FBI/MLK Documentary screening for MLKSB
**Events may have been canceled or postponed. Please contact the venue to confirm the event.
Date & Time
Sat, Jan 17 3:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Address (map)
1219 State Street, 93101
Venue (website)
CEC Environmental Hub
MLK/FBI is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Sam Pollard (known for co-directing the 1987 Oscar-nominated Eyes on the Prize), from a screenplay by Benjamin Hedin and Laura Tomaselli. It follows Martin Luther King Jr. as he is investigated and harassed by J. Edgar Hoover‘s Federal Bureau of Investigation.[4]
Synopsis
The film explores the investigation and harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, through newly declassified documents. Interviews with Beverly Gage, David J. Garrow, Andrew Young, Donna Murch, James Comey, Clarence Jones, Charles Knox, and Marc Perrusquia also appear in the film.
The interviews are presented largely as voiceover; some of the interviewees briefly appear on camera at the end of the film.
Much of the documentary utilizes archival footage of MLK between 1955 and 1968, the years of his work as a civil rights activist.
It is largely chronological, showing a young MLK from 1963[5] until 1968 when he was assassinated.
No new information is revealed about his assassination.
The last sequence makes the statement that not all FBI documents have been declassified, and that the whole record will be declassified and made available to the public in 2027.
The documentary covers the attempts by Hoover and the FBI to discredit King by collecting recordings and images of his private sexual life with women other than his wife.
This is to denigrate his status within the civil rights movement for black people in the United States, which was gaining momentum.
There is a stark contrast between the thoroughly white complexion of the FBI and the many crowds of black people assembled around MLK.
