Martin Luther King's draft speech put up for auction for $10 million

The only known handwritten draft of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martin Luther King (1929–1968)'s landmark speech, "I Have a Dream," is being auctioned off by Christie's at an estimated cost of over $10 million. It's from sb.by.

A seven-page text with numerous edits and notes was written by an American human rights activist in blue ink at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night before a speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom rally on August 28, 1963.

In both the handwritten and the printed version of the speech, there is no famous phrase “I Have a Dream” – a black rights activist said it impromptuly.

The manuscript was kept for several decades in the desk of Edward Clayton, one of King's speechwriters and advisers. In 2024, the document was discovered by his widow Xernon Clayton.

All proceeds from the auction on January 22, 2027 will go to charities, including the King Center in Atlanta and the Xernon Clayton Foundation, which continue the cause of the civil rights movement in the United States.