Black History Matters -- The Value of Black History is on the Rise

ATLANTA’S MOREHOUSE COLLEGE TO GET HISTORIC ARCHIVE

Using loan guarantees and donations from more than a dozen companies and individuals, a group of Atlanta political, educational and business leaders managed to preempt a June 30 auction at Sotheby’s by offering $2 million above the high estimate for the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Phillip Jones, a King family representative, defended the $32 million price, saying, "Those in the know said to us over and over again: this auction, these papers are going to go way above the appraised value."

Sotheby’s Vice Chairman, David Redden, had placed an auction estimate on the papers between $15 and $30 million, a range he deemed “conservative.” Redden said he used both instinct and his thirty years of experience to come up with a price for this historic archive, as there was no prior sale with which to compare the King papers. The closest estimate might be the FDR archive that sold for $9.6 million from 1996-2001, but these were just a fraction of Roosevelt’s papers. The King archive is far more complete, hence the substantially higher value. And, according to some experts, black history is generally increasing in value as much as three times faster than so-called “mainstream” letters and documents.

Robert Caplin / Bloomberg News

A draft page of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech is displayed at Sotheby's in New York. The original title of the now-famous speech was 'Normalcy-Never Again.'

More importantly, like the Mitchell Collection (which spans some 400 years of African American history), the King documents' value goes far beyond dollars. Dating between 1946 and 1968, the King archive contains some 7,000 handwritten items, including drafts of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, early Alabama sermons and the draft for the “I Have A Dream” speech which Dr. King delivered August 28, 1963, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. There is also Dr. King’s 1,000-volume personal library containing many books that included notations penned by the noted civil rights leader.

Atlanta was the sentimental favorite as it is Dr. King's birthplace, and where his wife, Coretta Scott King, raised their four children after his tragic assassination in 1968. The city also is where Coretta founded the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, as well as where Dr. King and his wife are buried. Former Atlanta mayor, Andrew Young, one of Dr. King's lieutenants during the civil rights movement, said, "People have seen this as an opportunity to step up and lay claim to Martin Luther King's nonviolent heritage as a part of Atlanta's tradition," "It really didn't belong anywhere else."

Morehouse College will receive the entire King archive. Founded in 1867, it is now the largest private, liberal arts college in the country for men with 2,800 students. Dr. King graduated from the school in 1948. Dr. Walter E. Massey, president of Morehouse College, said that his institution is where the papers should be held. “Morehouse is honored to be the recipient of this historic collection of King’s papers,” said Massey. “Given the important role Morehouse played in Dr. King’s intellectual, spiritual and moral development, we believe there simply is no better place for these papers to reside. We are grateful to the King family for their confidence in Morehouse to serve as the repository for this legacy, which reflects the best thinking of our nation’s most outstanding leader, and of Morehouse College’s most outstanding alumnus.”

   A handwritten and signed letter dated February 14, 1776, by Phillis Wheatley, a former Boston slave and the author of the first book of poetry published by an African American, brought a record-setting $253,000 at auction on November 22, 2005. The letter, one of only twenty now known to exist, had a pre-auction estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. This price was the highest ever paid at auction for a letter written by an African American, and appears to have set an auction record for a letter written by a woman, said Jeremy Markowitz, an autograph specialist at Swann Galleries in New York, which sold it. Miss Wheatley, who had fled Boston for Providence owing to the occupation of the former town by the British Army during the American Revolution, wrote the letter to her still-enslaved friend, Obour Tanner of Newport, R.I., and briefly opines about the conflict of which she stated, “Even I a mere spectator am in anxious suspense concerning the fortune of this unnatural civil contest.”

   The new owner of the letter remains anonymous for the present, according to Swann Galleries. Mark E. Mitchell along with another major autograph dealer, Seth Kaller, were the under bidders. Mark stated afterward, “We put up a gallant battle for this important letter in order to rescue this priceless piece of Black History from obscurity and present it to the public, and especially for schoolchildren who need to know about the life of Phillis Wheatley, this extraordinary young woman from 18th century America.”

   The Mark E. Mitchell Collection of African American History already owns what is considered the most valuable Wheatley document in private hands – the original handwritten and docketed copy of her poem, Ocean, written by the poet while still a slave on her return voyage from England in September, 1773.

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