King’s Handwritten Speech Draft Set for Auction

The seven-page document, written in blue ink on yellow legal paper, is expected to sell for more than $10 million. Christie’s plans to display it publicly in New York from Jan. 15 to 21 before offering it as a single lot. Funds are slated to support Atlanta’s King Center and additional causes selected by consignor Xernona Clayton, widow of King aide Edward T. Clayton.

King wrote the draft at Washington’s Willard Hotel during the night before the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington speech. He had worked with advisers on ideas for several days and was aiming to keep his remarks to five minutes. The pages show extensive revisions, including repeated changes to individual words. One passage moved through “tokenism” and “waitism” before King settled on “gradualism.”

The manuscript does not contain the phrase “I have a dream.” King added that section while speaking at the Lincoln Memorial, after deciding against including it in the prepared text. Scholars who examined a digital copy described the discovery as significant, and one said the handwritten revisions offered a view into King’s thinking as he shaped the speech.

Xernona Clayton first found the pages in her husband’s desk drawer in the late 1990s, but their significance was established after she came across them again in 2024. The draft is considered the only known surviving handwritten final version. Martin Luther King III called the planned use of the proceeds to support future work “poetic.”