January 14, 2009

Martin Luther King’s letters on-line

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According to a report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution a major portion of Martin Luther King, Jr,’s letters will be available to the public on-line at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. “The papers represent more than 75 percent of a 10,000-item collection bought by a group of civic and business leaders in 2006 from King’s family.” The documents include speeches and personal writings from 1946 to 1968, “including an early draft of the famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech and nearly 100 sermons, some of which never have been published.” King scholar Clayborne Carson, founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, and executive director of the collection, said he is especially excited about the insight these documents give into King the preacher. “The religious documents are the ones that have not been available to scholars,” he said.

Valerie Merians is the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

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