FBI pressured Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide, according to secret files.

The release of more than 230,000 classified documents about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. reopened a dark chapter in American history.

Nearly six decades after the assassination, the files reveal the extent of state surveillance, the use of blackmail as a political weapon, and the FBI's explicit attempts to pressure the African-American leader into suicide. The impact of these revelations extends both to public debate and to the ongoing grief within the King family.

On July 21, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified the files pursuant to President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14176.

The release, coordinated by the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, and the National Archives, included previously unpublished memos about King's surveillance, the official investigation, and international documents. Among them is file 104-10125-10133 , an anonymous letter sent by the FBI in 1964 seeking to force him to take his own life.

The document, accompanied by private recordings, accused King of sexual immorality and threatened to expose his private life . The FBI , under J. Edgar Hoover, implemented the COINTELPRO program to discredit leaders of the civil rights movement, with King being one of its primary targets.

"The only thing you can do now is what you know must be done. You have 34 days to do it. This is timed exactly because that's how long you'll have before everything is made public (...) Your repulsive sexual actions will be publicized," the letter reads.

Following the release, Martin Luther King III and Dr. Bernice King stated that, while they support transparency, they reject any malicious use of these records. They called for respect for their father's memory and recalled that his family has grieved his absence for 57 years.