# Martin Luther King Jr. 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) 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) is others’ act. Later NPS designation (https://www.nps.gov/malu/index.htm) 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/, to contain unattributed borrowing. Albany’s 1961–62 campaign (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/albany-movement) did not extract the ordinance it sought. SCLC’s 1957 founding (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc) encoded a male clergy executive. Birmingham’s children’s marches, recorded by NPS at https://www.nps.gov/articles/birmingham-campaign.htm, 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) 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 and https://www.nytimes.com/1967/04/05/archives/dr-king-to-weigh-civil-disobedience-if-war-intensifies.html) 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) broke down. The offsets are statutes and campaigns, not a temperament. Montgomery: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/montgomery-bus-boycott and https://www.britannica.com/event/Montgomery-bus-boycott. The Letter: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail. The March: https://www.nytimes.com/1963/08/29/archives/200000-urge-negro-equality-in-washington-throng-of-200000-at.html and https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html. The Civil Rights Act: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act. Nobel: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/lecture/. Selma: https://www.nps.gov/semo/index.htm. The Voting Rights Act: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act. 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. Poor People’s economic demand: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/poor-peoples-campaign. 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](/people/mahatma-gandhi) as method ancestor (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/gandhi-mohandas-k), 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. ## Dated facts - The 1968 Fair Housing Act is signed after the assassination; it is Johnson’s statute not King’s handwriting. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-fair-housing-after-death-not-his-signature. Sources: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/. - 1968: King is murdered in Memphis; the killing is others’ act, later memory instruments are not his harm. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-assassination-others-act-memory. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/05/archives/martin-luther-king-is-slain-in-memphis-a-white-is-suspected-johnson.html, https://www.archives.gov/research/mlk. - The 28 March 1968 Memphis march King leads breaks into window-smashing and a death. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-memphis-28-march-disorder. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/29/archives/dr-king-calls-for-nonviolence-in-memphis-marchers-pelted.html, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/memphis-sanitation-workers-strike. - 1968: King puts SCLC’s heading on the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike for union recognition and safety. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-memphis-sanitation-support. Sources: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/memphis-sanitation-workers-strike, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr. - 1968: King’s last winter states an Economic Bill of Rights as the Poor People’s public demand. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-poor-peoples-economic-bill. Sources: https://www.lbjlibrary.org/news-and-press/civil-rights, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/poor-peoples-campaign. - 1967: King announces a Poor People’s Campaign designed as a disruptive Washington encampment. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-poor-people-encampment-design. Sources: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/poor-peoples-campaign, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr. - 1967: The same Riverside speech states a humanitarian brief against the Vietnam War’s civilian costs. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-beyond-vietnam-humanitarian. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1967/04/05/archives/dr-king-to-weigh-civil-disobedience-if-war-intensifies.html, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam. - 1967: King’s Riverside ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech publicly ruptures the Johnson civil-rights coalition. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-beyond-vietnam-johnson-rupture. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1967/04/05/archives/dr-king-to-weigh-civil-disobedience-if-war-intensifies.html, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam. - King’s 1967 book names racism, materialism, and militarism as a triple evicting a narrower rights coalition. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-where-we-go-class-front. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/. - 1966: The Chicago Summit Agreement promises open housing without an enforceable citywide mechanism King can hold. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-chicago-summit-unenforced. Sources: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/chicago-campaign, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr. - 1966: King’s Chicago Freedom Movement makes dual housing markets a national public demand. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-chicago-open-housing-demand. Sources: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/chicago-campaign, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr. - 1966: The Meredith March makes public the SNCC–SCLC split over Black Power and nonviolence as discipline. https://factrail.ai/facts/mlk-black-power-split. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/. ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/martin-luther-king-jr