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Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

0

Near balanceFormula-derived score

American Baptist minister (1929–1968) who headed Montgomery’s boycott, SCLC, Birmingham, the 1963 March, and Selma’s nationalization of the Voting Rights Act. Documented harms: uncredited dissertation borrowing, Albany’s failed ordinance, children marched into hoses, Atlantic City’s MFDP token, Chicago’s paper Summit, the 1967 Johnson rupture, 28 March 1968 Memphis disorder. Offsets are statutes, letters, and marches.

Christian nonviolent civil-rights activismlater democratic-socialist economic critiqueanti-war internationalism after 1967

Impact

Not rated yet: the verified records linked to this person, without a numeric impact.

Editorial assessment (context, not the score)

The page is not a stained-glass window and not a Bureau caption. The heaviest documented costs that are his are uncredited academic borrowing, Albany’s failed ordinance, a male SCLC executive, children sent into hoses, the MFDP token seating, Chicago’s paper Summit, the 1967 Johnson rupture, and the 28 March 1968 Memphis breakdown. The offsets are Montgomery, the jail letter, 1963–65 statutes he demanded but did not sign, Selma’s completed march, and an anti-war brief that is also a coalition break. He did not write COINTELPRO. He did not shoot himself at the Lorraine. Confidence is high on NARA and King Institute dates, medium on polarisation coefficients.

Indicators affected

Indicators this person’s verified facts reach. No score contribution is assigned; the observed state is the indicator’s own reading.

Accountability & contradictions

Claims against the record, the type of responsibility, and what is disputed.

Claimed

What happened

Responsibility

What could change this assessment

  • 4 linked facts have no assessed welfare direction yet.
  • Lifetime coverage has not been assessed: the record reflects stored facts only (1955–1968).

Causal path

Person → Fact → Driver → Indicator. Select a path to inspect its factors; the full network opens on demand.

  1. PersonMartin Luther King Jr.
  2. FactThe 1968 Fair Housing Act is signed after the assassination; it is Johnson’s statute not King’s handwriting
  3. DriverInstitutional Corruption
  1. PersonMartin Luther King Jr.
  2. FactKing is murdered in Memphis; the killing is others’ act, later memory instruments are not his harm
  3. DriverSocial Cohesion
  1. PersonMartin Luther King Jr.
  2. FactThe 28 March 1968 Memphis march King leads breaks into window-smashing and a death
  3. DriverSocial Cohesion

Timeline

The most relevant dated facts, newest first.

  1. 11 April 1968 · Institutional Corruption

    The 1968 Fair Housing Act is signed after the assassination; it is Johnson’s statute not King’s handwriting

  2. 4 April 1968 · Social Cohesion

    King is murdered in Memphis; the killing is others’ act, later memory instruments are not his harm

  3. 28 March 1968 · Social Cohesion

    The 28 March 1968 Memphis march King leads breaks into window-smashing and a death

  4. 18 March 1968 · Labour-Market Tightness

    King puts SCLC’s heading on the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike for union recognition and safety

  5. 1 February 1968 · Industrial-Policy Activism

    King’s last winter states an Economic Bill of Rights as the Poor People’s public demand

  6. 4 December 1967 · Political Polarization

    King announces a Poor People’s Campaign designed as a disruptive Washington encampment

Evidence & methodology

How the record is sourced and how the score is derived.

31 of 31 linked facts verified, drawing on 18 distinct sources (1955–1968).

Sources include U.S. National Archives, Stanford University, U.S. National Park Service, Nobel Prize Outreach, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Library of Congress.

Sources (showing 8 of 18)

  1. 1.Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education InstituteStanford University
  2. 2.King Institute — Chicago CampaignStanford University
  3. 3.King Institute — Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceStanford University
  4. 4.National Archives — Civil Rights Act (1964)U.S. National Archives
  5. 5.King Institute — Memphis Sanitation Workers StrikeStanford University
  6. 6.King Institute — Poor People’s CampaignStanford University
  7. 7.King Institute — Beyond VietnamStanford University
  8. 8.JFK Library — Civil Rights MovementJohn F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

The score is formula-derived (Factrail formula v1, version 1.0.0), not an editorial verdict. Read the methodology.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed · Sources: 18

Expert analysis

An excerpt; the full analysis opens on request.

The first fact about Martin Luther King Jr. in a public catalog is that government harm done to him is not his negative contribution. The FBI’s COINTELPRO file (see the Bureau’s own historical heading at https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/mlk (opens in a new tab)) is a state instrument. The 4 April 1968 homicide recorded by the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/05/archives/martin-luther-king-is-slain-in-memphis-a-white-is-suspected-johnson.html (opens in a new tab)) is others’ act. Later NPS designation (https://www.nps.gov/malu/index.htm (opens in a new tab)) is Congress and a park service. None of those rows is a finding that he harmed himself. Boston University accepted a 1955 dissertation later shown, in the King Papers Project’s own apparatus at https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/ (opens in a new tab), to contain unattributed borrowing. Albany’s 1961–62 campaign (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/albany-movement (opens in a new tab)) did not extract the ordinance it sought. SCLC’s 1957 founding (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc (opens in a new tab)) encoded a male clergy executive. Birmingham’s children’s marches, recorded by NPS at https://www.nps.gov/articles/birmingham-campaign.htm (opens in a new tab), placed minors in Connor’s path. Atlantic City 1964 urged the Mississippi Freedom Democrats toward token seating. Chicago’s 26 August 1966 Summit (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/chicago-campaign (opens in a new tab)) promised open housing without a hard machine. The Meredith March made the Black Power split public. Riverside on 4 April 1967 (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam (opens in a new tab) and https://www.nytimes.com/1967/04/05/archives/dr-king-to-weigh-civil-disobedience-if-war-intensifies.html (opens in a new tab)) broke with Johnson. Memphis on 28 March 1968 (https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/29/archives/dr-king-calls-for-nonviolence-in-memphis-marchers-pelted.html (opens in a new tab)) broke down. The offsets are statutes and campaigns, not a temperament. Montgomery: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/montgomery-bus-boycott (opens in a new tab) and https://www.britannica.com/event/Montgomery-bus-boycott (opens in a new tab). The Letter: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail (opens in a new tab). The March: https://www.nytimes.com/1963/08/29/archives/200000-urge-negro-equality-in-washington-throng-of-200000-at.html (opens in a new tab) and https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html (opens in a new tab). The Civil Rights Act: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act (opens in a new tab). Nobel: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/lecture/ (opens in a new tab). Selma: https://www.nps.gov/semo/index.htm (opens in a new tab). The Voting Rights Act: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act (opens in a new tab). The same Riverside text is also a humanitarian anti-war brief — split from polarisation. Memphis sanitation: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/memphis-sanitation-workers-strike (opens in a new tab). Poor People’s economic demand: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/poor-peoples-campaign (opens in a new tab). What the score must not say: that he signed Title VII or section 5; that he planned Parks’s arrest; that he stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on 7 March 1965; that COINTELPRO is his FDI; that 4 April is his harm; that 11 April 1968 Fair Housing is his autograph; that uncredited borrowing cancels Selma; that Selma cancels borrowing. Confidence is high on NARA milestone dates and King Institute document pages, medium on coalition coefficients and proverb-harm from the Watts caption. Related people are Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, Fred Shuttlesworth, Lyndon Johnson, John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, Ella Baker, Mahatma Gandhi as method ancestor (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/gandhi-mohandas-k (opens in a new tab)), and James Earl Ray only as the convicted killer — a relation of homicide, not of campaign. J. Edgar Hoover belongs as the government adversary, not as a co-author of Montgomery.

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