The only known handwritten final draft of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be publicly displayed for the first time later this month and sold at auction in January.
The draft was kept by King’s head of public relations, Edward T. Clayton, said Christie’s, the auction house that will facilitate the sale. Clayton’s widow first found the draft in the late 1990s but put it back into her late husband’s desk, not knowing it was the only known handwritten final draft. She rediscovered the draft in 2024.