King collection will be auctioned
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Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. will auction manuscripts, papers and the personal library of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. after more than three years of trying to sell the collection privately to an institution.
The auction house will offer the King collection in one lot, with a high estimate of $30 million. The sale of the 7,000-item collection is scheduled for June 30 in New York. King’s four children are the sellers.
“If it goes to a private individual, public institutions have abdicated their responsibility for one of the most important American archives,” said Sotheby’s Vice Chairman David Redden, who is goading institutions to step up.
The collection includes an early draft of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in 1963, as well as correspondence with John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
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