On the eve of a planned Sotheby’s auction of three documents related to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, the singer and a friend of Dr. King who owned the papers, withdrew the items for sale.In a brief statement released on Wednesday afternoon, Sotheby’s said
the items had been removed from the auction roster “at the request of
Mr. Harry Belafonte.” Sotheby’s gave no reason for the withdrawal, and
Mr. Belafonte did not return calls left with his agent.The items
scheduled for the auction on Thursday included a three-page handwritten
outline of one of Dr. King’s most important speeches, “The Casualties
of the War in Vietnam,” delivered in February 1967, and notes for a
speech recovered from his suit pocket after he was assassinated in
1968. The third document was a typewritten condolence letter to Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow, from President Lyndon B. Johnson.After
news reports early this week about the auction the King estate released
a statement condemning the sale and saying that it believed the
documents had been “wrongly acquired” by Mr. Belafonte.“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 the
statement the estate said lawyers were “looking into issues related to
the December 11th Sotheby’s auction of King documents.”Joseph M.
Beck, a lawyer representing the King estate, did not return calls or an
e-mail message seeking comment. Calls to Bernice King and Martin Luther
King III, children of Dr. King, were not returned. Phillip Jones, a
King family representative, and Isaac Newton Farris Jr., a nephew of
Dr. King and president of the King Center in Atlanta, did not return
calls.In a telephone interview before Mr. Belafonte withdrew the
items for sale, David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby’s, said that the
outline for the anti-Vietnam War speech was written in Mr. Belafonte’s
Manhattan apartment. The notes from Dr. King’s pocket, Mr. Redden said,
had originally been given by Mrs. King to Stanley Levinson, an adviser
to Dr. King, who left the notes to Mr. Belafonte. Mr. Redden said that
Mrs. King had given the condolence letter to Mr. Belafonte. Mr. Redden,
who estimated the documents together could fetch from $750,000 to $1.3
million, declined to comment on whether the King family objected to the
sale of the papers. SOURCE:NYT.COM