Once again, Amid Questions, an Auction of MLK Jr. Documents Is Stopped

Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 12/11/2008 1:40:00 PM

• Documents owned by Harry Belafonte
• King family disputes ownership
• Critic’s question fate of King Center

In yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, Sotheby’s officials have confirmed that three documents set to be auctioned this week have been pulled from the block.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the documents are reportedly owned by singer and actor Harry Belafonte, and were pulled by Belafonte after the King family issued a statement saying the documents belong to the estate of Martin Luther King Jr., noting that the King estate has “stopped a previous attempt by members of Harry Belafonte’s family to anonymously and secretly auction wrongfully acquired King documents through a Beverly Hills auction house.” Neither Belafonte nor Sotheby’s commented by press time.

King heirs criticized
The documents include a handwritten outline of King’s “The Casualties of the War in Vietnam” speech, delivered in February 1967, and notes recovered from his suit pocket after he was assassinated in 1968. The third document is a typewritten condolence letter to King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The latest development comes after a last minute $32 million deal in 2006 was struck by the city of Atlanta to keep the King family from auctioning off a trove of Martin Luther King Jr.’s documents to the highest bidder. That deal established a custodianship at King’s alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta. The blocked auction this week, meanwhile, has reignited criticism by scholars and archivists of the King family’s handling of the slain civil rights leader’s legacy. Despite the 2006  payday, the remaining documents in the King Center in Atlanta are said to be in disarray. The King Center still houses the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) records and the original Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) papers, as well as other invaluable King collections.

Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning King biographer told the New York Times he was less concerned with these three documents than those still held at the King Center. “Most of Doc King’s collections are locked up in the King archives, which have been essentially nonfunctional for years,” Branch told reporters. "What really worries historians, is that everything will get lost.” In a stinging 2006 editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Branch said much of King’s documents “languish" at the King Center, "where the roof leaks and the doors most often are locked.”

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