Sotheby’s to auction King’s papers, library

NEW YORK — For years, Sotheby’s auction house has tried to sell the papers, manuscripts and personal library of Martin Luther King.

But previous negotiations with various institutions came to naught, including a private sale in 2003 that was called off. Now, on June 30, Sotheby’s will auction the King collection, hoping that an institution will step forward and pay from $15 million to $30 million for the lot of more than 10,000 items.

“It does set a challenge for American institutions to decide whether or not they want to save and preserve the King legacy for posterity,” said David Redden, Sotheby’s vice chairman. “This is a very important story that needs a very appropriate conclusion.”

The money will go to the financially strapped King estate. Mr. Redden said the death of Coretta Scott King earlier this year helped expedite the decision to hold an auction.

“To be candid, the passing of Mrs. King did require that the estate put their affairs in order,” Mr. Redden said.

The papers span from 1946 to 1968, the most important years of King’s life. They include 7,000 handwritten items, including his early Alabama sermons and a draft of the speech “I Have a Dream,” which he delivered Aug. 28, 1963, at the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Mr. King’s personal library of approximately 1,000 volumes is also part of the compendium, as well as 800 index cards from his days as a graduate student. On the cards, he wrote facts, aphorisms and biblical quotes. The entire collection will be on public view June 21 to 29, in anticipation of the sale.

Historians think it is one of the greatest American archives of the 20th century in private hands and reveals a fuller portrait of King, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who led the civil rights movement and helped dismantle segregation. He was slain in 1968.

“King was at the center of one of the most important periods in American history, and these documents illuminate the era,” said Stanford University history professor Clayborne Carson, who edited the “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Mr. Carson said one of the most memorable writings was a draft of King’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won at 35. In his address, King said: “Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

Given the historical significance of the papers, Mr. Redden thinks a major institution, aided by a donor, will buy the lot. He said the estate does not want King’s work to fall into private hands.

“The estate very much wants this to go to an institution,” he said.

Mr. Redden declined to name a potential buyer, but it’s likely that a top university, the Smithsonian Institution or the Library of Congress would bid on the collection.

“If our institutions can’t afford it, then something is intensely wrong,” Mr. Redden said.