‘We must mark him now as the most dangerous Negro in the future of this nation,’ William C. Sullivan said

The National Archives plans to release unheard FBI audio from when its director, J. Edgar Hoover, sought to destroy the growing influence of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The audio is set to be released on Jan. 31, 2027.

Two days after King’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, William C. Sullivan, the FBI head of domestic intelligence, signaled an internal alarm on King in a memo, according to ABC News.

“We must mark him now as the most dangerous Negro in the future of this nation,” Sullivan said of King.

Small numbers of protesters gather at fortified US capitols

“MLK/FBI,” directed by Sam Pollard, was released on-demand Friday. The film chronicled one of the darkest moments in the FBI’s history — their obsessive surveillance and harassment of the beloved civil rights leader who they believed was a threat to white America.

According to ABC News, from November 1963 until his assassination on April 4, 1968, the FBI wiretapped King’s telephone, bugged his hotel rooms every time he travelled and sought information from sources close to him.

“The film looks at this parallel story of the FBI and King and how they came together in terms of the FBI surveilling King, trying to destroy him,” Pollard said in an interview with BBC.

Source: FBI audio of plans to destroy MLK will be released by National Archives