“I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963
“So I say to you, my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—we hold these trusts to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a Dream, 1963
“Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and therefore transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, men must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1964
Each of the original handwritten drafts of these famous speeches is now in the birth city of the man that wrote them.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Collection is home.
The collection contains more than 7,000 manuscripts and books and includes thousands of other items in Dr. King’s handwriting.
We are blessed, and we must give thanks to those that brought us this blessing.
Thanks first to the King Family, who agreed to cancel the scheduled public auction and cooperate with the Atlanta consortium in a private sale of the Collection.
Representing the Family is the President & CEO of the King Center, Isaac Ferris, the nephew of Martin Luther King. [Invite Ferris for a few words]
Thanks to Ambassador Andrew Young, who declared that the Collection must have its home in Atlanta and provided us his leadership and guidance.
Thanks to Phil Jones, Senior Advisor to the King Family Estate, who was the architect of the deal.
Thanks to Phil Humann, the Chairman and CEO of SunTrust, who is also the chairman of the Atlanta Committee of Progress. SunTrust provided the $32 million dollar loan in what I am sure is one of the quickest $32 million loans they ever processed. Representing SunTrust today is Raymond King and Tom Summers.
Thank you Raymond and Tom.
Thanks to Alston & Bird, who provided their top attorney’s in intellection property, contracts and a range of other disciplines, pro-bono. The first call went to Ben Johnson, the Managing Partner of Alston & Bird, who could not be with us today. We have with us today a few of the attorney’s who literally worked with us 18 hours a day. Please stand, so we may thank you.
Thanks to the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta. To facilitate the purchase of the papers, the Community Foundation formed ATLCF Collections, a company owned and operated by the Community Foundation. With the $32 million loan from SunTrust, ATLCF Collections purchased the papers on behalf of the Atlanta consortium and will transfer title to Morehouse College. Alicia Philipp, the President & CEO of the Community Foundation, is with us today. Thank you Alicia.
Thanks to Dr. James Wagner and Emory University. Dr. Wager provided counsel and support during the negotiations, and Emory sent an expert team to evaluate the Collection.
Thanks to the Atlanta History Center for offer to host Atlanta’s first public display of the papers.
Thanks to President Michael Adams and the University of Georgia, which has lent the support of their expert archivists.
Thanks to Nancy Rigby and Ann Curry of Coxe Curry & Associates, who have advised and supported our fundraising efforts.
Thank you to the guarantors of the SunTrust loan and current donors who have already pledged $20 million of the $32 million to payoff the loan. Without their generosity, we would not have the papers.
I am going to read the current guarantors and donors.
If are you with us today, please stand as I read your name. Please remain standing so we may applaud when I finish reading the list:
AGL Resources
AIG
AirTran
Ambassador Andrew Young
Arthur M. Blank
AT&T
Bank of America
Barbara and Earl G. Graves, Sr.
BellSouth
Bob Holder (Holder Corporation)
Bob Silverman
BP Oil
CAMAC and Kase Lawal
Charles Loudermilk
The Coca Cola Company
The Correll Family Foundation
The Cousins Family Foundation
Delta Airlines
Egbert Perry and the Integral Group
The Frank Ski Foundation
The GE Foundation
The Georgia Pacific Foundation
The Georgia Power Foundation
The Glenn Family Foundation
The Goizueta Foundation
Governor Roy Barnes
Herman Russell
The James M. Cox Foundation
John A. Williams
The John H. Harland Company
The Ludacris Foundation (Chris Bridges)
Mary Ann Siegle
The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce
New Birth Missionary Baptist Church
John Portman
Radio One
Ray Robinson
Richard Felker
Ruby Stroman
The Southern Company Foundation
Steve & Lucy Macauley
Steve Selig
The SunTrust Foundation
The Home Depot
Turner Broadcasting
The Tyler Perry Company
United Consulting
Wachovia Corporation
Wal-Mart
The Weeks Family Foundation
World Changers Ministry
Please join me in applauding.
We have $20 million in pledges, so we still have another $12 million in donors we want to thank, no matter how big or small.
You can give online in any amount by going to the website of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, www.atlcf.org
Thanks to Dr. Walter Massey, the President of Dr. King’s Alma mater Morehouse College and to Loretta Parham, CEO/Library Director of the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center.
On behalf of the Atlanta Consortium, Morehouse College will have title to the Collection.
The Robert W. Woodruff Library is now processing the Collection and will archive the papers, providing unrestricted access for scholars to study the personal papers of one of the 21st century’s must brilliant thinkers.
We will hear from Dr. Massey and Ms. Parham shortly.
Thanks finally to the Atlanta Committee for Progress, a group of business leaders and university president, whose leadership enabled the public private partnership that made this possible.
And with these thanks, our work is not done, but just begun.
With the purchase of these papers comes obligations and opportunity.
We are obligated provide access to the papers to student and scholars for learning and research through Robert W. Woodruff Library.
We are obligated to provide for the public display of this divinely inspired collection as soon as possible to the citizens of Atlanta and all of Georgia.
I am pleased to announce today that Dr. Rudolph Byrd from Emory University has agreed to chair a task force whose sole mission is to development the best plan for public display of the papers until our future civil/human rights museum is built.
And finally, we are obligated as the curators of Dr. King’s words, church, birth home and final resting place to expand the discussion of his philosophy of non-violent change and loving reconciliation in a world that has grown increasingly violent since his death.
As Billy Payne said in his speech recently to the Atlanta Rotary Club, “Our victory will be measured by a new universe – a world predisposed to reconciliation.”
Fulfilling these obligations will not be easy but Atlanta always rises to meets its challenges. We have demonstrated again and again that we can surpass our own expectations, but we must dream big, by dreaming of the boundless opportunity the fulfillment of these obligations will bring us.
The opportunity to educate generations of students and scholars through the archival research center at the Robert W. Woodruff Library, and through this build a body of knowledge of solving conflict through non-violence, one that must overcome the body of knowledge on how we can kill one another. As Dr. King often said, quoting Robert Kennedy, “we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
The opportunity to inspire millions of Atlantans and citizens throughout Georgia through the public display of the papers. Visitors of the papers will see, as I saw, that the private King was the public King. He took to heart, mind and soul the words of Ghandi, a great source of inspiration to him, “Be the Change you wish to see.”