Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by the US Deep State because he had planned to lead half a million people to a permanent occupation of Washington, D.C. and demand an end to funding to the American military empire, according to Kevin Barrett, an American academic and political analyst.
[See complete interview with William Pepper, the King family attorney]
Dr. Barrett, a founding member of the Scientific Panel for the Investigation of 9/11, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on a statement by US congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, who said on Monday that the Deep State murdered the American civil rights leader because of his heroic opposition to the Vietnam War.
“Ron Paul is one of the most interesting American politicians and political thinkers. And he recently made a very provocative statement on Martin Luther King Day stating that he thinks that the CIA killed Dr. King, or rather the Deep State, he said,” according to Dr. Barrett.
“Now the Deep State of course is the overlap of between organized crime and alphabet agencies starting with the CIA and FBI,” he added. “And indeed Ron Paul is right. The Deep State did murder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and that fact is detailed in great detail in William Pepper’s book, The Plot to Kill King[: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther].”
“William Pepper was the attorney for the Martin Luther King family, and he won two jury trials including one legal trial here in the United States proving that the US government murdered Dr. King,” the scholar stated.
“Now Ron Paul believes that this was done primarily because Martin Luther King was leading opposition to the war in Vietnam, but William Pepper who was in a position to know says that that was actually secondary,” he noted.
“The real reason that they killed King or they felt they had to do it was that at that point Dr. King was about to lead half a million people to a permanent occupation of Washington, D.C., demanding an end to a funding to the military empire, and a transfer of that funding to taking care of Americans especially the poor and dispossessed, and they weren’t going to leave Washington, D.C. until that happened,” the analyst said.
“At that time dozens of cities around the United States were burning as riots spread and the military had done focus group time interviews in the cities of rioters, a lot of psychological examination of what was going on and they determined that the people rioting were actually doing so in part because they felt empowered by Dr. King, which is ironic of course because Dr. King was a strong supporter of non-violence,” he stated.
“So they felt they had a violent revolution on their hands and the Deep State in this case was led by the US military which stationed snipers and a whole psychological operation of battalion of photographers and others recording the entire assassination from the neighboring rooftops in Memphis.”
Martin Luther King, a clergyman and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the 1950s and 60s.
American protesters on Monday staged nationwide demonstrations to mark Martin Luther King’s Day and protest against racial and economic injustice in the United States.
At demonstrations, activists, residents and teachers honored the late civil rights leader on what would have been his 89th birthday.
The protesters spoke out against President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies and rigid criminal justice agenda. In New York City, prominent lawmakers and community leaders condemned Trump’s racial rhetoric.