NO SHAME

FBI Tweets Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., the Man It Tried to Destroy

The FBI carried out a plot to blackmail the civil-rights leader, which included sending him a letter encouraging him to take his own life.

The FBI on Monday tweeted a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., 56 years after it carried out a plot to blackmail the civil-rights leader, which included sending him a letter which apparently encouraged him to take his own life.

The bureau tweeted Monday morning, on the federal holiday marking the civil-rights leader’s legacy: “Today, the FBI honors the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A quote from Dr. King is etched in stone at the FBI Academy's reflection garden in Quantico as a reminder to all students and FBI employees: ‘The time is always right to do what is right.’”

The tweet included a photo of the “reflection garden,” showing the illuminated quote from King. In 1964, the agency threatened to spread hearsay about King’s sex life in the media, and told him in a letter: “There is but one way out for you.” It called King a “colossal fraud” and “an evil, abnormal beast,” and it was revealed last year that then-FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave his agents permission to send King a tape-recording of an alleged orgy in King’s hotel.