The Surprising Thing The FBI Tried To Convince Martin Luther King Jr. To Do

The letter, published by Vox, was meant to look like it came from a Black person who was seemingly beseeching Martin Luther King Jr. to take his own life or be exposed for "all your adulterous acts, your sexual orgies extending far into the past." The writer of the letter accused King of being a "fraud" and "an evil, abnormal beast" who "could not believe in God and act as you do."  Elsewhere, the writer claimed to have King "on record" talking about his sexual escapades and threatened to make it public saying, "You are done. There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation." 

According to New York Times Magazine, King's wife, Coretta, was the one who first opened the letter. She gave it to her husband, who gathered his people around him to figure out how best to proceed. They all decided they thought the threatening letter was from the FBI, and years later, the Senate's Church Committee on intelligence overreach verified that the letter did come as a directive of J. Edgar Hoover. 

The FBI did throw some morsels about King's inappropriate sexual behavior to the press. But per New York Times Magazine, unlike today, the media at the time wasn't as interested in salacious sex-scandal headlines about powerful men. They didn't take the bait, and neither did King.