Buck Owens was a private detective in Miami, and one of Marshall’s good friends.  He helped Marshall send a young girl named L. B. De Forest to Groveland to investigate and befriend Norma Padgett, and in the 1960s, he was part of a group that was bugging Martin Luther King, Jr.’s house, from his bedroom to his toilet.  The assignment bothered Owens enough to tip Marshall off, and Marshall immediately called King in Atlanta to warn him that he was being tape recorded.  King told Marshall that he wasn’t concerned.  That he just didn’t care. 

But King was appreciative enough, just ten months before he was killed, to send this congratulatory telegram to Thurgood Marshall.   For more exhibits on Martin Luther King, Jr., see http://www.thekingcenter.org/