MLK/FBI
2020, Documentary, 1h 42m
125 Reviews 50+ RatingsWhat to know
critics consensus
MLK/FBI presents a sobering overview of the American intelligence community's efforts to discredit and destroy a leader of the civil rights movement. Read critic reviews
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Where to watch
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Movie Info
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered today as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic documentary, award-winning editor and director Sam Pollard (Editor, 4 LITTLE GIRLS, MO’ BETTER BLUES; Director/Producer, EYEZ ON THE PRIZE, SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME) lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. In crafting a rich archival tapestry, featuring some revelatory restored footage of King, Pollard urges us to remember that true American progress is always hard-won.
Cast & Crew
David Garrow
Self
Self
Donna Murch
Self
Self
Marc Perrusquia
Self
Self
Andrew Young
Self
Self
Beverly Gage
Self
Self
Clarence Jones
Self
Self
Critic Reviews for MLK/FBI
Audience Reviews for MLK/FBI
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Mar 09, 2021"Looking at the FBI campaigns against King, the Black Panther party, and many other people I think there's a core component to this that really is structural and functional. People hold these attitudes and we focus on J. Edgar Hoover's own particular history and person, but I think that these are attitudes that have been core to how the racial order operates in the U.S. What helped motivate these campaigns was the real fear that black people could undermine the way the country wanted to see itself. And this manifested itself not only in the targeting of leaders and the people that were visible, but of ordinary people. So, this core fear and aggression toward African Americans has a lot to do with white people's own conception of themselves and black people forcing a reckoning with the violence of the American past." Hot. Damn.Philip P Super Reviewer
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