‘The FBI was basically trying to destroy Martin Luther King Jr’ says documentary filmmaker

A new documentary sheds light on how the FBI targeted America’s most prominent civil rights activist in the 1950s and 60s.

The film called MLK/FBI draws on recently declassified files and bug and phone tapping recordings of Martin Luther King, yet to be released.

At the time they wanted to find links he had with the Communist party and to record the alleged affairs he was having, in order to discredit him.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy spoke to Sam Pollard who directed the documentary and Professor Beverly Gage a historian who has written extensively about the FBI.

A warning, the documentary quotes racial terms used in official documents by the FBI at the time, which viewers now may find offensive.