The King Papers collection contains more than 10,000 manuscripts and books and includes thousands of other items in Dr. King’s handwriting. It includes Dr. King’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize lecture to papers he was working on just prior to his assassination in 1968. 

Texts for virtually all of King’s significant addresses and speeches are present (including an early draft of “I Have a Dream”). Anyone who observes the collection will be able to get a glimpse of King’s life through the extraordinary documents, which include monthly packets of canceled checks, credit card receipts, telegrams and flight coupons.   

The papers were scheduled to be sold to the highest bidder at a public auction at Sotheby’s in New York. An Atlanta consortium of donors and the King Family Estate, spearheaded by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, worked feverishly to pull them off the auction and prevent any other private purchase of the documents.  Appraised by the Library of Congress in 1999 for $28-$30 million, they were purchased for $32 million.