– credit, Christie’s, released
Dr. King’s Final Draft of ‘I have a dream’ Appears After 60 Years
(totally alternative approach) Incredible Discovery of King’s Own ‘I have a dream’ Draft Chills Readers with its Insights
A penned draft of the famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech, written by Martin Luther King Jr. the morning of the famous event on the Lincoln Memorial, has resurfaced after 6 decades.
Unlike any other examples of his longhand writing ever found, the draft’s copious revisions tell of a man who understood the gravity of what he was preparing to say.
The New York Times reports that King’s own draft of the speech had been presumed lost. Those which are known had all been drafted and or typed up by his aides.
Now, Xernona Clayton, the widow of King’s former aide Edward Clayton, has revealed to the nation in its 250th year that she had found the handwritten draft in her deceased husband’s desk drawer in the 1990s, but only recently decided to put it up for auction at Christie’s for the benefit of several charities, including the King Center in Atlanta.
She found it one day in an envelope marked “Speech,” and though she recognized the words immediately, it never occurred to her that it might have been written by the speaker himself.
“This is the most important manuscript I’ve ever had the honor to handle,” Peter Klarnet, Christie’s manuscript specialist, told the Times, adding that he couldn’t imagine getting his hands on anything better that he “wouldn’t have to steal out of the National Archives.”
This relic of American oratory consists of 7 yellow pages covered in blue ink. Words, and sometimes whole paragraphs are crossed out. In some cases, a word was crossed out to be replaced by another word which was also crossed out.
It captures the mood in the Washington hotel where Dr. King was working on the speech with his colleagues who had spent days exploring various themes and directions it might take. He had been told to limit the speech to 5 minutes—pressure—all while knowing that President John Kennedy had only 2 months prior sent the proposed Civil Rights Act to Congress where it had not yet been voted on—more pressure.
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The draft is very close to the typed document which King set before the microphones, yet it’s unclear whether the large crossed out sections—which have already undergone digital examination—will reveal new insights into King’s ideas, or mood at the time.
Just like the master copy, the draft doesn’t include the section that begins with “I have a dream” which King famously improvised. It does conclude with “Free at last.”
According to Drew D. Hansen, the author of a study on the speech, the constant crossing out of words and passages was “unusual for King in general,” but is also consistent with accounts of the writing process from King’s speechwriters and others present in the room at the time.
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“This is a treasure of American history. It gives you chills to look at it,” Klarnet said in a statement from Christie’s. “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.”
Christie’s will handle the sale of the document on January 22nd, 2027. Before then, it will go on public view at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta on Monday, followed by displays in Chicago and finally New York City, where visitors can see it at Christie’s for one week starting on January 15th, Dr. King’s Birthday.
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