This is a Word, a podcast from Slate.

I'm your host, Jason Johnson.

The death of Martin Luther King Jr. was captured in an iconic photograph taken moments

after he was shot.

Picture captures the slain civil rights leader bleeding out on a balcony, surrounded by trusted advisors, and a man who we now

know was a spy. I just thought, how could a black man infiltrate a group that's fighting for

black liberation and report back to the Memphis Police Department? The kneeling man coming up on a

word with me, Jason Johnson.

Stay with us.

Welcome to a word, a podcast about race and politics and everything else.

I'm your host, Jason Johnson.

The flattening of black history into a simple story of good guys and bad guys started long before the debates over critical race theory. And the current era, Martin Luther King Jr., is almost universally hailed as a hero, but up until the time of his death, he was treated as a dangerous man and a threat to the nation who needed to be watched. Part of that story is told in the

new book, The Kneeling Man, My Father's Life as a Black Spy who witnessed the assassination of

Martin Luther King Jr. The title of the book refers to Merle McCullough, who is in the famous

photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. after he was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

In the iconic picture as civil rights leaders Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, and Jesse Jackson

point in the direction of the assassin, McCullough is kneeling beside King, holding a towel to his

wound. What wasn't known at the time was that although he was posing as an activist,

McCullough was actually a spy who was reporting on King and his colleagues to white authorities

in Memphis. The kneeling man explores McCullough's path to that moment and after it. His daughter,

journalist and attorney, Lita McCulles-Soletsky, wrote the book and joins us now to talk about it.

Lita McCullough-Soletsky, welcome to a word.

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