But, it would appear, no one may see, or use them.
July 2, 2006 -- Scholars around the world must be relieved that thousands of documents from Martin Luther King Jr.'s personal archive will remain together in one academic setting for decades to come.
...several prominent Atlantans, led by Mayor Shirley Franklin and ex-Mayor Andrew Young (a one-time King aide), put together a group to purchase the papers in a block.
They'll now be stored at the Rev. King's alma mater, Morehouse College, in Atlanta.
While the exact amount is a secret, it appears that the King family will pocket even more than the $30 million originally anticipated from the sale.
But, is the price worth paying?
The family insists on retaining full copyright control over the papers.
And while that's not unusual, or even unreasonable, the family in recent years has been overzealous in protecting that copyright - to the point of limiting public access to King's words.
The family sued CBS for copyright infringement when it marketed a documentary featuring the network's own film coverage of King's "I Have a Dream" speech - an address that was given before 250,000 people in person and to millions on live TV.
It also sued USA Today for publishing the speech on the 30th anniversary of its delivery.
The Kings also sued filmmaker Henry Hampton - whose PBS documentary series, "Eyes on the Prize," is the civil-rights movement's defining video presentation - for copyright infringement.
Taylor Branch, King's preeminent biographer, said he was sent a lawyer's letter warning that he needed a license from the family to write his book.
As David Garrow, another notable King biographer, has warned, "It is getting to the point where they are so focused on maximizing their income that they're actively reducing the amount of distribution King's words and teachings will have."
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To expect anything less of the King family is to admit a degree of foolishness unbecoming anyone over the age of, let's say, 6. Then again. all they are really doing is following the entertainment industry's lead in proclaiming every utterance copyrighted up to and including punctuation. It isn't about the content, it's about making money from it.
Always was. Always will be.
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