MLK’s handwritten draft of ‘I Have A Dream’ speech headed to auction

The only handwritten draft of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech, which had been out of circulation for many years, will head to auction in January.

Christie’s New York announced that the speech -- which, like typewritten copies of King’s draft, did not include his ad-libbed “I have a dream” refrain -- will be sold by the auction house on Jan. 22, 2027. Before that, the draft will be on display at 20 Rockefeller Plaza in New York from King’s birthday on Jan. 15 until Jan. 22.

In a news release, Christie’s said it believed the seven-page draft would fetch at least $10 million.

The proceeds will benefit the King Center in Atlanta and other philanthropic causes chosen by Xernona Clayton, the consignor and the widow of the man who found the draft.

The draft was written with blue ink on yellow paper, CBS News reported. It will be exhibited at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights from Nov. 16-22, according to Christie’s.

Peter Klarnet, Christie’s manuscript specialist, said he was stunned when he first saw the document.

“This is the most important manuscript I’ve ever had the honor to handle,” he told The New York Times. “I can’t imagine anything better.”

He paused, before adding: “That I wouldn’t have to steal out of the National Archives.”

According to Christie’s, the pages include edits and offer a glimpse into King’s writing process as he shaped what he would deliver on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963.

The pages were found in a desk drawer with other papers belonging to Edward T. Clayton, who was the head of public relations for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was King’s civil rights organization.

Clayton died on Sept. 11, 1966, at the age of 45.

His wife, Xernona Clayton, first found the draft in the late 1990s in an envelope labeled “speech,” the auction house said. She was not surprised to find it, noting that her husband “liked to hold onto things.”

“He held onto everything,” she added.

Xernona Clayton returned the document to her husband’s desk until 2024, when she rediscovered it, Christie’s said.

The draft is very close to the typed script King carried to the lectern at the Lincoln Memorial, and approximately 20 copies exist, the Times reported.

Scholars who inspected a digital scan of the document provided by Christie’s said it was an extraordinary find.

“When they called me, I was almost in disbelief,” Lerone A. Martin, the director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford, told the newspaper. “It’s almost like it gives us a chance to get between King’s ears, to get in his mind.”

Drew D. Hansen, who wrote 2003’s “The Dream,” a detailed study of the speech, said reading the new document gave him “actual chills.”

“I’ve read the speech a thousand times,” he told the Times. “But seeing some of these refrains in his own hand is electrifying.”

In Christie’s news release, Xernona Clayton said she was glad she looked into her late husband’s desk drawer.

“The two of them jelled with writing and words. They would go back and forth and there was such respect,” she said. “Dr. King, who was a great thinker, said Ed was so good at getting his words on paper and putting them in the right place at the right time. I enjoyed watching them. I was privileged, and now the world will have the opportunity to see those words of wisdom that continue to inspire hope, freedom, and the pursuit of equality.”

King’s son, Martin Luther King III, said in a statement that it was “poetic” that a document from the past “will protect the future.”

“We are grateful that this treasure was preserved over decades by the Clayton family,” he said. “It is a remarkable piece of history that shines a light on our father’s process as he prepared to make a speech that so profoundly affected the course of the Civil Rights movement and our nation.

“Now, for the first time, the public will have the opportunity to be inspired by this document.”

© 2026 Cox Media Group