Black leaders have found themselves in the headlines decades after their deaths, amid a flurry of American presidential activity. Days after outgoing president Joe Biden pardoned Marcus Mosiah Garvey his successor Donald Trump ordered the release of the FBI files on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well those of John F Kennedy and his brother Robert, considered to be some of the most consequential assassinations of the 1960s. (1)

While campaigners do see Biden’s act as not the end of the story as they push for exoneration, there is speculation about the motive behind the file releases. (2) The executive order requiring officials to declassify the documents cites “public interest.” (3) While this may be the case for JFK and RFK there are hints of another reason for MLK.

Reports that “President Trump’s First Week Begins with Rollout of White Supremacist Policies” are typified by the manufactured DEI outrage alongside rising food prices proving, yet again, the myth of ‘economic anxiety’ and the reality of white racial grievance – often against their economic interests. (4)

This it is consistent with his front grounding of white nationalism that FBI files be used to discredit MLK and rescind the national holiday in his honour as part of the general plan to roll back the gains of the civil rights era. (5) However, the question remains that why wouldn’t an FBI that wanted to see MLK dead, deploy harmful information about him if it had it. For example, MLK biographer, Peter Ling, has asserted that he would be cautious about trusting the accounts of FBI agents who were seeking to “destroy” him. (6)

Another significant assassination in the 1960s was that of Omowale Malcolm X but there haven’t been any calls to release the files on him. Perhaps one factor in this is the $100m case of “Malcolm X Shabazz et al. v. USA, the defendants are listed as the United States of America, the City of New York and none other than J. Edgar Hoover, among many more named NYPD, FBI and CIA agents or their estates.” (7)

At a morning news conference, attorney Ben Crump stood with family members as he described the lawsuit, saying he hoped federal and city officials would read it “and learn all the dastardly deeds that were done by their predecessors and try to right these historic wrongs.” (8)

The family’s case follows the 2021 exoneration for his murder and subsequent multi-millon dollar payout to Muhammad Abdul Aziz (Norman 3X Butler) and Khalil Islam (Thomas 15X Johnson – posthumously) for which New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr took the unprecedented step of apologizing for “serious, unacceptable violations of law and the public trust… a number of crucial NYPD and FBI documents that had been fraudulently concealed for more than 56 years.” (9)

The suit further contends that: “based on new evidence that includes unearthed documents from COINTELPRO (the FBI’s infamous “Counter-Intelligence Program”) and other agency and NYPD sources; the discovery of this evidence has empowered the plaintiffs and their attorneys to credibly allege that those organizations had a directing role in the assassination, and in later covering it up.” It is alleged that this also included a state coordinated to neutralize Malcolm X’s own nonpolice security detail. The release of the files would surely prevent a protracted lawsuit curtailing the abiding grief as the case affirms that “The damage caused to the Shabazz family is unimaginable, immense, and irreparable.” (10)

The damage to the global Afrikan family was similarly immense and has been enduring ever since given that there is “abundant evidence of the continuation of similar tactics against Black organizers and the left by federal and local law enforcement.” (11)

(1) Melissa Hellmann (26/01/25) Inside the 100-year fight to get a Black revolutionary pardoned. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jan/26/marcus-garvey-pardon-campaign; Stefan Becket, Kathryn Watson (24/01/25) Trump signs executive order to release more JFK, RFK, MLK assassination files. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-announces-jfk-rfk-mlk-assassination-files-to-be-released/

(2) Meagan Jordan (23/01/25) Joe Biden Pardoned Marcus Garvey. Is It Enough?. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/joe-biden-marcus-garvey-pardon-interview-1235245049/; Tony Nicholas (21/01/25) ‘A Pardon Is Not Enough’: ICAR Says Garvey Should Be Exonerated. https://stluciatimes.com/168235/2025/01/a-pardon-is-not-enough-icar-says-garvey-should-be-exonerated/

(3) Mike Wendling (23/01/25) Trump orders plan for release of JFK and MLK assassination files.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8pgp0e1g6ohttps://enfielddispatch.co.uk/londoners-urged-to-seek-justice-over-mets-discriminatory-gangs-matrix/

(4) Terrance Sullivan (28/01/25) President Trump’s First Week Begins with Rollout of White Supremacist Policies and Pardons. https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/president-trumps-first-week-begins-with-rollout-of-white-supremacist-policies-and-pardons/;Emily Moore (31/01/25) Despite What They’re Telling You, DEI Is Good for Business. https://slate.com/business/2025/01/trump-dei-republican-dog-whistle-diversity-capitalism-success-profit.html; Chauncey DeVega (05/01/17) It was the racism, stupid: White working-class “economic anxiety” is a zombie idea that needs to die. https://www.salon.com/2017/01/05/it-was-the-racism-stupid-white-working-class-economic-anxiety-is-a-zombie-idea-that-needs-to-die/

(5) Chris Richburg (02/02/25) Roland Martin Shares Belief That Trump is Out to Ruin MLK’s Legacy with Release of FBI Files | WATCH. https://eurweb.com/2025/trump-declassifies-mlk-files-but-roland-martin-urges-caution/; Ben Macintyre (31/01/25) King-sized bombshell sits in FBI files. https://www.thetimes.com/article/da6fb085-adfc-42eb-aa91-dcee74b5bb19?shareToken=d6a80c1aba32458199eb94929c9c4a4a; Peter Stubley, Chris Baynes (28/05/19) Martin Luther King Jr ‘watched and laughed’ as woman was raped, secret FBI recordings allege. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/martin-luther-king-rape-fbi-tapes-video-mlk-laugh-files-a8932206.html; William Turton (12/01/24) How Charlie Kirk Plans to Discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act. https://www.wired.com/story/charlie-kirk-tpusa-mlk-civil-rights-act/

(6) Stubley, Baynes. Op. cit

(7) Tyler Walicek (06/01/25) ’60 Years After Assassination of Malcolm X, a Lawsuit Aims to Uncover the Truth. https://https://truthout.org/articles/60-years-after-assassination-of-malcolm-x-a-lawsuit-aims-to-uncover-the-truth/

(8) The Associated Press (15/11/24) ‘Malcolm X’s daughters sue the CIA, FBI and NYPD over th

(9) Walicek. Op. cit

(10) Ibid.; The Associated Press. Op. cit.

(11) Walicek. Op. cit

After MLK, will they release the Malcolm X files?

1) Is the release of the MLK files designed to help or harm his legacy?

2) How would releasing the Malcolm X files affect the legal case?

3) To what extent are COINTELPRO tactics being used against today’s activists?

4) Do Trump’s “White Supremacist Policies” represent a particular threat to Afrikan people?

Our Special Guests:

Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and an Afrikan-Centred Education Consultant. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 40 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An African-Centred Approach To Excellence.

Baba Zak A Kondo: is a Professor of History at Baltimore City Community College where he has been for eighteen years. Before this Baba Zak spent fifteen years at Bowie State University in Maryland where he was the youngest full-time faculty member in its history. While there he founded and co-ordinated the Pan-Afrikan studies programme and was the recipient of numerous teaching awards. He has spent more than thirty-one years teaching history and Black Studies at the college level. Baba Zak is the author of Conspiracys: Unravelling the Assassination of Malcolm X, one of the most authoritative books on the subject and he currently working on the second edition. He is also the author of The Black Student’s Guide to Positive Education and For Homeboys: A Brother to Brother Monologue and was a contributor to A Lie Of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X,

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