Thursday, April 2, 2026 6:00 PM

The National Civil Rights Museum

Join us for a conversation with author James W. Douglass and NCRM’s Ryan Jones on Douglass’s long-

awaited sequel to the bestselling JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. This book talk aims to spread awareness of a fuller, more complete understanding of why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated — the time leading up to his death, how it was carried out, and who covered it up. Ryan Jones, who has researched all of the recently declassified files pertaining to Dr. King’s assassination released in July 2025, will bring that new evidence into conversation with Douglass’s work.

 

About the Book
Unlike most books that posit a conspiracy in JFK’s assassination, Douglass’s earlier work focused less on “who dunnit” and more on “why they dunnit.” He traced the steps by which JFK moved from being a traditional Cold Warrior to a prophetic commitment to peace — willing to risk his own life to avoid nuclear war. His partnership with

Nikita Khrushchev in pursuit of peace caused him to be regarded as a traitor by elements of the military-industrial-intelligence complex, who turned the mechanisms of the National Security State against the President of the United States.

This new volume returns to that story and shows how the same pattern

played out again and again — in the death of Robert Kennedy, and in the killings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In each case, American

figures who made a prophetic commitment to peace and social transformation were regarded as enemies of the state who had to be eliminated.

Douglass believes this hidden history holds the key to recovering and

advancing their mission — and to setting our country and the world on a path to peace.