MLK.'s historic speech represented a high point in US history—and intensified J. Edgar Hoover's ugly covert crusade against the civil rights leader.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington—the 50th anniversary of which is being commemorated this week—marked a high point in US history. It was a soaring moment in which the the soul of the civil rights movement was bared to the nation, as King bravely recognized the daunting obstacles to progress but expressed unbound optimism that justice would ultimately reign.
There was, though, a dark side to the event, for it triggered an ugly and brutal reaction within one of the most powerful offices of the land. In response to King's address, J. Edgar Hoover, the omnipotent FBI director, intensified the bureau's clandestine war against the heroic civil rights leader.
For years, Hoover had been worried—or obsessed—by King, viewing him as a profound threat to national security. Hoover feared that the communist conspiracy he was committed to smashing (whether it was a real danger or not) was the hidden hand behind the civil rights movement and using it to subvert American society.
