Georgia Prosecutor To Expunge MLK’s 1960 Atlanta Arrest

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April 3rd, 2020

On Oct. 19, 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., under arrest by Atlanta Police Capt. R.E. Little, left rear, passes through a picket line outside Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta. On King’s right are Atlanta Student Movement leader Lonnie King and Spelman College student Marilyn Pryce. Holding the sign is Spelman student activist Ida Rose McCree. Fulton County Solicitor General Keith Gammage said he will expunge King’s record for his trespassing arrest during that protest.

Associated Press file

A county prosecutor in Georgia said he will expunge Martin Luther King Jr.’s record for his trespassing arrest during a 1960 sit-in protesting the segregated dining rooms at an Atlanta department store.

Fulton County Solicitor General Keith Gammage told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he is also interested in erasing the records of all other civil rights workers who were arrested in Atlanta.

“I always had in my mind, what effect would it have if we expunged the record for arrests of Martin Luther King Jr and the other civil rights protesters and called those arrests what they were — unconstitutional and biased arrests?” said Gammage, 48, who also serves on the board of trustees at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

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