The likely only surviving handwritten final full draft of Martin Luther King Jr’s historic 1963 I Have a Dream speech is set to be auctioned in New York City in January, with proceeds benefiting several charities, including the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Auction house Christie’s has announced that the document is expected to fetch more than $10m, and that the pages will be displayed publicly at the auction house from 15 to 21 January, before being offered in a single-lot sale.
Described as “the only known handwritten final draft of the speech”, the auction house said that the document was rediscovered in 2024 in a desk drawer belonging to a former aide of King’s, Edward T Clayton, by his widow, Xernona.
She had originally found it in the late 1990s but did not know then that it was the only known final draft, and put it back in the drawer, until 2024, when she rediscovered the document and experts established that it is unique, Christie’s added.
According to the auction house, King completed the draft of the speech in the early hours of 28 August 1963, at the Willard hotel in Washington DC.
“Focused on limiting his remarks to five minutes, and considering both word choice and flow, Dr King wrote the final draft of the speech in blue ink across seven yellow legal pad pages after days of discussions with many advisers – including trusted speech writer Edward T Clayton,” Christie’s said.
Just hours after the ink dried that day, King delivered the pivotal speech in Washington DC with his towering rhetoric during the height of the civil rights struggle for racial equality in the US.
“The stirring words that he delivered that afternoon have come to be regarded as the most important speech of the 20th Century, and one of the most important speeches in American history,” the release said.
Christie’s said the pages contain edits and crossings-out and “offer a rare glimpse at Dr King’s writing process”.
Notably, this original draft does not include the words “I have a dream”, as King “famously added” those words “spontaneously while delivering his speech on the day of the [civil rights] march”, Christie’s said.
“This is a treasure of American history,” said Peter Klarnet, Christie’s manuscripts specialist. “It gives you chills to look at it. Reading along, you’re there in the moment with Dr King, watching him compose it and making edits in real time. It captures a moment that literally changed the course of our nation and makes it very real and very human.”
King’s son, Martin Luther King III, said in a statement that it is “poetic that the past will protect the future”.
