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Page 18 The Skanner Portland & Seattle January 13, 2021 Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. REVIEW: ‘MLK/FBI’ 35th Annual Explores the Roots of MARTIN LUTHER an American Ill Will F oundation KING JR. BREAKFAST T By MARK KENNEDY JAN 18, 2021 9:00 a.m. e b u t u o on y s w e n r e n @theskan Changes require sacrifice The Skanner News would like to thank the following sponsors for their support of the 2021 Martin Luther King, Jr. Special Edition AARP Care Oregon City of Portland Eli Lilly Home Forward Kaiser Permanente Legacy Health Multnomah County OHSU Oregon Alliance of Clinical Researchers Oregon Lottery Pacific Power PCRI Pepsi PGE Portland Community College Portland Trailblazers Prosper Portland RALI Oregon TriMet Turner Construction U.S. Forest Service University of Oregon Vancouver Avenue Baptist Church Washington Department of Health Wells Fargo here’s an iconic pho- tograph of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that was taken as he triumphantly boarded one of the first integrated buses in Montgomery, Alabama. It was 1956 and King looks out a window, firm- ly at the front of the bus, almost gazing toward his movement’s next big social hurdle. The im- “ of that slash came to be enemies. Pollard is a veteran producer and filmmak- er who co-directed two episodes of “Eyes on the Prize” and earned an Os- car nomination for edit- ing Spike Lee’s blistering 1997 film “4 Little Girls.” In “MLK/FBI,” Pollard explains how J. Edgar Hoover used the full force of his federal law enforcement agency to attack a progressive, I think this entire episode represents the darkest part of the Bureau’s history age was taken by Ernest Withers, a key chron- icler of the civil rights movement — and an FBI informant. That the FBI want- ed someone close and watching King is at the heart of director Sam Pollard’s engrossing doc- umentary “MLK/FBI,” a film that artfully ex- plains how the two sides nonviolent cause. That included wiretaps, black- mail and informers, try- ing to find dirt on King. “I think this entire episode represents the darkest part of the Bureau’s his- tory,” notes former FBI Director James Comey. There is nothing ter- ribly new in the telling, no huge revelations or bombshells. Most of This image released by IFC Films shows poster art for “MLK/FBI,” a documentary that shows how FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used the full force of his federal law enforcement agency to attack King and his progressive, nonviolent cause. That included wiretaps, blackmail and informers, trying to find dirt on King. (IFC Films via AP) the details — including King’s infidelity and the use of Withers as an FBI informant — have been known for years. But that’s not Pollard’s interest. His canvas is large, stretching back to post-Civil War Jim Crow, exploring how notions of Black sexuality were turned into social weap- ons and into the way FBI agents were made mythi- cal in popular culture. Pollard is patient and thoughtful, leaning his film on David J. Garrow’s book “The FBI and Mar- tin Luther King Jr.: From ‘Solo’ to Memphis.” The most salacious stuff must wait until three-quarters through, until the film- maker has pulled all the historical threads togeth- er. Then the picture is clear — and frightening. King’s famous March on Washington took place on Aug. 28, 1963, and two days later, in a memo, William C. Sul- livan, the head of FBI domestic intelligence, wrote, “We must mark him now as the most dangerous Negro in the future of this Nation,” adding, “and we must use every resource as our disposal to destroy him.” There are lessons for 2021, for sure. Having Communist leanings in the ’50s and ’60s was as smeared as the socialism of today. “I Am a Man” placards at protests echo the “Black Lives Matter” signs of today. White America’s anxieties around Black empower- ment have not changed much. “MLK/FBI” has a differ- ent feel than traditional documentaries, eschew- ing the usual pattern of old footage punctuated by talking heads, in fa- vor of just footage and soaring songs, like “Lord Don’t Move the Moun- tain” by Mahalia Jackson and “Oh Freedom” by See FILM on page 19
