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A lost draft of Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I Have a Dream" speech is set to be auctioned in January, with proceeds benefiting several charities, including the King Center in Atlanta. The draft, believed to be the only surviving handwritten final version, was rediscovered in 2024 in a desk drawer belonging to King's former aide, Edward T. Clayton. His widow, Xernona Clayton, found the document, which she had initially discovered in the late 1990s but did not realize its significance at the time.
The document is expected to fetch more than $10 million at Christie's auction house. According to The Guardian, the pages will be publicly displayed from January 15 to 21 before the auction. The draft, written in blue ink on seven yellow legal pad pages, was completed in the early hours of August 28, 1963, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Notably, the draft does not include the famous phrase "I have a dream," which King added spontaneously during his speech at the Lincoln Memorial. UPI reports that the draft includes edits and crossings-out, offering a rare glimpse into King's writing process.
Christie's manuscripts specialist Peter Klarnet described the document as "a treasure of American history," noting its significance in capturing a moment that changed the course of the nation. King's son, Martin Luther King III, remarked that it is "poetic that the past will protect the future."