CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
The King Papers
Now that the auction of the Martin Luther King, Jr. papers seems to have been averted, and the King family can reap the benefit of the $32,000,000 payment promised them (Dexter King exulted that the papers were going “home to Atlanta,” as if they had ever been anywhere else) historians can examine at greater leisure some of the questions involved, notably the place and value to scholars of original manuscript documents. Yesterday, Clayborne Carson, Director of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, which was created in cooperation with the King Center to organize and publish volumes of the King papers, put out a public letter on the Institute’s website dismissing the importance of the proposed Sotheby's sale.
Carson stated in the letter that the prospective Sotheby’s sale should not be a source of concern and would not provide any handicap to the work of the Project, because their staffers had already photocopied and scanned the documents in question. On the one hand, this seems at first glance like an extraordinary admission. Since the Papers Project is interested in publishing and not maintaining the papers, from their point of view all of King’s papers could as well be auctioned off and dispersed. On reflection, though, it seems to me that Carson’s statement underlines two unusual features of the case at hand. One is the fact that the King papers are being turned out at the same time that the original papers themselves remain closed to scholars. Now, it is true that publication projects are not always housed in the same location as the papers themselves. It also is not unheard of for donors to close part or all of an archive, for an indeterminate time. (As I recall, the family of Max Yergan, the Black left-winger-turned-right-winger, has shut off his papers until 2026--50 years after his death). However, it is curious that the King family simultaneously is interested in disseminating King’s writings while guarding the underlying papers. There is no way for outside researchers to look at the documents that have not, or not yet, been published. The other aspect of the case is the extent to which originals have a value once they are scanned. Are historians simply document fetishists, who want to hoard primary sources even once a true facsimile is produced, or are the orignals needed to let outsiders verify independently the accuracy of what is published? Of course, we place a social value on original manuscripts, but is there any reason to pay large sums to purchase and house writings for which digital copies exist? Perhaps the lesson of the King affair is that access is more important than actual possession. Unless there is serious reason, as here there is not, to question the authenticity of a document, or the completeness of the processed material, it seems to me that the creation of online archives with digitized documents eliminates the need to retain manuscripts, if not their sentimental value. Perhaps then the best way to balance the King family’s desire for a financial windfall against the social need to maintain King’s historical legacy intact would have been to negotiate an agreement whereby all the contents of the purchase would be copied, the copies to be preserved and made publicly available, with the originals then to be sold to whatever private buyer desired them.
- Questions by Ralph E. Luker (June 24, 2006 at 4:56 PM)
- Re: Questions by Ralph E. Luker (June 24, 2006 at 5:00 PM)
- Re: Questions by Greg James Robinson (June 25, 2006 at 5:31 PM)
- Re: Questions by Ralph E. Luker (June 25, 2006 at 5:52 PM)
- Re: Questions by Greg James Robinson (June 26, 2006 at 9:52 AM)
- Re: Questions by Ralph E. Luker (June 26, 2006 at 9:58 AM)
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