Seven draft pages omit the words Christie’s says King added spontaneously during the speech
The manuscript’s path to Christie’s began in a desk drawer belonging to Edward T Clayton, a former aide of Martin Luther King Jr. Clayton’s widow, Xernona, first found the document in the late 1990s but did not know then that it was the only known final draft, so she put it back, Christie’s said. She rediscovered it in 2024, and experts established that it was unique, the auction house said. Christie’s describes the seven yellow legal-pad pages as the only known handwritten final full draft of King’s 1963 speech.
Christie’s will display the seven-page manuscript publicly at the auction house from January 15 through January 21 before offering the pages together in a single-lot sale. The auction is set for New York City in January.
The auction house said the document was expected to fetch more than $10 million and that proceeds would be donated to several charities, including the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to Christie’s, King completed the draft in the early hours of August 28, 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.
Christie’s said the pages contain edits and crossings-out and “offer a rare glimpse at Dr King’s writing process.”
Just hours after the ink dried that day, King delivered the speech in Washington DC during the height of the civil rights struggle for racial equality in the US.
The original draft does not include the words “I have a dream.” Christie’s said King “famously added” those words “spontaneously while delivering his speech on the day of the [civil rights] march.”
A Christie’s release said, “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.”
“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.”