The Trump administration has made public roughly 200,000 pages of FBI surveillance records on Martin Luther King Jr., ignoring objections from his family and the civil rights organization he once led. These documents, which detail the FBI’s monitoring of King before his 1968 assassination, were released despite concerns about privacy and the potential misuse of historical records.

Editor’s Note: This isn’t just about dusty old files—it’s a fresh wound for King’s family and a flashpoint in the debate over how governments handle sensitive historical surveillance. Releasing these records against the family’s wishes raises questions about who gets to control the narrative around civil rights history and whether transparency should outweigh personal dignity. It also reignites discussions about the FBI’s controversial past targeting activists, a shadow that still lingers today.