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The O. Zone: Trump looks to dirty MLK, roll back civil rights as he covers up his own close ties to Epstein
Once in a while I’m inspired enough by current events to write an O. Zone that’s more of a travelogue: A viewing of Hamilton in London led me to write this ode to democracy in April. This time, President Donald Trump’s attempt to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files by releasing the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination files took me back to Memphis in June.
It was mostly a quick, two-night trip to the “Home of the Blues & Birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll” to both celebrate the high-school graduation of our musically-inclined youngest son and to catch bucket-list performances at the Outlaw Music Festival by Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Oh, and to simply follow the sage advice of Paul Simon by “going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.” We stayed on Beale Street and enjoyed our time at Elvis Presley’s Graceland.
Suffice to say, “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar”, but what really got me emotional on an incredibly hot weekend that included all five of our immediate family plus a couple of our sons’ girlfriends was an unexpected visit to the National Civil Rights Museum.
Because it was a musical trip, we had just visited the Blues Hall of Fame Museum and were on our way to eat some of the best barbecue I’ve ever consumed at the downtown Central BBQ – at the recommendation of our excellent Uber driver Muhammed – when we came around the corner on East Butler Avenue and literally stumbled right into the Lorraine Motel, eerily preserved in time like the infamous LIFE Magazine photo. It is preserved and maintained by the NCRM.
That is, of course, where MLK was gunned down in 1968, to quote Paul David Hewson, who beautifully sang, “Early evening, April 4; a shot rings out in the Memphis sky; free at last, they took your life; they could not take your pride; in the name of love …” Hewson is U2’s Bono, who later would team up with Memphis great B.B. King on “When Love Comes to Town”.
The Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis in June (David O. Williams photo).
It’s a dark part of our history honoring a movement and a man who was flawed, as we all are, but loved freedom and wanted it for all of his followers. That Trump chose King’s murky murder investigation as a means of distracting from his own failings shows he’s bent on taking us back to an even darker past, when civil rights were for some but not for others and when advocating for those rights made you a target of government harassment and political assassination.
Trump’s twisted version of making America great again is returning us to a time when the government conspired with its most wealthy and powerful allies against its citizenry in order to take away basic freedoms, including life and liberty. That’s why he just jammed through a funding bill that empowers a secret police state aimed at Americans and immigrants of color.
Even Trump’s complicity in the Epstein case is about power and control over the powerless: underage girls exploited by billionaires. He does not want the files released because it will show what we’ve known all along – that Trump is a wealthy, elitist predator who does not care about people who have no power or money. He will prey on the powerless and then accuse his enemies of doing the same while denying his own perversions.
Trump in 2016 and 2024 rode the twin, false conspiracies of disingenuously questioning former President Barack Obama’s citizenry with birtherism and feeding the lies of QAnon, which wrongly alleges a global cabal of Democrat baby eaters and pedophiles. And yet, it is Trump who hung out with Epstein and rode on his private plane and shared his predilection for “beautiful women … many of them … on the younger side.”
Congress, including many previously subservient Republicans, now seems on a collision course with Trump over his refusal to release the Epstein files, and many Democrats who were previously silent on the topic during the Biden administration have joined in.
It may turn out former President Bill Clinton was just as complicit as Trump in enabling and perhaps participating in Epstein’s sex-trafficking network, although there have thus far been no credible allegations or official indications that Trump or Clinton committed crimes. But the public deserves to know who’s on Epstein’s list, particularly if the man currently in the White House had anything to do with victimizing hundreds of teenage girls.
It may come as a shock to some MAGA voters that Trump is a creep, but why would it at this point? He admitted to assaulting women in the Access Hollywood recording, was found civilly liable for sexual abuse, and for 15 years thought convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy”. If I’d ever voted for Trump, I’d also feel a little sick about my choices.
And let’s not forget, as Congress returns in September and Democrats gleefully continue to pile on and MAGA gets more and more enraged, this investigation must be focused on justice for the many, many victims. It can’t go away when and if Democrats regain control of the House, even if Clinton winds up looking just as bad as Trump. Being a creep clearly is a bipartisan endeavor.
We need to know how Epstein was funded, who knew what and when, and that includes the founder of the modern version of Vail Resorts. As detailed by John LaConte of the Vail Daily, Leon Black – a contributor to Epstein’s infamous 50th birthday book with Clinton and Trump – had a long and complicated financial history with Epstein. Trump and Black, in fact, once partied in Moscow together. Who knows what the release of the files will ultimately reveal.
But one thing is clear, no matter what deal Trump’s Justice Department strikes with convicted Epstein co-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the victims of this elite global child-sex ring (the very thing QAnon alleges but never proved liberals engaged in) are being revictimized. Just as the victims of MLK’s assassination, his family and his friends and his millions of followers, are being revictimized for the sake of distraction.
There’s a special place in hell, if you believe in such a place, for someone who sides with unhinged FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and tries to smear a civil rights icon just to cover up a friendship (or perhaps more) with a global sexual predator like Epstein. King’s daughter Bernice said it best on X when Trump released the MLK files on Monday: “Now, do the Epstein files.”
Here’s a beautifully eloquent statement from King’s children, Martin Luther King III and Dr. Bernice A. King, that I also received on Monday (I’m posting it in its entirety in the name of love):
“We recognize that the release of documents concerning the assassination of our father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has long been a subject of interest, captivating public curiosity for decades. As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief – a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met – an absence our family has endured for over 57 years. We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.
“The release of these files must be viewed within their full historical context. During our father’s lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The intent of the government’s COINTELPRO campaign was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle, and destroy Dr. King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement. These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth – undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo.
“In 1999, our family filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit in Shelby County, Tennessee. The jury unanimously concluded that our father was the victim of a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers and unnamed co-conspirators, including government agencies as a part of a wider scheme. The verdict also affirmed that someone other than James Earl Ray was the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. Our family views that verdict as an affirmation of our long-held beliefs. As we review these newly released files, we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted.
“While we support transparency and historical accountability, we object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods. We strongly condemn any attempts to misuse these documents in ways intended to undermine our father’s legacy and the significant achievements of the movement. Those who promote the fruit of the FBI’s surveillance will unknowingly align themselves with an ongoing campaign to degrade our father and the Civil Rights Movement.
“Instead of repeating the injustices of the past, we encourage the public to continue the work that our father began – building equity, justice, and peace for all. Now more than ever, we must honor his sacrifice by committing ourselves to the realization of his dream – a society rooted in compassion, unity, and equality.
“Let us move forward together, inspired by our father’s enduring vision of the Beloved Community – a world made possible when we choose to center love in all that we do. By embracing compassion, mutual respect, and justice, we can transform his dream into our shared reality.”
Editor’s note: The O. Zone is a recurring opinion column by RealVail.com publisher David O. Williams. Please read how you can help support this site by considering a donation or signing up for news alerts … or both.
David O. Williams photo.
David O. Williams
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