Martin Luther King on Sale

Almost a year later after Dr. King's widow's sudden death, the personal papers of the most prominent Afro-American of the 20th century are scheduled for sale on the 30th of June.

The family finally decided to hold an auction for the almost 10,000 items found in the basement of King's house, hoping to raise for them between $15-30 million from an interested institution. Their main purpose though is not that of gaining money, but of making sure that such important (and not fully studied, yet) documents are placed in proper hands.

The papers cover the period between 1946-1968 (the year in which Martin Luther King was shot to death), and include over 7,000 hand-written issues, among which a draft version of the 'I Have a Dream' speech (held at Washington in 1963), his early Alabama sermons and his acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize, awarded to him at the age of 35.

The manuscripts and the books will be on public display between June 21-29 and the Sotheby's auction house has high hopes that the sale will finally end favorably for both parties. Mrs. King had tried to sell the papers before, in the '90s, to the Library of Congress but the deal didn't come through because of some misunderstandings concerning their real value.