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Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Withdrawn from Sotheby’s Sale |
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Written by http://www.artinfo.com
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Sunday, 14 December 2008 |
NEW YORK—One day before Sotheby’s planned auction of three documents related to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the singer Harry Belafonte, who owned the papers, has withdrawn them from the sale, the New York Times reports.
Sotheby’s offered little explanation for the decision, only issuing a statement saying that the items had been removed from today’s Fine Books and Manuscripts Including Americana sale “at the request of Mr. Harry Belafonte.” Belafonte did not return calls left with his agent.
The three items were a handwritten version of King’s “The Casualties of the War in Vietnam” speech, which he delivered in February 1967; notes for a speech recovered from his suit pocket after he was assassinated; and a condolence letter to Coretta Scott King, King’s widow, from President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Earlier this week, the King estate released a statement condemning the auction. “The King estate contends that these documents are the property of the estate of Martin Luther King Jr.,” the statement read. “Mrs. Coretta Scott King and the King estate stopped a previous attempt by members of Harry Belafonte’s family to anonymously and secretly auction wrongfully acquired King documents through a Beverly Hills auction house.”
In an interview before Belafonte withdrew the items for sale, David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby’s, defended Belafonte’s acquisition of the items, which were estimated to earn between $750,000 and $1.3 million.
Belafonte met King in the mid-1950s, and they remained friends until the civil right leader’s death in 1968. The singer reportedly fell out with the King family around the time of Coretta Scott King’s funeral in 2006, when he was allegedly invited, and then disinvited, to give a eulogy.
In 2006, the King family was prepared to sell about 10,000 items from its collection of King’s papers at Sotheby’s. The collection was withdrawn at the last minute when the city of Atlanta secured a privately financed loan of $32 million to establish a nonprofit organization to buy the papers and store them.
“It is regrettable if Mr. Belafonte has been intimidated by the estate, if indeed he was going to put the proceeds to good social cause,” said David J. Garrow, author of a biography of King.
“Given the years of intimate loyalty that Belafonte had with Dr. King, he is one of the last people who should be legally intimidated by the estate.”
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 14 December 2008 )
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Autograph Article 
