STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The National Archives posted nearly a quarter million pages related to the assassination of Martin Luther King. The Trump administration released those documents over the objections of King's family. So we've called Michael Eric Dyson. He's a professor, a preacher and author of many books, including "April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death And How It Changed America." Welcome back to the program.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Thank you for having me.
INSKEEP: I assume you haven't had a chance to read all quarter million pages yet, but I've been jumping around in them. Some of them are illegible. Some of them look interesting. Do you find anything of interest?
DYSON: Yeah. You're right. Most of them are illegible, or a lot of them are, you know, redacted, blacked out, or because of the wear and tear of time, you can't really figure it out. But I think the notion that - I didn't - I don't think I was quite aware of the international character of trying to trace Ray down as he made his, you know, escape from Memphis there.
INSKEEP: Oh, we're talking about James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King.
DYSON: Yes.
INSKEEP: Go on.
DYSON: I'm so sorry. James Earl Ray, the assassin, tracking him down, using their international connections to try to figure out where he was going and then, you know, conversations they had with his cellmate who spoke about an assassination plot. So those things were pretty interesting. But the rest of it, as far as I can wave through, is not very much new.
INSKEEP: Why do you think King's family would object to releasing the documents, though?
DYSON: Well, a couple of things. First of all, the FBI not - has not historically been sensitive to or a friend of the King family. They - even when he was alive, when they knew there was a plot to assassinate him, they did not warn him. So the FBI hasn't exactly been friendly to the King family. And then secondly, they were worried about the leaking of certain documents that would implicate Doctor King in what might be called, you know, sexual practices and infidelity and the like. Those things, fortunately, are locked away until 2027, and even when the Department of Justice tried to get them released a couple of years early, the court turned them down.
INSKEEP: And I suppose this would be a mixture of things that might well be true about King, as well as things that might well have been concocted because the FBI was campaigning against him in a sense.
DYSON: Absolutely right, besides the legitimate, empirically verifiable - as much as that can be done - cause and case on the one hand and, on the other hand, trying to gin it up because they saw him as an enemy. The second in command of the FBI called Martin Luther King Jr. the most dangerous Negro leader in America. So their campaign against him was pretty aggressive and sought to undermine his legitimacy and standing as a civil rights leader in America.
INSKEEP: I wonder if there's a counterview to releasing information about Martin Luther King, and that counterview might be as follows - he's Martin Luther King. His statue is up on - near the National Mall. People know his record. People also know that he wasn't perfect personally, and it seems unlikely that any given document is going to tear him down.
DYSON: Well, I hope that optimistic read will prevail. But then again, we're living in an era where something that happened five minutes ago - excuse me - we're not familiar with or, you know, inclined to give wide birth to. On the other hand, you're absolutely right. There's enough material. There's enough argument. There's enough, you know, evidence that Doctor King was an extraordinary American who changed fundamentally the life of Black people in America and made America a better place to live in.
INSKEEP: Michael Eric Dyson, it's always a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you very much, sir.
DYSON: Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: He's a professor, a pastor and author of "April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death And How It Changed America," a book from 2008. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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