King’s "dream" auctioned

More than 10,000 books and manuscripts from the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., many in the handwriting of the crusader for justice and non-violence, were put under the hammer last month.

Auction house, Sotheby will be auctioning King’s collection, hoping that an institution will step forward and pay up to 30 million dollars for it.

Among them is a hand-written draft of the civil rights pioneer’s most inspirational appeal against segregation, the "I Have a Dream" speech.

"This collection is without question the most important American archive of the 20th century in private hands," the New York Daily News quoted Sotheby’s Vice Chairman David Redden as saying.

"Martin Luther King Jr. remains an heroic figure of inestimable importance, not only to Americans but to people around the world.

(This collection) must be saved in entirety for succeeding generations," he added.

The 10,000 manuscripts, papers and books being sold by King’s estate went on public view on June 21.

The financially strapped King estate decided to sell the collection after the Jan. 30 death of the civil rights leader’s wife, Coretta Scott King, Redden said.

Other papers in the collection include a draft of King’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech and a 1946 essay on the the Bible called the Blue Book. — ANI

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