Whistleblower · Tenderfoot TV & Audacy

Introducing 'The MLK Tapes' from Tenderfoot TV

January 17, 2022·45 min·3 clips

A Memphis civil jury in 1999 found that a conspiracy involving the mafia and local, state, and federal government agencies caused the murder of Martin Luther King — Coretta Scott King called it 'a great victory for truth itself.'

MLK Day is the setup. Donald Albrighton presents The MLK Tapes as a new podcast from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV about the strange circumstances around Dr. King's death. The pitch does not tiptoe. The assassination is not treated as rumor or distant lore, because the transcript says a 1999 civil trial found that a conspiracy took place and involved unnamed government agencies. Then the episode pulls the story back to public memory: King at the Lincoln Memorial, the dream everyone knows, the safer version of the man. That comfort does not last long. The excerpt moves to Bill Pepper, who says he became close to King only in the final year of his life. Pepper's article and photos are presented as part of what helped King see the hard connection between poverty, race, and war. Riverside comes next. On April 4, 1967, King gives his Vietnam speech at Riverside Church in New York, tying racism, extreme materialism, and militarism together. A year later, he is dead. Pepper says the loss devastated him, and after King's burial he turned down Robert Kennedy's invitation to talk about the presidential campaign. He was done with politics. Ten years pass. Pepper is in education, has a law degree, and still believes James Earl Ray killed King. Then Ralph Abernathy calls and asks him to visit Brushy Mountain Penitentiary to interrogate Ray, even though Pepper says he knew little about the case. After five torturous hours, Ray seems calmer and less like the man Pepper expected. Ray also insists he did not shoot Dr. King.

As heard by us

A sharp introduction that treats Dr. King’s death as an unsettled historical and legal question.

The MLK Tapes opens on a case that refuses to sit still. It looks at Dr. King’s death without pretending the simplest account is enough, and it brings in the 1999 civil trial, which found a conspiracy involving unnamed government agencies.

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Why you'd press play

You want a serious true-crime doorway into King’s murder and the questions still hanging around it.

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