How the FBI Tried to Block Martin Luther King’s Commencement Speech
- Jun 11, 2014
- 1 min read
Updated: Mar 11
The untold story of a government plot, a maverick college president, and the most important figure of the civil rights era
Their one and only meeting lasted barely a minute. On March 26, 1964, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X came to Washington to observe the beginning of the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act. They shook hands. They smiled for the cameras. As they parted, Malcolm said jokingly, “Now you’re going to get investigated.”
That, of course, was well underway.
Note: a 2016 Los Angeles Times story indicated that this piece, as well as “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” were the two required readings for new FBI agents under former FBI Director James Comey, to guard against excesses like J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance of Martin Luther King (which Comey called “shameful”)
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