Martin Luther King Jr.

===Allegations of adultery===
[[File:MLK and Malcolm X USNWR cropped.jpg|thumb|upright|The only meeting of King and [[Malcolm X]], outside the [[United States Senate chamber]], March 26, 1964, during the Senate debates regarding the (eventual) [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]<ref name=WPKingX>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/14/martin-luther-king-jr-met-malcolm-x-just-once-the-photo-still-haunts-us-with-what-was-lost/ |title=Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. The photo still haunts us with what was lost. |first=DeNeen L. |last=Brown |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=January 18, 2014 |access-date=October 31, 2020}}</ref>]]
The FBI attempted to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life. FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he had numerous extramarital affairs.<ref name=track /> The FBI distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding sources of the SCLC, and King's family.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Martin Luther King |title=Conspiracy Encyclopedia |last=Burnett |first=Thom |isbn=1-84340-287-4 |publisher=Collins & Brown |year=2005 |page=[https://archive.org/details/conspiracyencycl0000unse/page/58 58] |title-link=Conspiracy Encyclopedia |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/conspiracyencycl0000unse/page/58 }}

</ref> The bureau also sent anonymous letters to King threatening to reveal information if he did not cease his civil rights work.<ref>{{cite book |page=[https://archive.org/details/popularimagesofa0000unse/page/532 532] |last=Spragens |first=William C. |title=Popular Images of American Presidents |url=https://archive.org/details/popularimagesofa0000unse |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-313-22899-5 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |year=1988 }}
</ref> The [[FBI–King suicide letter]] sent to King just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize read, in part:

[[File:Mlk-uncovered-letter.png|thumb|upright|The [[FBI–King suicide letter]],<ref name="suicide letter">{{cite news |last=Gage |first=Beverly |date=November 11, 2014 |title=What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111143946/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html |archive-date=November 11, 2014 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=January 9, 2015}}</ref> mailed anonymously by the FBI]]

<blockquote>The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant {{sic}}). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.{{sfn|Kotz|2005|p=247}}</blockquote>

The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons.{{sfn|Frady|2002|pp=158–59}} King interpreted this package as an attempt to drive him to suicide,<ref>{{cite book|page= [https://archive.org/details/insearchofdemocr00sond/page/466 466] |last= Wilson |first= Sondra K. |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 1999 |isbn= 0-19-511633-X |title= In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins (1920–1977) |url= https://archive.org/details/insearchofdemocr00sond/page/466 }}
</ref> although William Sullivan, head of the Domestic Intelligence Division at the time, argued that it may have only been intended to "convince Dr. King to resign from the SCLC."<ref name=Church /> King refused to succumb to the FBI's threats.<ref name=track/>

In 1977, [[United States district judge|Judge]] [[John Lewis Smith Jr.]] ordered the recorded audiotapes and written transcripts resulting from the FBI's electronic surveillance of King between 1963 and 1968 to sealed from public access in the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] until 2027.<ref>{{cite journal| title=Documenting the Struggle for Racial Equality in the Decade of the Sixties | publisher=The National Archives and Records Administration | url =https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/summer/equality-in-the-sixties.html#f3 |date=Summer 1997 | last=Phillips | first=Geraldine N. | journal=Prologue | access-date=June 15, 2008}}</ref>
In May 2019, an FBI file emerged on which a handwritten note alleged that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. Historians of the period who have examined this notional evidence have dismissed it as highly unreliable.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Brockell |first1=Gillian |title='Irresponsible': Historians attack David Garrow's MLK allegations |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/30/irresponsible-historians-attack-david-garrows-mlk-allegations/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=May 30, 2019}}</ref><ref name=Mur19/> [[David Garrow]], author of an earlier biography of King, wrote that "the suggestion ... that he either actively tolerated or personally employed violence against any woman, even while drunk, poses so fundamental a challenge to his historical stature as to require the most complete and extensive historical review possible".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Garrow |first1=David J. |author-link1=David J. Garrow |title=The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King |url=https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/june-2019/the-troubling-legacy-of-martin-luther-king/ |access-date=June 2, 2019 |work=[[Standpoint (magazine)|Standpoint]] |date=May 30, 2019 |archive-date=June 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601234100/https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/june-2019/the-troubling-legacy-of-martin-luther-king/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=Mur19>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/08/martin-luther-king-david-garrow-essay-claims|title=A historian's claims about Martin Luther King are shocking – and irresponsible |first=Donna|last=Murch|newspaper=The Guardian|date=June 8, 2019|access-date=July 27, 2019}}</ref> Garrow's reliance on a handwritten note addended to a typed report is considered poor scholarship by several other authorities. The professor of American studies at the [[University of Nottingham]], Peter Ling, pointed out that Garrow was excessively credulous, if not naive, in accepting the accuracy of FBI reports during a period when the FBI was undertaking a massive operation to attempt to discredit King.<ref>{{cite news |work=[[The Independent]]|title=Martin Luther King Jr 'watched and laughed' as woman was raped, secret FBI recordings allege|url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/martin-luther-king-rape-fbi-tapes-video-mlk-laugh-files-a8932206.html|author-last1=Stubley|author-first1=Peter|author-last2=Baynes|author-first2=Chris|date=May 28, 2019}}</ref> Experts in 20th-century American history, including Distinguished Professor of Political Science [[Jeanne Theoharis]], the professors [[Barbara Ransby]] of the [[University of Illinois]] at Chicago, [[N. D. B. Connolly|Nathan Connolly]] of [[Johns Hopkins University]] and Professor Emeritus of History [[Glenda Gilmore]] of [[Yale University]] have expressed reservations about Garrow's scholarship. Theoharis commented "Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this." It is not the first time the care and rigor of Garrow's work has been called into serious question.<ref name=Mur19/> Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King biographer and overseer of the Dr. King records at Stanford University states that he came to the opposite conclusion of Garrow: <blockquote>None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a 1964 recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs. King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording. This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report. You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Reynolds |first1=Barbara Ann |title=Salacious FBI information again attacks character of MLK |url=http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2019/jul/03/salacious-fbi-information-again-attacks-character-/ |access-date=August 7, 2019 |work=New York Amsterdam News |date=July 3, 2019}}</ref></blockquote> The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in 2027.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Griffey |first1=Trevor |title=J. Edgar Hoover's revenge: Information the FBI once hoped could destroy Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been declassified |url=https://theconversation.com/j-edgar-hoovers-revenge-information-the-fbi-once-hoped-could-destroy-rev-martin-luther-king-jr-has-been-declassified-118026 |date=May 31, 2019|access-date=June 2, 2019 |work=The Conversation |language=en}}</ref>
In his 1989 autobiography ''[[And the Walls Came Tumbling Down]]'', Ralph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation."<ref>{{cite book|title=And the walls came tumbling down: an autobiography |last=Abernathy |first=Ralph |year=1989 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-06-016192-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/andwallscametumb00aber/page/471 471] |url=https://archive.org/details/andwallscametumb00aber/page/471 }}</ref> In a later interview, Abernathy said that he only wrote the term "womanizing", that he did not specifically say King had [[extramarital sex]] and that the infidelities King had were [[emotional affair|emotional]] rather than sexual.<ref name=abertappva>{{cite web |url= http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1442 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20071211111242/http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1442 | archive-date=December 11, 2007 | title=And the Walls Came Tumbling Down | first=Ralph David |last=Abernathy |publisher=Booknotes |date=October 29, 1989 | access-date=June 14, 2008}}</ref> Abernathy criticized the media for sensationalizing the statements he wrote about King's affairs,<ref name=abertappva /> such as the allegation that he admitted in his book that King had a sexual affair the night before he was assassinated.<ref name=abertappva />
In his 1986 book ''[[Bearing the Cross]]'', David Garrow wrote about a number of extramarital affairs, including one woman King saw almost daily. According to Garrow, "that relationship&nbsp;... increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King's life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings&nbsp;... of King's travels." He alleged that King explained his extramarital affairs as "a form of anxiety reduction". Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt".<ref>{{cite book| title =Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference| url =https://archive.org/details/bearingcross00davi|last=Garrow|first=David| url-access =registration|year=1986|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bearingcross00davi/page/375 375–476] | publisher=William Morrow & Co| isbn =978-0688047948}}</ref> King's wife Coretta appeared to have accepted his affairs with equanimity, saying once that "all that other business just doesn't have a place in the very high-level relationship we enjoyed."{{sfn|Frady|2002|p=67}} Shortly after ''Bearing the Cross'' was released, civil rights author [[Howell Raines]] gave the book a positive review but opined that Garrow's allegations about King's sex life were "sensational" and stated that Garrow was "amassing facts rather than analyzing them".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/02/07/nnp/garrow.html|title=Driven to Martyrdom|author=Raines, Howell |work=The New York Times|date=November 30, 1986|access-date=July 12, 2013}}</ref>