Briefly

UNITED STATES

FBI records on Martin Luther King Jr released

The US Justice Department on Monday released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr, despite concerns from the civil rights leader's family. The digital documents include more than 230,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977. King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, as he increasingly extended his attention from a nonviolent campaign for equal rights for African Americans to economic issues and calls for peace. In a statement on Monday, King's two surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, said they were concerned the records could be used for "attacks on our father's legacy".