Those in the Triangle area inspired by the Civil Rights legacy invoked by this week's inauguration festivities may soon be able to lay claim to a small piece of that history....for a price.
A yellowing program autographed by a 29-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. in 1958 when he delivered the keynote address at a voter registration conference in Durham will go on the auction block in Raleigh this weekend. His now-famous "I Have a Dream" speech was then still five years in his future, but King had already become a figurehead for the Civil Rights campaign and had made several stops in the Bull City. The title of the Durham conference was "Serving God Through the Exercising of Civic Responsibilities," perhaps the very first predecessors to the themes invoked by King's close colleague, Rev. Joseph Lowery, in his address at Duke on MLK Day and in the benediction delivered at President Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.
Jason McCoon of Tory Hill Auction Co. estimates that the autograph, in pencil across the front of the program, will sell from between $1500 to $2500.
Read the full story at the (Raleigh) News & Observer.
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