US President Donald Trump's administration has released a trove of records on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, including FBI surveillance files on the civil rights leader.

A court-imposed order had kept the FBI documents, totalling 230,000 pages, blocked from public view since 1977.

Many members of King's family had opposed the release.

A statement from his two living children condemned any attempts to misuse these documents in ways intended to undermine their father's legacy.

King, a Baptist minister, was shot in Memphis on 4 April 1968, at age 39.

James Earl Ray, a career criminal, pleaded guilty to the killing, but later renounced his plea.

[Source: BBC]