MLK / FBI Virtual Screening with Director Sam Pollard

Date: 
Thursday, March 25, 2021 - 6:00pm
Please join so co-hosts Equal Rights Washington and ACLU-WA for a screening of MLK/FBI, with a special introduction from film director Sam Pollard and post-screening panel discussion with Michele Storms, Executive Director, ACLU-WA; Monisha Harrell, Chair, Equal Rights Washington; Aneelah Afzali, Executive Director, MAPS-AMEN (American Muslim Empowerment Network); and Kamau Chege, Managing Director, Washington for Black Lives.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered today as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic documentary, award-winning editor and director Sam Pollard (Editor, 4 LITTLE GIRLS, MO’ BETTER BLUES; Director/Producer, EYEZ ON THE PRIZE, SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME) lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. In crafting a rich archival tapestry, featuring some revelatory restored footage of King, Pollard urges us to remember that true American progress is always hard-won.

MLK/FBI is the first film to uncover the extent of the FBI's surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, utilizing a trove of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and unsealed by the National Archives, as well as revelatory restored footage, the documentary explores the government's history of targeting Black activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. Featuring interviews with key cultural figures, MLK/FBI tells this astonishing and tragic story with searing relevance to our current moment.

The film’s trailer is available here.