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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

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Source: Bettmann / Getty
Government files on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be declassified for the public, due to an executive order by President Donald Trump.

On Thursday (Jan. 23), President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to declassify and release their files surrounding the life and assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The executive order “requires the review within 15 days of ‘records related to’ the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and within 45 days related to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

The King family released a statement as the news broke: “The assassination of our father is a deeply personal loss we have endured for 56 years. We hope to review the files as a family before they are made public.” Trump gave no reason as to why Dr. King’s files were being released. The King family has long believed that the known assassin, James Earl Ray, was aided by other forces as part of a larger plot.

The FBI told reporters that it was “complying” with the executive order, which “also requires designated agencies to submit a plan to the White House for ‘the full and complete release of these records.’ The FBI is identifying records responsive to the EO and will work with the Department of Justice and ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) respectively.” Concerning the files on Dr. King, it is expected that the FBI will declassify and release their records on their surveillance of him, as well as those documents concerning his assassination and records from their covert COINTELPRO operation investigating him.
During Trump’s first presidential term, he had publicly vowed to release the documents fully. He chose not to go forward at the behest of intelligence agencies, instead opting to place redactions to protect sensitive information. Trump has long floated conspiracy theories about the assassinations of President Kennedy, saying before signing: “That’s a big one, huh? A lot of people are waiting for this for a long — for years, for decades.” His adviser and nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has also declared the CIA was responsible for his father’s death. Trump instructed his aide to give Kennedy the pen he had signed the executive order with after signing.

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Source: Nykieria Chaney / Getty
The daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Rev. Bernice A. King, condemned St. Louis rapper Sexxy Red for an AI photo post of her late father on the national holiday honoring his memory.

The 26-year-old rapper posted two AI photos of the Civil Rights icon on Monday (Jan. 20), to her X account. In one image, she is shown dancing seductively close to Dr. King while another shows her walking alongside King and other Civil Rights leaders. According to TheGrio, the posts garnered more than 50,000 likes before they were deleted.
Rev. King reacted to the images calling them “deplorable.”

“This is intentionally distasteful, dishonoring, deplorable, and disrespectful to my family and my father, who is not here to respond himself because he was assassinated for working for your civil and human rights and to end war and poverty,” she wrote in a reply on X the following day.

Within hours, Sexxy Red offered an apology to Rev. King, writing, “You ain’t wrong,” adding, “Never meant to disrespect your family my apologies. Just reposted something I saw that I thought was innocent.”
Rev. King, who is the CEO of The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, accepted the rapper’s apology writing on X, in part, “Thank you for your apology, which I sincerely accept. Please know that it was not my intention that you be denigrated. I value you as a human being.”
“I hope you understand my concerns about the image,” she continued. “I know that my father has become a bit of a caricature to the world and that his image is often used with no regard to his family, his sacrificial work, or to the tragic, unjust way in which he died (a state-sanctioned assassination).”

She added, “I earnestly wish that people would imagine what it would feel like to see their deceased, murdered father repurposed for party fliers, unjust legislation, etc.”
She closed the note writing, “All the best to you, young lady.”
Other social media users were not as forgiving with many blasting the “Pound Town” rapper calling her “ghetto” and “trashy” among other names. Rev. King pushed back against those remarks as well, writing in reply to a post, “Please don’t project your thoughts onto me. I don’t believe Sexyy Red to be a ‘degenerate,’ ‘ghetto,’ or ‘trash.’ I have spoken out in the past about the use of and comparison to either of my parents to denigrate other people,” according to TheGrio.
In other news, Rev. King recently shared a statement on news that President Donald Trump plans to declassify her father’s FBI files. The statement read, “Today, our family has learned that President Trump has ordered the declassification of the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and our father, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.”
She added that at this time, the King Family is not taking any interviews as they await further information.

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Source: National Geographic / NatGeo
The trailer for the next installment of National Geographic’s acclaimed series Genius focusing on the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X made its debut.

As the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday weekend begins, National Geographic has released the full trailer for the next installment of their award-winning Genius series focusing on the civil rights leader and another iconic figure in the struggle for social justice, Malcolm X. The series, entitled Genius: MLK/X, is the first time that it will explore the lives of two impactful figures at once, opening with the two’s only public interaction on Capitol Hill at a Senate hearing in 1964.

Genius: MLK/X features Kelvin Harrison Jr., the Screen Actors Guild Award winner for his role in The Trial of The Chicago 7 and the star of Chevalier as Dr. King. Aaron Pierre, the actor notable for his performance as Caesar in Barry Jenkins’ Amazon series, The Underground Railroad, and M. Night Shyamalan’s, Old, portrays the activist, Malcolm X.
The docudrama series zeroes in on the lives of the two iconic figures going back to their formative years where both were reared with a strong sense of family but also beset by tragedy that placed them on their respective journeys to realize their identities and to fight for change for their people and the world.
The limited series also stars Weruche Opia as Coretta Scott King, MLK’s wife, and Jayme Lawson as Betty Shabazz, the wife of Malcolm X. Genius MLK/X also takes time to fully detail their lives and identities in full as powerful civil rights activists carrying on their late husbands’ work. The series also features the late Emmy Award winner Ron Cephas Jones in one of his final roles.
Genius: MLK/X is produced by Reggie Rock Bythewood, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ron Howard, Brian Glazer, Francie Calfo and Kristen Zolner. Ambassador Atallah Shabazz is also involved with the series, having served as a consulting producer. It is also produced by Undisputed Cinema, Imagine Television, and 20th Television. The series will air weekly and debuts on National Geographic Feb. 1 at 9 p.m. ET/8 CT with two episodes, which will be available on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.
Check out the trailer for Genius: MLK/X below.
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Source: Arnold Jerocki / Getty / Chris Rock
A Martin Luther King Jr. biopic directed by Chris Rock? Yes, this is actually happening.
Spotted on Variety, the victim of Will Smith’s mighty hand, Chris Rock, is in final talks to team up with Steven Spielberg to bring us a new film focusing on the life of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. 

The website reports that Rock will serve as a director while Spielberg will be onboard as an executive producer on the upcoming film.

The film will be back by Universal Pictures and will pull all its information from Jonathan Eig’s biography “King: A Life,” which the film studio has already optioned.
Per Variety:
Eig’s book has been called the definitive biography of the late civil rights icon. It uses new FBI information and hundreds of interviews to paint a portrayal of King as a “courageous but emotionally troubled individual who demanded peaceful protest while grappling with his own frailties and a government that hunted him.” Since it’s early in the development process, casting has not been announced.
This will not be the first time Rock will sit in the director’s chair for a film. His previous directing credits include 2014’s Top Five, also starring Rosario Dawson, 2003’s Head of State, and 2007’s I Think I Love My Wife.
If you’re itching to see Rock in front of the camera again, he will be starring alongside Colman Domingo in the upcoming Netflix film Rustin, which follows the man who was an advisor to MLK.
Earlier this year, Rock used a Netflix Live standup special, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, to finally break his silence about the infamous slap moment and other topics.
It’s good to see Chris Rock is out here working, but MLK biopic? We’re not sure this is something we want to see him directing.

Photo: Arnold Jerocki / Getty

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Source: Boston Globe / Getty/ MLK
A moment meant to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, became nothing but pure jokes on social media.
Friday, Jan.13, “The Embrace,” a 20-foot tall, 40-foot wide monument, made its debut on Boston Common, where King gave his speech on April 23, 1965, to a crowd of 22,000.
The statue, which Brooklyn-based conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas designed, drew inspiration from a photo of King and Scott King hugging each other after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
The headless monument only features the couple’s arms embracing each other, and it has drawn tremendous amounts of criticism from folks on Twitter and some members of the King’s family.
Many people call the statue hideous, while others point out that it looks like a sexual act is going down.
Scott King’s causing, Seneca Scott said the monument was insulting speaking to CNN and, in an essay published by Compact Magazine, called it a “masturbatory metal homage.”
Yikes.
“If you can look at it from all angles, and it’s probably two people hugging each other, it’s four hands. It’s not the missing heads that’s the atrocity that other people clamp onto that; it’s a stump that looked like a penis. That’s a joke,” Scott said to CNN.
Martin Luther King III Likes The MLK Statue
On the other hand, the civil rights activist’s son, Martin Luther King III, said he was grateful for the statue that represents his parents’ love story and partnership, telling CNN’s Don Lemon he liked the monument.
“I think that’s a huge representation of bringing people together,” King told CNN. “I think the artist did a great job. I’m satisfied. Yeah, it didn’t have my mom and dad’s images, but it represents something that brings people together.”
“And in this time, day and age, when there’s so much division, we need symbols that talk about bringing us together,” he continued.
The Artist Defends His Work
During an appearance on CNN This Morning, Hill defended his work, saying his goal was to capture “the feeling of love” from the King’s relationship and has no plans of changing the statue.
“This is a piece that was selected by the people of Boston. This is not Hank just came and put something. Thousands of people worked on this, thousands of people actually put it together, and no one saw this, I would say, perverse perspective,” Thomas said.
He also points out that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Monument were not instant hits, and “The Embrace” is another one of those situations.
Twitter is not trying to hear it and has let the jokes fly. You can see the reactions to the monument in the gallery below.

Photo: Boston Globe / Getty

1. A thread breaking it all down

4. Howling