MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was seen as many things to many people — including a possible Communist to the FBI.
Federal agents had him under constant surveillance with the goal to monitor and disrupt the civil rights movement.
Investigators established files on civil rights activists and recruiters to the movement.
Agents posed as journalists, used wiretaps and even recruited some civil rights figures as informants.
The FBI determined after the march on Washington, to destroy Dr. King. They sought to disrupt, discredit and destroy Dr. King. They saw him as a threat, when in fact he was therapy.”
One of those informants was a close friend and confidant of Dr. King: Ernest C. Withers.
Withers is the man behind many pictures that gained international fame.
His family and countless others were shocked to find out that he and many others were reporting King’s every move to the feds.
While they were automatically classified as informants, a clerical error exposed Withers in 2010, showing that he got paid to snitch.
