45,273 --> 01:14:46,965 than winning the war against poverty 1219 01:14:46,999 --> 01:14:49,312 right here in the United States. 1220 01:14:50,831 --> 01:14:53,558 - He was attacked from coast to coast, 1221 01:14:53,592 --> 01:14:58,321 simply from describing the world as it really is. 1222 01:15:01,358 --> 01:15:03,533 And this was not the racist Southern press. 1223 01:15:03,568 --> 01:15:06,640 This was the New York Times and the Washington Post 1224 01:15:06,674 --> 01:15:09,505 and the LA Times, and you know? 1225 01:15:09,539 --> 01:15:14,199 I mean, everybody blasted him for having an opinion. 1226 01:15:17,374 --> 01:15:19,998 - King went to communist training school, 1227 01:15:20,032 --> 01:15:22,656 and I don't want anything to do with communists. 1228 01:15:22,690 --> 01:15:24,830 - Are you sure of this? 1229 01:15:24,865 --> 01:15:26,487 - Look right here. 1230 01:15:28,800 --> 01:15:30,905 - Is that your only proof? 1231 01:15:30,940 --> 01:15:34,219 - We have proof, and we are satisfied that it's true proof. 1232 01:15:35,876 --> 01:15:38,534 - When he publicly spoke out against the war, 1233 01:15:38,568 --> 01:15:42,020 the persons he had known and been close to for years, 1234 01:15:42,054 --> 01:15:43,193 turned against him. 1235 01:15:43,228 --> 01:15:44,678 - And we don't see any reason 1236 01:15:44,712 --> 01:15:46,300 for downgrading civil rights 1237 01:15:46,334 --> 01:15:49,372 and elevating the peace movement above it, 1238 01:15:49,406 --> 01:15:52,789 especially the indignities our people are suffering. 1239 01:15:52,824 --> 01:15:55,412 The main show for us is right here, it's civil rights. 1240 01:15:57,345 --> 01:16:00,556 - Yeah, he was hurting and depressed, 1241 01:16:00,590 --> 01:16:02,212 and he is, you know, the pressure of the home 1242 01:16:02,247 --> 01:16:04,007 and his marriage and so forth. 1243 01:16:05,008 --> 01:16:07,183 You know, it was getting to him. 1244 01:16:09,426 --> 01:16:12,947 - It wasn't that he was right or wrong. 1245 01:16:12,982 --> 01:16:16,572 He didn't have any business having an opinion. 1246 01:16:16,606 --> 01:16:17,883 see? 1247 01:16:17,918 --> 01:16:20,265 He realized how sick this country was, 1248 01:16:21,749 --> 01:16:24,580 and he felt that he couldn't slow down 1249 01:16:24,614 --> 01:16:27,306 and he had the push on regardless. 1250 01:16:30,689 --> 01:16:33,899 - I weighed the criticisms that I would get. 1251 01:16:33,934 --> 01:16:35,487 I thought about even the fact 1252 01:16:35,521 --> 01:16:37,593 that some Negroes wouldn't understand, 1253 01:16:37,627 --> 01:16:41,597 and some respectable Negro leaders 1254 01:16:41,631 --> 01:16:42,908 who are more concerned 1255 01:16:42,943 --> 01:16:45,739 about being invited to the White House 1256 01:16:45,773 --> 01:16:50,364 than invited to the calls of justice would be against me. 1257 01:17:00,374 --> 01:17:02,445 - In the wake of Dr. King's 1258 01:17:02,479 --> 01:17:04,550 Riverside Church speech, 1259 01:17:04,585 --> 01:17:07,174 Lyndon Johnson's White House, 1260 01:17:07,208 --> 01:17:10,936 very explicitly identifies King 1261 01:17:10,971 --> 01:17:17,460 as a major threat to the president's policies. 1262 01:17:17,494 --> 01:17:20,946 - I'm convinced that it will lead to widespread discontent 1263 01:17:20,981 --> 01:17:22,361 and disenchantment with administration 1264 01:17:22,396 --> 01:17:25,641 if there isn't a change in the policy, 1265 01:17:25,675 --> 01:17:28,402 and an all out effort to deescalate the war 1266 01:17:28,436 --> 01:17:30,335 and bring an end to it. 1267 01:17:40,690 --> 01:17:42,071 - Stick with civil rights. 1268 01:17:42,105 --> 01:17:44,383 Leave the war to the generals. 1269 01:17:46,834 --> 01:17:49,492 - Now, Lyndon Johnson's White House 1270 01:17:49,526 --> 01:17:53,738 had always been privy to the FBI's 1271 01:17:53,772 --> 01:17:58,156 sexual surveillance of Dr. King. 1272 01:17:58,190 --> 01:18:03,506 But now, Lyndon Johnson comes to view Martin Luther King 1273 01:18:03,540 --> 01:18:04,369 as an enemy. 1274 01:18:05,646 --> 01:18:11,514 And the FBI is eager to strengthen 1275 01:18:11,548 --> 01:18:14,344 its own relationship with president Johnson, 1276 01:18:14,379 --> 01:18:19,315 by jumping on this anti-King bandwagon with greater fervor. 1277 01:18:22,559 --> 01:18:24,527 - I just got word that Martin Luther King 1278 01:18:24,561 --> 01:18:25,631 will give a press conference 1279 01:18:25,666 --> 01:18:28,842 at 11 o'clock this morning in Atlanta. 1280 01:18:28,876 --> 01:18:31,430 King was told by Levison, 1281 01:18:31,465 --> 01:18:33,467 who is his principal advisor, 1282 01:18:33,501 --> 01:18:35,365 and who is a secret communist, 1283 01:18:35,400 --> 01:18:36,850 that he has more to gain nationally 1284 01:18:36,884 --> 01:18:38,472 by agreeing with the violence 1285 01:18:38,506 --> 01:18:41,544 that is coming out against it. 1286 01:18:41,578 --> 01:18:42,856 That's the substance of information. 1287 01:18:42,890 --> 01:18:44,443 We've got that highly confidentially 1288 01:18:44,478 --> 01:18:45,444 over the technicals. 1289 01:18:46,756 --> 01:18:48,309 Well, I'll have for you tomorrow 1290 01:18:48,344 --> 01:18:50,726 that memorandum you want on all the riots in the country. 1291 01:18:50,760 --> 01:18:52,037 - That's right, 1292 01:18:52,072 --> 01:18:53,383 and I want you to keep your men busy 1293 01:18:53,418 --> 01:18:54,557 to find a central connection. 1294 01:18:54,591 --> 01:18:56,386 I wouldn't be a damn bit surprised 1295 01:18:56,421 --> 01:18:58,112 that this poverty group here 1296 01:18:58,147 --> 01:18:59,735 is not stirring up some of this. 1297 01:18:59,769 --> 01:19:00,943 - We'll dig into that very thoroughly. 1298 01:19:00,977 --> 01:19:02,220 - Okay. 1299 01:19:02,254 --> 01:19:03,117 - Fine, thank you, Mr. President. 1300 01:19:06,500 --> 01:19:08,226 - So many resources are mobilized 1301 01:19:08,260 --> 01:19:11,747 against suppressing dissent in the U. S. 1302 01:19:14,094 --> 01:19:16,786 The FBI has done extensive surveillance 1303 01:19:16,821 --> 01:19:19,237 of all kinds of Black organizations. 1304 01:19:19,271 --> 01:19:21,239 - Don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed. 1305 01:19:21,273 --> 01:19:22,585 We want Black power. 1306 01:19:22,619 --> 01:19:23,586 Black power! 1307 01:19:23,620 --> 01:19:24,760 - We want Black power. 1308 01:19:24,794 --> 01:19:25,761 - Black power! 1309 01:19:25,795 --> 01:19:26,796 - We want Black power. 1310 01:19:26,831 --> 01:19:27,659 - Black power! 1311 01:19:27,693 --> 01:19:29,005 - We want Black power. 1312 01:19:29,040 --> 01:19:30,524 - When you look at the social movements 1313 01:19:30,558 --> 01:19:32,526 from the point of view of these law enforcement agencies, 1314 01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:34,493 it looks very different. 1315 01:19:34,528 --> 01:19:38,256 - We stand on the eve of a Black revolution, brothers. 1316 01:19:38,290 --> 01:19:39,705 Masses of our people are in the streets. 1317 01:19:39,740 --> 01:19:42,156 They're fighting tit-for-tat, 1318 01:19:42,191 --> 01:19:46,782 tooth for tooth, an eye for an eye and a life for a life. 1319 01:19:46,816 --> 01:19:50,095 The rebellions that we see are merely dress rehearsals 1320 01:19:50,130 --> 01:19:52,339 for the revolution that's to come. 1321 01:19:52,373 --> 01:19:55,998 We better get ourselves some guns and prepare ourselves. 1322 01:19:56,032 --> 01:19:58,621 - The Bureau was of course anticommunist, 1323 01:19:58,655 --> 01:20:00,865 but I'd say it's most consistent campaigns 1324 01:20:00,899 --> 01:20:02,763 were against Black people. 1325 01:20:05,214 --> 01:20:08,562 Whether it's William Sullivan or J. Edgar Hoover, 1326 01:20:08,596 --> 01:20:10,460 the policy was consistent. 1327 01:20:10,495 --> 01:20:12,462 They saw African Americans as, 1328 01:20:12,497 --> 01:20:13,809 you know, J. Edgar Hoover 1329 01:20:13,843 --> 01:20:15,465 has said about the Black Panther Party, 1330 01:20:15,500 --> 01:20:16,812 that they were the greatest threat 1331 01:20:16,846 --> 01:20:18,537 to the internal security of the United States. 1332 01:20:21,886 --> 01:20:24,958 - The use of informants has existed for years and years 1333 01:20:24,992 --> 01:20:26,407 by law enforcement agencies. 1334 01:20:26,442 --> 01:20:28,754 You even find reference to it in the Bible. 1335 01:20:28,789 --> 01:20:30,826 In the time of Moses. 1336 01:20:30,860 --> 01:20:33,967 Certainly you cannot expect to be able to penetrate 1337 01:20:34,001 --> 01:20:36,210 the secret, conspiratorial organizations 1338 01:20:36,245 --> 01:20:39,835 without using secret agents. 1339 01:20:39,869 --> 01:20:43,045 - There were FBI informants in most domestic groups 1340 01:20:43,079 --> 01:20:44,667 in the United States. 1341 01:20:44,701 --> 01:20:46,393 That was the only way you can investigate them, 1342 01:20:46,427 --> 01:20:48,257 especially if they were Black organizations. 1343 01:20:48,291 --> 01:20:50,984 You know, we didn't have that many Black agents back then, 1344 01:20:51,018 --> 01:20:53,779 so you had to have individuals inside that organization 1345 01:20:53,814 --> 01:20:55,781 to get inside information. 1346 01:20:55,816 --> 01:20:57,197 It was just, you had to. 1347 01:20:59,889 --> 01:21:01,995 - The general strategy of intelligence services 1348 01:21:02,029 --> 01:21:03,789 is that they use surveillance in order to figure out 1349 01:21:03,824 --> 01:21:07,345 how to break apart these organizations. 1350 01:21:07,379 --> 01:21:09,519 So it's not just surveillance for surveillance sake. 1351 01:21:09,554 --> 01:21:12,108 It is to observe the organizations 1352 01:21:12,143 --> 01:21:14,697 to figure out what their points of vulnerability are, 1353 01:21:14,731 --> 01:21:17,769 and then purposely insert people into those conflicts. 1354 01:21:19,840 --> 01:21:22,463 - It's in the late 1950s that the FBI 1355 01:21:22,498 --> 01:21:26,467 founds this super secret program, COINTELPRO, 1356 01:21:26,502 --> 01:21:28,538 counter-intelligence program, 1357 01:21:28,573 --> 01:21:31,265 that allows them not just to conduct surveillance, 1358 01:21:31,300 --> 01:21:35,131 but to begin to disrupt the organizations quite explicitly. 1359 01:21:35,166 --> 01:21:37,444 Spread rumors within the organization, 1360 01:21:37,478 --> 01:21:39,722 foment violence, et cetera. 1361 01:21:39,756 --> 01:21:41,137 - You have to be astonished 1362 01:21:41,172 --> 01:21:43,381 just at the number of sources that they had. 1363 01:21:43,415 --> 01:21:45,728 When you look through these FBI reports, 1364 01:21:45,762 --> 01:21:48,386 I mean, they've got scores and scores of people. 1365 01:21:48,420 --> 01:21:51,389 Ernest Withers was probably the most successful 1366 01:21:51,423 --> 01:21:53,909 civil rights photographer you never heard of. 1367 01:21:53,943 --> 01:21:55,565 He was very much a movement insider 1368 01:21:55,600 --> 01:21:57,740 and covered the civil rights movement 1369 01:21:57,774 --> 01:22:00,329 from its very dawn. 1370 01:22:00,363 --> 01:22:04,402 He shot a very monumental picture of Dr. King on the bus 1371 01:22:04,436 --> 01:22:06,749 at the end of the Montgomery bus boycott. 1372 01:22:06,783 --> 01:22:08,061 You know, a very radical, 1373 01:22:08,095 --> 01:22:09,821 revolutionary moment in American history, 1374 01:22:09,855 --> 01:22:12,928 and Ernest Withers was right there in the middle of it. 1375 01:22:12,962 --> 01:22:14,515 Ernest had a completely different side to him 1376 01:22:14,550 --> 01:22:16,241 that no one knew about, 1377 01:22:16,276 --> 01:22:18,864 and that was that he doubled as an informant for the FBI 1378 01:22:18,899 --> 01:22:21,626 for as many as 18 years. 1379 01:22:23,628 --> 01:22:25,768 - We had an informant in our office. 1380 01:22:25,802 --> 01:22:27,080 - James Harrison? 1381 01:22:27,114 --> 01:22:29,323 - I'm not calling the names. 1382 01:22:31,222 --> 01:22:34,673 - Jim Harrison is a paid FBI informant 1383 01:22:34,708 --> 01:22:37,607 in SCLC's office 1384 01:22:37,642 --> 01:22:40,748 sitting a few yards from Martin Luther King, Jr.. 1385 01:22:42,371 --> 01:22:44,097 Having someone like Harrison, 1386 01:22:44,131 --> 01:22:47,790 would allow for a very efficient daily reporting 1387 01:22:47,824 --> 01:22:50,275 on where's King gonna be traveling, 1388 01:22:50,310 --> 01:22:51,794 what's he gonna be doing? 1389 01:22:51,828 --> 01:22:54,659 What are people in the office concerned about? 1390 01:22:56,764 --> 01:22:59,353 - I did not know 1391 01:22:59,388 --> 01:23:02,460 that he was in fact, an FBI informant. 1392 01:23:02,494 --> 01:23:04,807 I did not know in fact, 1393 01:23:04,841 --> 01:23:07,465 but I believed that he was. 1394 01:23:07,499 --> 01:23:10,054 And I tried to counsel Martin, 1395 01:23:10,088 --> 01:23:12,608 to don't let him know more than he needs to know. 1396 01:23:14,334 --> 01:23:17,130 - We now know that Harrison had worked 1397 01:23:17,164 --> 01:23:21,479 as an informant for the FBI in two other cities. 1398 01:23:21,513 --> 01:23:24,930 It seems beyond a possible coincidence 1399 01:23:24,965 --> 01:23:26,656 that he moves to Atlanta 1400 01:23:26,691 --> 01:23:30,246 and volunteers to work at SCLC 1401 01:23:30,281 --> 01:23:34,630 without some suggestion or instruction from the FBI. 1402 01:23:37,046 --> 01:23:40,049 - It's not really that surprising, 1403 01:23:40,084 --> 01:23:43,949 knowing now what we know about what the FBI was doing. 1404 01:23:43,984 --> 01:23:46,952 Anybody who was to the left of mainstream, 1405 01:23:46,987 --> 01:23:49,852 anyone who supported the anti-war movement, 1406 01:23:49,886 --> 01:23:55,513 anyone who got what they considered militant in civil rights 1407 01:23:55,547 --> 01:23:56,686 was deemed a subversive. 1408 01:23:56,721 --> 01:23:59,172 And they were keeping files on them. 1409 01:23:59,206 --> 01:24:01,001 They were running a surveillance state. 1410 01:24:08,560 --> 01:24:12,530 - This is where it began, the rural South. 1411 01:24:12,564 --> 01:24:14,049 And here where it began, 1412 01:24:14,083 --> 01:24:16,637 for the Negro, the problem remains. 1413 01:24:16,672 --> 01:24:19,640 There's no ghetto here, just poverty. 1414 01:24:19,675 --> 01:24:21,470 The worst kind of poverty. 1415 01:24:21,504 --> 01:24:23,472 The kind of poverty that makes you wonder, 1416 01:24:23,506 --> 01:24:25,612 can this be the United States of America, 1417 01:24:25,646 --> 01:24:30,203 the richest country in the world in the year 1967? 1418 01:24:30,237 --> 01:24:32,446 It is not just material poverty, 1419 01:24:32,481 --> 01:24:34,793 there is also a poverty of the spirit. 1420 01:24:38,832 --> 01:24:40,385 - What is it about the Negro? 1421 01:24:40,420 --> 01:24:45,010 I mean, every other group that came as an immigrant somehow, 1422 01:24:45,045 --> 01:24:47,806 not easily, but somehow got around it. 1423 01:24:47,841 --> 01:24:49,946 Is it just the fact that the Negroes are Black? 1424 01:24:51,120 --> 01:24:52,811 - The fact is that the Negro 1425 01:24:52,846 --> 01:24:57,402 was a slave in this country for 244 years. 1426 01:24:57,437 --> 01:25:00,750 That led to the thingification of the Negro. 1427 01:25:00,785 --> 01:25:03,098 So he was not looked upon as a person, 1428 01:25:03,132 --> 01:25:05,997 he was not looked upon as a human being 1429 01:25:06,031 --> 01:25:10,001 with the same status and worth as other human beings. 1430 01:25:10,035 --> 01:25:14,143 And it seems to me that White America must see 1431 01:25:14,178 --> 01:25:16,663 that no other ethnic group 1432 01:25:16,697 --> 01:25:19,873 has been a slave on American soil. 1433 01:25:19,907 --> 01:25:21,771 And so emancipation for the Negro 1434 01:25:21,806 --> 01:25:24,119 was really freedom to hunger. 1435 01:25:24,153 --> 01:25:27,156 It was freedom to the winds and rains of heaven. 1436 01:25:27,191 --> 01:25:29,952 It was freedom without food, deed, a land to cultivate, 1437 01:25:29,986 --> 01:25:32,955 and therefore it was freedom and famine at the same time. 1438 01:25:32,989 --> 01:25:35,130 And when White Americans tell the Negro 1439 01:25:35,164 --> 01:25:38,029 to lift themselves by his own bootstraps, 1440 01:25:38,063 --> 01:25:42,275 they don't look over the legacy of slavery and segregation. 1441 01:25:42,309 --> 01:25:45,450 I believe we ought to do all we can, 1442 01:25:45,485 --> 01:25:47,866 and seek to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps, 1443 01:25:47,901 --> 01:25:51,629 but it's a cruel jest to say to a bootless man 1444 01:25:51,663 --> 01:25:54,114 that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. 1445 01:26:03,503 --> 01:26:05,470 - King is deeply pessimistic 1446 01:26:05,505 --> 01:26:09,302 that America will ever undertake 1447 01:26:09,336 --> 01:26:13,202 the pursuit of real equality for Black people. 1448 01:26:13,237 --> 01:26:15,100 - Ladies and gentlemen of the press, 1449 01:26:15,135 --> 01:26:18,207 I'm gonna read an opening statement. 1450 01:26:18,242 --> 01:26:21,383 - And that leads him to announce the idea 1451 01:26:21,417 --> 01:26:26,008 of holding a poor people's campaign in Washington, 1452 01:26:26,042 --> 01:26:29,184 in the spring of 1968. 1453 01:26:29,218 --> 01:26:31,255 - The Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1454 01:26:31,289 --> 01:26:35,983 will lead waves of the nation's poor and disinherited 1455 01:26:37,053 --> 01:26:40,850 to Washington D. C. next spring 1456 01:26:40,885 --> 01:26:43,853 do demand redress of grievances 1457 01:26:43,888 --> 01:26:46,511 by the United States government. 1458 01:26:46,546 --> 01:26:51,033 We will go there, we will demand to be heard, 1459 01:26:51,067 --> 01:26:55,520 and we will stay until America responds. 1460 01:26:55,555 --> 01:26:59,144 - The FBI was deeply alarmed by these plans. 1461 01:26:59,179 --> 01:27:01,250 For Hoover, you know, this was his home turf. 1462 01:27:01,285 --> 01:27:05,875 But they're also very concerned about the kind of conflict 1463 01:27:05,910 --> 01:27:08,119 that might emerge out of this. 1464 01:27:08,153 --> 01:27:11,122 They thought it could be a significant threat 1465 01:27:11,156 --> 01:27:12,951 to the national Capitol in particular. 1466 01:27:15,022 --> 01:27:17,301 - Powerful poor people, 1467 01:27:17,335 --> 01:27:22,029 well really means having the ability, the togetherness, 1468 01:27:24,342 --> 01:27:28,070 the assertiveness and the aggressiveness 1469 01:27:28,104 --> 01:27:34,179 to make the power structure of this nation say, yes, 1470 01:27:34,214 --> 01:27:36,941 when they may be desirous of saying, no. 1471 01:27:37,873 --> 01:27:40,185 Black people, Mexican Americans, 1472 01:27:40,220 --> 01:27:44,845 American Indians, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian Whites, 1473 01:27:44,880 --> 01:27:49,781 all working together to solve the problem of poverty. 1474 01:28:00,792 --> 01:28:04,934 - It bears emphasis that William Sullivan, 1475 01:28:04,969 --> 01:28:08,006 the head of American Domestic Intelligence, 1476 01:28:08,041 --> 01:28:11,596 in late March of 1968, 1477 01:28:11,631 --> 01:28:16,498 begins revising and expanding the FBI's primary document 1478 01:28:17,982 --> 01:28:21,296 to indict Dr. King. 1479 01:28:21,330 --> 01:28:24,437 And chooses to add for the first time, 1480 01:28:24,471 --> 01:28:28,130 the rape participation allegation 1481 01:28:28,164 --> 01:28:30,408 to his revision of this document. 1482 01:28:35,102 --> 01:28:38,451 - It's unclear how much we're ever going to know 1483 01:28:38,485 --> 01:28:44,733 about any particular incident in Kings sexual history, 1484 01:28:44,767 --> 01:28:48,323 particularly the most explosive allegation that's been made. 1485 01:28:50,117 --> 01:28:53,258 - Handwritten annotations on this document, 1486 01:28:53,293 --> 01:28:56,641 alleged that King was present at the rape 1487 01:28:56,676 --> 01:29:01,094 of a black female parishioner by a Baltimore minister, 1488 01:29:01,128 --> 01:29:04,994 and that he "Looked on and laughed." 1489 01:29:05,029 --> 01:29:07,411 I have many, many questions about this. 1490 01:29:07,445 --> 01:29:09,896 It's supposed to be an audio tape, 1491 01:29:09,930 --> 01:29:12,174 but concluded within this document, 1492 01:29:12,208 --> 01:29:15,108 is the assertion that King looked on, 1493 01:29:15,142 --> 01:29:17,386 which I thought was strange. 1494 01:29:17,421 --> 01:29:19,975 That in itself to me was a huge red flag. 1495 01:29:21,701 --> 01:29:25,394 - The agents who were listening in in live time, 1496 01:29:25,429 --> 01:29:28,673 in a room right next door to where this was taking place, 1497 01:29:28,708 --> 01:29:30,261 did nothing. 1498 01:29:30,295 --> 01:29:34,092 Their focus was on gaining embarrassing material. 1499 01:29:38,303 --> 01:29:40,133 - We are gonna have to not assume 1500 01:29:40,167 --> 01:29:42,791 that everything that's said in those documents is true. 1501 01:29:42,825 --> 01:29:44,379 I think also not assume that everything 1502 01:29:44,413 --> 01:29:46,760 that's said in those documents is false. 1503 01:29:48,486 --> 01:29:50,385 And I also think that we have to understand 1504 01:29:50,419 --> 01:29:52,939 that FBI agents were making 1505 01:29:52,973 --> 01:29:55,390 their own very subjective judgements 1506 01:29:55,424 --> 01:29:59,463 about what's actually happening. 1507 01:29:59,497 --> 01:30:00,981 - One of the things I was really struck by this 1508 01:30:01,016 --> 01:30:03,812 is how much it adheres to J. Edgar Hoover 1509 01:30:03,846 --> 01:30:05,054 and William C. Sullivan 1510 01:30:05,089 --> 01:30:07,919 and the FBI's representations of King. 1511 01:30:09,196 --> 01:30:11,475 The agents were really rewarded 1512 01:30:11,509 --> 01:30:13,442 for finding this kind of material 1513 01:30:13,477 --> 01:30:16,065 that would undermine the civil rights movement 1514 01:30:16,100 --> 01:30:19,310 and other Black organizations. 1515 01:30:19,344 --> 01:30:21,795 And so in some ways, it provides this grand narrative 1516 01:30:21,830 --> 01:30:24,073 that has this allegedly big revelation 1517 01:30:24,108 --> 01:30:26,766 in the context of this larger life of misconduct. 1518 01:30:30,770 --> 01:30:34,083 - Sullivan is updating and expanding this document, 1519 01:30:34,118 --> 01:30:36,741 because of the political threat 1520 01:30:36,776 --> 01:30:39,088 to the Johnson administration 1521 01:30:39,123 --> 01:30:42,540 that this Poor People's Campaign represents. 1522 01:30:44,473 --> 01:30:49,133 All of a sudden, Sullivan's work on this revision halts. 1523 01:30:50,859 --> 01:30:53,068 And it halts because Dr. King is murdered. 1524 01:31:02,249 --> 01:31:03,872 - The night before his assassination, 1525 01:31:03,906 --> 01:31:07,289 King gave one of the most remarkable speeches 1526 01:31:07,323 --> 01:31:09,187 of his whole career. 1527 01:31:11,638 --> 01:31:14,296 One of the themes was the idea 1528 01:31:14,330 --> 01:31:17,161 that protest itself was really in peril. 1529 01:31:20,578 --> 01:31:23,685 You were seeing crackdowns all across the country 1530 01:31:23,719 --> 01:31:26,619 increasing concerns about violence, 1531 01:31:26,653 --> 01:31:30,381 and he was really making a claim that in Memphis, 1532 01:31:30,415 --> 01:31:32,728 it wasn't just the rights of workers, 1533 01:31:32,763 --> 01:31:35,248 it wasn't just racial justice that was on the line, 1534 01:31:35,282 --> 01:31:37,802 but it was also the right to speech, 1535 01:31:37,837 --> 01:31:40,115 the right to protest, the First Amendment itself. 1536 01:31:42,186 --> 01:31:45,154 - If I lived in China or even Russia, 1537 01:31:45,189 --> 01:31:47,363 or any totalitarian country, 1538 01:31:48,848 --> 01:31:51,506 Maybe I could understand the denial 1539 01:31:51,540 --> 01:31:54,647 of certain basic First Amendment privileges, 1540 01:31:54,681 --> 01:31:59,410 because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. 1541 01:31:59,444 --> 01:32:04,415 But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. 1542 01:32:04,449 --> 01:32:08,350 Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. 1543 01:32:08,384 --> 01:32:12,354 Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. 1544 01:32:12,388 --> 01:32:16,358 Somewhere I read that the greatness of America 1545 01:32:16,392 --> 01:32:19,395 is the right to protest for right. 1546 01:32:31,407 --> 01:32:32,788 - Good evening. 1547 01:32:32,823 --> 01:32:35,273 The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, 39 years old, 1548 01:32:35,308 --> 01:32:36,861 and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, 1549 01:32:36,896 --> 01:32:38,553 and the leader of the nonviolent 1550 01:32:38,587 --> 01:32:40,451 civil rights movement in the United States 1551 01:32:40,485 --> 01:32:43,143 was assassinated in Memphis tonight. 1552 01:32:43,178 --> 01:32:45,387 A sniper's bullet cut down Dr. King, 1553 01:32:45,421 --> 01:32:49,564 as he stood on a hotel balcony in Memphis. 1554 01:32:49,598 --> 01:32:51,945 - The special bulletin phrased on the television 1555 01:32:51,980 --> 01:32:54,603 that Dr. King had been shot. 1556 01:32:54,638 --> 01:32:58,193 And I just stood there, you know, a long time. 1557 01:32:59,643 --> 01:33:02,473 And then little while later, 1558 01:33:02,507 --> 01:33:04,268 they said Dr. King was dead. 1559 01:33:06,684 --> 01:33:10,654 And I was angry. 1560 01:33:10,688 --> 01:33:12,966 There was a whole lot of other people who were angry. 1561 01:33:15,555 --> 01:33:16,832 - We are very upset today, 1562 01:33:16,867 --> 01:33:18,351 because we've lost in our generation, 1563 01:33:18,385 --> 01:33:20,318 somebody like a father. 1564 01:33:20,353 --> 01:33:23,494 In our lifetimes, people 25 and 26, 1565 01:33:23,528 --> 01:33:25,669 he's the first major man we ever saw 1566 01:33:25,703 --> 01:33:28,257 who started a bus ride and everything like that. 1567 01:33:28,292 --> 01:33:30,156 And today, many people are out here on the street 1568 01:33:30,190 --> 01:33:32,020 wondering which way they're going to turn, 1569 01:33:32,054 --> 01:33:33,849 because we don't know where we're going to go. 1570 01:33:33,884 --> 01:33:36,093 Do we go to the right, do we go to the left? 1571 01:33:36,127 --> 01:33:37,128 We're not sure today. 1572 01:33:40,649 --> 01:33:43,445 - I don't think the FBI had a deep interest 1573 01:33:43,479 --> 01:33:44,515 in protecting King. 1574 01:33:44,549 --> 01:33:46,828 In fact, there are many moments 1575 01:33:46,862 --> 01:33:50,038 in which the FBI refused to act 1576 01:33:50,072 --> 01:33:53,869 in a kind of bodyguard capacity or even a warning capacity 1577 01:33:53,904 --> 01:33:55,837 when King was under threat. 1578 01:33:57,562 --> 01:33:59,944 In the end, after Hoover felt 1579 01:33:59,979 --> 01:34:03,672 that he was under enormous pressure, 1580 01:34:03,707 --> 01:34:07,676 the FBI did conduct a pretty decent, wide-ranging, 1581 01:34:07,711 --> 01:34:11,646 incredibly labor intensive investigation 1582 01:34:11,680 --> 01:34:16,616 to find someone who was involved in King's assassination. 1583 01:34:18,342 --> 01:34:20,240 - The man named as James Earl Ray 1584 01:34:20,275 --> 01:34:22,139 was arrested at quarter past 11 this morning 1585 01:34:22,173 --> 01:34:23,796 by two Scotland Yard detectives 1586 01:34:23,830 --> 01:34:25,970 as he passed through the British immigration offices 1587 01:34:26,005 --> 01:34:27,592 for a flight to Brussels. 1588 01:34:27,627 --> 01:34:29,146 An announcement 1589 01:34:29,180 --> 01:34:31,044 by the American FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, 1590 01:34:31,079 --> 01:34:33,495 said the man was fully armed with a loaded pistol, 1591 01:34:33,529 --> 01:34:35,324 and he carried two Canadian passports 1592 01:34:35,359 --> 01:34:37,326 and a false name. 1593 01:34:37,361 --> 01:34:39,570 - I think once they understood 1594 01:34:39,604 --> 01:34:42,504 that the FBI's investigative reputation 1595 01:34:42,538 --> 01:34:44,506 was gonna be at stake in this case, 1596 01:34:44,540 --> 01:34:46,163 they poured enormous resources 1597 01:34:46,197 --> 01:34:48,752 to try and to bring that case home. 1598 01:34:48,786 --> 01:34:50,408 - Ray's life and civil rights 1599 01:34:50,443 --> 01:34:52,341 were being guarded more closely 1600 01:34:52,376 --> 01:34:54,274 than those of Martin Luther King, 1601 01:34:54,309 --> 01:34:56,069 whom Ray is accused of murdering. 1602 01:34:58,278 --> 01:35:01,765 - I was amazed that with the surveillance by the FBI, 1603 01:35:01,799 --> 01:35:05,354 24/7 around Dr. King and the SCLC, 1604 01:35:05,389 --> 01:35:07,909 that they wouldn't be aware of James Earl Ray 1605 01:35:07,943 --> 01:35:09,324 and the Lorraine Motel. 1606 01:35:11,395 --> 01:35:13,362 - I don't think James Earl Ray 1607 01:35:13,397 --> 01:35:16,469 had anything to do with Dr. King's assassination. 1608 01:35:16,503 --> 01:35:18,057 So I can't really comment on that. 1609 01:35:19,644 --> 01:35:21,198 - The assassination of King 1610 01:35:21,232 --> 01:35:22,855 and the fact that we were doing surveillance that day 1611 01:35:22,889 --> 01:35:25,098 when he was shot, 1612 01:35:25,133 --> 01:35:26,548 it's always been in the back of your mind going, 1613 01:35:26,582 --> 01:35:28,205 you know, did we not know this? 1614 01:35:28,239 --> 01:35:30,034 Could we not prevent this? 1615 01:35:30,069 --> 01:35:32,796 I didn't hear anything that would indicate 1616 01:35:32,830 --> 01:35:36,316 that headquarters knew and chose not to do anything. 1617 01:35:36,351 --> 01:35:38,146 I'd never saw that, I never heard that, 1618 01:35:38,180 --> 01:35:40,389 but it was a question everybody had, 1619 01:35:40,424 --> 01:35:41,977 because it was a legitimate question. 1620 01:35:42,012 --> 01:35:44,359 You know, why did we not intercede if we were there? 1621 01:35:48,432 --> 01:35:50,503 - This was an emotional, 1622 01:35:50,537 --> 01:35:55,577 frustrated, outraged nation. 1623 01:35:55,611 --> 01:35:58,822 Other people were trying to incite to violence. 1624 01:35:58,856 --> 01:36:02,411 We always said that the only thing that could defeat us 1625 01:36:02,446 --> 01:36:03,550 was violence. 1626 01:36:15,045 --> 01:36:16,425 And I think that's still true in this country. 1627 01:36:16,460 --> 01:36:18,082 I don't think, 1628 01:36:18,117 --> 01:36:21,568 violence will not succeed in changing this nation. 1629 01:36:27,885 --> 01:36:29,956 Whether it's White violence or Black violence, 1630 01:36:31,544 --> 01:36:33,511 or any other color violence. 1631 01:37:00,573 --> 01:37:06,717 - Dr. King used to laugh and joke about his death. 1632 01:37:06,751 --> 01:37:09,547 He said, "Look, you're gonna die. 1633 01:37:09,582 --> 01:37:13,137 "Death is the ultimate democracy. 1634 01:37:13,172 --> 01:37:16,140 "Everybody's got to die and you don't have anything to say 1635 01:37:16,175 --> 01:37:18,556 "about when you die, where you die. 1636 01:37:18,591 --> 01:37:20,662 "Your own choice is, 1637 01:37:20,696 --> 01:37:22,353 "what is it you give your life for?" 1638 01:37:49,967 --> 01:37:52,245 - Here's my first question to you. 1639 01:37:53,937 --> 01:37:56,077 What do you see your responsibility as a historian 1640 01:37:56,111 --> 01:37:59,011 when you're dealing with someone like Martin Luther King, 1641 01:37:59,045 --> 01:38:00,391 what's your responsibility? 1642 01:38:02,635 --> 01:38:03,498 - Hmm. 1643 01:38:11,644 --> 01:38:13,611 It varies over time. 1644 01:38:19,341 --> 01:38:22,724 - So, when these tapes come out in 2027, 1645 01:38:22,758 --> 01:38:24,484 I think it's gonna be very interesting 1646 01:38:24,519 --> 01:38:27,211 to see what the reaction is. 1647 01:38:27,246 --> 01:38:29,904 I don't know that it will create 1648 01:38:29,938 --> 01:38:32,976 a fundamental re-understanding 1649 01:38:33,010 --> 01:38:35,633 of King as a political figure, 1650 01:38:35,668 --> 01:38:37,946 but I do think that it will probably give us 1651 01:38:37,981 --> 01:38:42,192 a slightly more complicated sense of him as a human being. 1652 01:38:44,953 --> 01:38:48,439 - There's always been this unresolved tension 1653 01:38:51,201 --> 01:38:55,584 in who we are and who we say we are, 1654 01:38:55,619 --> 01:38:57,483 and who we wanna be. 1655 01:39:00,693 --> 01:39:05,629 But there was always this emotional enthusiasm 1656 01:39:06,802 --> 01:39:08,666 that we could change the world. 1657 01:39:13,740 --> 01:39:19,539 - Did he have sexual relationships with women 1658 01:39:19,574 --> 01:39:22,025 other than his married wife? 1659 01:39:22,059 --> 01:39:23,819 Yes, he did. 1660 01:39:28,479 --> 01:39:30,723 I can't change that. 1661 01:39:30,757 --> 01:39:33,657 That's a matter of factual history. 1662 01:39:36,729 --> 01:39:41,527 Does that make him, in my mind, 1663 01:39:43,839 --> 01:39:46,981 less of an historic civil leader? 1664 01:39:48,016 --> 01:39:48,983 No, it does not. 1665 01:39:50,846 --> 01:39:52,227 - I just don't think that the tapes 1666 01:39:52,262 --> 01:39:53,988 should see the light of day. 1667 01:39:54,022 --> 01:39:57,301 As I said, they would serve no purpose whatsoever. 1668 01:39:57,336 --> 01:39:59,994 And I don't see anything good that can come about it. 1669 01:40:00,028 --> 01:40:02,030 I see bad things that could come about it. 1670 01:40:02,065 --> 01:40:03,998 - I don't know enough about 1671 01:40:04,032 --> 01:40:06,138 what might be in the tapes to react, 1672 01:40:06,172 --> 01:40:07,656 except I'd say this: 1673 01:40:07,691 --> 01:40:09,244 I've never met a perfect human. 1674 01:40:09,279 --> 01:40:10,487 There are no perfect humans. 1675 01:40:10,521 --> 01:40:12,558 There's not one speaking to you now, 1676 01:40:12,592 --> 01:40:15,595 and so I would hope that no matter what is revealed, 1677 01:40:15,630 --> 01:40:17,563 and maybe there'll be nothing new revealed about Dr. King, 1678 01:40:17,597 --> 01:40:20,497 people are able to understand that people are complex, 1679 01:40:20,531 --> 01:40:24,880 and it doesn't detract from what a person did for the good. 1680 01:40:27,469 --> 01:40:29,678 - I think it's easy for us to look back 1681 01:40:29,713 --> 01:40:33,406 at what the FBI was doing during Hoover's years 1682 01:40:33,441 --> 01:40:36,754 and be outraged by it, and rightly so, 1683 01:40:36,789 --> 01:40:39,274 but I also think there's an image 1684 01:40:39,309 --> 01:40:43,175 of J. Edgar Hoover as being some sort of rogue actor, 1685 01:40:43,209 --> 01:40:45,039 behind the scenes, 1686 01:40:45,073 --> 01:40:48,766 and being kind of out of step with the American mainstream. 1687 01:40:48,801 --> 01:40:51,355 But the truth is that a lot of this 1688 01:40:51,390 --> 01:40:53,530 wasn't particularly secret. 1689 01:40:53,564 --> 01:40:56,705 A lot of people understood what the FBI was up to, 1690 01:40:56,740 --> 01:40:58,431 and in fact, they supported it. 1691 01:41:00,675 --> 01:41:05,128 - The FBI was not a renegade agency. 1692 01:41:05,162 --> 01:41:10,202 It was fundamentally a part, a core part 1693 01:41:10,236 --> 01:41:14,758 of the existing mainstream American political order. 1694 01:41:19,935 --> 01:41:24,561 - I don't know what's in the 2027 releases, 1695 01:41:24,595 --> 01:41:27,667 but I don't think that this will impact 1696 01:41:27,702 --> 01:41:29,773 the assessment of Dr. King's legacy. 1697 01:41:33,535 --> 01:41:35,468 The 1960s, the post-war years 1698 01:41:35,503 --> 01:41:37,919 are a period of real transformation. 1699 01:41:37,953 --> 01:41:40,163 One thing that's really important is that we acknowledge 1700 01:41:40,197 --> 01:41:42,579 that Black people have only truly had citizen rights 1701 01:41:42,613 --> 01:41:46,721 for the last 50 plus years. It's so recent. 1702 01:41:49,620 --> 01:41:52,589 Looking at the FBI campaigns against King, 1703 01:41:52,623 --> 01:41:55,005 the Black Panther Party, and many other people, 1704 01:41:55,039 --> 01:41:56,593 I think there's a core component to this 1705 01:41:56,627 --> 01:41:58,319 that really is structural and functional. 1706 01:41:58,353 --> 01:41:59,665 People hold these attitudes, 1707 01:41:59,699 --> 01:42:00,942 and we focus on J. Edgar Hoover's 1708 01:42:00,976 --> 01:42:03,669 own particular history and person, 1709 01:42:03,703 --> 01:42:05,119 but I think that these are attitudes 1710 01:42:05,153 --> 01:42:07,604 that have been core to how the racial order 1711 01:42:07,638 --> 01:42:08,915 operates in the U. S. 1712 01:42:13,299 --> 01:42:19,271 What helped motivate these campaigns was the real fear 1713 01:42:19,305 --> 01:42:20,548 that Black people could undermine 1714 01:42:20,582 --> 01:42:22,895 the way the country wanted to see itself. 1715 01:42:22,929 --> 01:42:24,207 And this manifested itself, 1716 01:42:24,241 --> 01:42:26,450 not only in the targeting of leaders 1717 01:42:26,485 --> 01:42:27,555 and people that were visible, 1718 01:42:27,589 --> 01:42:30,144 but of ordinary people. 1719 01:42:30,178 --> 01:42:31,524 So these core fear and aggressions 1720 01:42:31,559 --> 01:42:32,801 towards African-Americans, 1721 01:42:32,836 --> 01:42:34,286 I think has a lot to do with White people's 1722 01:42:34,320 --> 01:42:36,633 own conception of themselves, 1723 01:42:36,667 --> 01:42:38,704 and the danger of Black people 1724 01:42:38,738 --> 01:42:43,018 forcing a reckoning with the violence of the American past.