Kamala Harris Appears To Endorse MLK Assassination Conspiracy Theory

Vice President Kamala Harris this month echoed the conspiracy theory that the U.S. government assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. to halt his labor activism, a move that could further undermine the Biden administration's efforts to battle misinformation.

"This is the stuff that you know that we have to remind people of," Harris, in an interview with the Nation, said of the historical connection between the civil rights movement and the labor movement. "This is why Dr. King was assassinated, because he was bringing together the civil rights movement with the workers."

Harris seemingly endorsed a popular conspiracy theory that government agencies conspired to assassinate King because in the last years of his life the civil rights icon shifted his focus to organized labor. Economic interests within the government, according to this theory, viewed King's labor activism as an intolerable threat to the capitalist system.

There is no evidence to support this theory, nor to suggest that James Earl Ray, who was convicted in King's 1968 assassination, was motivated to kill King because of his support for the labor movement.