1962 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Letter
GUEST: I brought in a letter that was written to my father-in-law from Martin Luther King, Jr. My father-in-law was a Unitarian minister, and he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during all of the Civil Rights unrest.
APPRAISER: It's such an intense, powerful letter. This letter was written in October of '62 at the end of the Albany, Georgia campaign. To your father-in-law, who must have been present at the Albany campaign. He was a religious leader and he was there to support King and the movement. Let me just read the first paragraph. "Dear Reverend Papandrew, for several weeks I have. intended writing to express my personal appreciation to you for your marvelous witness in Albany, but the accumulation of a flood of mail has stood in my way. The smoke is gradually clearing from the non-violent battle at Albany. And as we assess the results, we all agree that one of the high points of the summer was the contribution rendered by our brothers from the north who came to share with us in the fight against injustice." It goes on for two pages, and it sort of closes with another kind of really meaningful, heartfelt paragraph, it-- he says, "Your continued help and prayer will be greatly appreciated. You have now become sensitized to the problem in a new way. We are counting on you to discern some methods of action which will contribute to our national problem in race relations. Our nation suffers when churches are burned or when mobs kill and ravish in protest of a single person of color being admitted to an institution of higher learning." So he's talking about integrating the universities. Right, so we need, we continue to need your help in this long battle. So terrific letter, signed by King, great content. And then you have some other supporting materials that come with it. So your father-in-law participated in the 1963 March on Washington, right?
GUEST: Yes, yes he did.
APPRAISER: He's-he's in that photo, right?
GUEST: And he's right there in that photo.
APPRAISER: In Life magazine. This is summer of '63. And then this is-- must be the December of 1963 holiday card...
GUEST: '63.
APPRAISER: ...from King. It has a really emotional image of the four little girls that were killed in the Birmingham church bombing of the fall of 1963. There's a message inside that is actually printed. This is not handwritten by King, this is a printed card. But, um, it does actually show that more than a year after this...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...your father-in-law is still in the movement. He's still connected to the Civil Rights battle. The value is in the letter itself. This, these other items are supporting material. It's great to have them. They tell the story, but independent of the letter, they don't really have much value. At auction, I would estimate this letter at $20,000 to $30,000. And I would expect it to do as well or better because the content is terrific.
GUEST: The, the letter is amazing. The content is amazing. That's i-incredible, I never-- I could never have imagined that.
APPRAISER: It was so wonderful to see it in person and read it for myself.
GUEST: It really just totally overwhelms me when I... when I read the words.
APPRAISER: Yeah. If you were going to insure this, I would tell your insurance company to put a number of $50,000 on it.
GUEST: Okay.
$20,000 Auction
$50,000 Insurance
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