With a mix of incisive interviews and fantastic archival footage, MLK/FBI is a compelling documentary that deconstructs the intelligence agency’s shameful and invasive campaign of harassment against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Director Sam Pollard and writers Benjamin Hedin and Laura Tomaselli colour the narrative with a variety of perspectives from historians, former FBI agents, and close friends of King, presenting the story in a way that never feels over-dramatic. Instead, the Bureau’s abuse of King is stylishly and surgically unpacked, leaving a thoroughly unpleasant aftertaste.
In the opening scenes, a clip of Ronald Reagan introducing an episode of The General Electric Theater, tells us, “In the traditional motion picture story, the villains are usually defeated, the ending is usually a happy one. I can make no such promise for the picture you are about to watch.”
This sets an ominous tone for MLK/FBI, but it also demonstrates how the story will be told. Through an impressive array of recovered footage, deeper context and analysis will be applied to both King and the Bureau, helping to explain their motives for a timespan dating from the March on Washington in 1963 to King’s assassination. Gorgeously restored B-roll of interviews with King help us see him as a person who jokes and mutters outside of his earth-shattering speeches. Public interviews he had with talk show hosts and journalists seem that bit more duplicitous and underhanded because of what we learn about the expansive dissent the FBI was weaponizing against King.
It was a dissent shared by the general populace, revealed by the wealth of propaganda for law enforcement that was circulating at the time. Film and television titles such as I Was a Communist for the FBI or The FBI Story flash up on screen as we watch scenes that do little more than prove how the Bureau was pushing to be seen as heroic saviours. While modern audiences will see through this ruse, the historians interviewed in the film make an effort to insist how readily accepted and consumed they were by their contemporary viewers.
Context is everything, and after seeing MLK/FBI, it’s impossible to see the Bureau’s treatment of King disconnected from their fear of Communism infiltrating America. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that this social revolution was caused by the ideologies of enemies rather than the institutional injustices already present in America, and voiceover interviews successfully instil in us how much Hoover was motivated by fear throughout the Cold War.
These historians don’t appear just to give context, they also reflect on the uncomfortable responsibility of historiography when looking at institutional abuses. “One of the difficulties for historians,” one mentions, “is whether or not we then become complicit in what the FBI was doing.” As the revelations of what the FBI reportedly found about King become more shocking, we really get a sense that this is a painful and troubling matter for academics to cast judgement on.
While the film is undoubtedly stronger for this inclusion, the glimpses we get at it feel a little too brief, and should really be tackled in greater detail. They mainly appear in a messier second half where Pollard loses the focus somewhat, and the documentary starts to feel like it’s methodically describing a period of history rather than making strong arguments about how unchecked the FBI’s power was. At a certain point, the film’s dedication to contextualising the surveillance starts to overwhelm actually discussing how horrendous the harassment was. In addition, we’re told the surveillance tapes the Bureau made wiretapping and bugging King won’t be released until 2027, meaning the film feels a little incomplete as historians speculate on what the outcome could be.
But overall, the prescience of MLK/FBI can’t be denied. We’ve heard modern criticisms of protests against racism and police brutality that say King would not approve of riots. What these people forget is that while King preached nonviolence, it still cost him his dignity, his security, and ultimately his life. If protests are reduced to what is acceptable to those who hold power, then they aren’t protests at all. Pollard’s documentary shows it doesn’t matter how King said his beliefs nonviolently, the government had a problem with him saying it at all. While it feels like its points could be made with greater impact, MLK/FBI convincingly unpicks the trust people have had for decades with the institutions that are supposed to protect us.
