Was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a convicted felon? No, that's not true: King was indicted for a felony, tax evasion, in 1960, but the jury found him not guilty, the historical record shows. He was never convicted of a felony. King, who spent decades advocating for civil rights for Black Americans, was arrested multiple times for acts of various civil disobedience, but never for a felony,
The claim about King appeared in a post (archived here) on author Naomi Wolf's account on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 6, 2024. It said:
I was in an Uber with a Virginian driver who was talking about civil rights, and said he would never never vote for a convicted felon. I pointed out that the Rev MLK Jr was a convicted felon. There was a pause.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Sep 9 17:35:11 2024 UTC)
King was arrested 29 times in his life as he fought for civil rights, as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture noted (archived here). He was never convicted of a felony.
King's only felony indictment was in February 1960, when an Alabama grand jury issued a warrant for his arrest for perjury. They accused him of signing fraudulent tax returns, as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University states (archived here). An all-white jury found him not guilty.
Lead Stories could find no proof of any felony conviction for King in his biography (archived here) on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute site.
The biography lists several of King's arrests but none of them were for felony charges.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Martin Luther King Jr. can be found here. Our fact checks of claims involving Naomi Wolf can be read here.
