Auction cancelled; Atlanta mayor: Martin Luther King papers to Morehouse

Mayor: MLK papers to find home at Morehouse College
June 30 auction, expected to bring up to $30M, is canceled
Saturday, June 24, 2006

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The children of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will receive an undisclosed amount of money from an anonymous group of people for about 10,000 manuscripts and books belonging to the civil rights icon, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin's office said Friday.

A planned June 30 auction will be canceled. Sotheby's auction house had expected to command between $15 million and $30 million for the documents.

The papers include drafts of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance address and a printed version of the "Letter from Birmingham Jail."...

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Franklin's office said only that the group purchasing the papers represent the interests of Atlanta. King was an Atlanta native and both he and his wife Coretta Scott King, who died earlier this year, are buried in the city.

The papers will be housed at Atlanta's historically black Morehouse College, King's alma mater....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/23/mlk.papers/index.html

kept in one place.

MLK has a national holiday in honour of him--you would think that his collected works would be a little more respected than a lot sale at Southeby's auction house.

nt

Just a hunch. All's well that ends well.