Update: The auction ended at $382,500.
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A 20-page typed speech with hand-written notes by Martin Luther King Jr. is on the auction block.
The speech was delivered on July 6, 1965, in Chicago and included what is believed to be King’s first public statement of a phrase that became known very well as part of the civil rights movement, “we shall overcome.” In fact, that famous phrase ends the speech and is hand-written as part of a one-page addition to the prepared comments, which have been collected and bound.
Although it is not signed, the book is expected to sell for more than $500,000 via Goldin Auctions, which notes that other original past King speech manuscripts “have been appraised in the millions” and that the owner of the “I Have a Dream” speech has turned down $5 million.