MLK papers go on auction block
RIDGELAND, Miss. — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal secretary is selling a collection from the early civil rights movement, including handwritten notes by King and a page from his “I Have a Dream” speech, what the auction house calls a historical trove.
Maude Ballou worked as King’s secretary from 1955 to 1960, when King led the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Ballou, who turned 88 Friday, is selling the items Oct. 17 in New York through Texas-based Heritage Auctions. People can bid in person or online. Ballou and Heritage Auctions say a portion of the proceeds will be used to establish an education fund at Alabama State University.
In an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Ballou recalled times both rewarding and frightening in those turbulent years, including an especially poignant moment with King in the mid-1950s.
King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn.
Some of the more than 100 items are so unique that it’s difficult to put a value on them, said Sandra Palomino, director of historical manuscripts for Heritage Auctions.
“We’re really relying on letting the market decide what the value is going to be,” Palomino said.
Items awaiting sale include a letter King sent to Ballou while touring India in 1959 to learn more about Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign of nonviolent resistance. One part of the letter asks Ballou to write a note to John Lee Tilley, executive director of the SCLC. King wanted Tilley to talk with a white activist who was advising King on nonviolent resistance.
Another item is a typed final page of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, according to the auction house. The page was sent to Ballou on Jan. 31, 1968, several weeks before King was assassinated, by Lillie Hunter, bookkeeper for the SCLC and secretary to Ralph Abernathy.
In 2011, King’s estate sued the secretary’s son, Howard Ballou, in a bid to take possession of the items. King’s estate, operated as a company by his children, is known to fight for control of the King brand.
A judge dismissed the suit saying there was nothing to contradict Maude Ballou’s testimony that King gave her the material.
