Civil Rights museum set to pay off loan for King Papers

By ERNIE SUGGS and ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta City Council finance committee voted 4-0 Tuesday to use city of Atlanta bonds to repay the $32 million loan to buy a collection of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s papers for the proposed Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Three years ago, the city, led by Mayor Shirley Franklin, and a host of donors, agreed to pay the King family $32 million for a set of papers that was set to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s.

SunTrust Banks put up the initial cash in the form of a loan, which Franklin has been working to pay back.

Last August, the council voted to approve $40 million in tax allocation bonds for the project.

Doug Shipman, executive director of the museum project, said paying off the loan will finalize acquiring the exhibition rights to the papers. The collection — which includes King's personal papers, sermons and books — is intended to be the cornerstone of The Center for Civil and Human Rights, which is planned to be built downtown and open in 2012.

"We feel like the final payoff will actually boost the effort of the center," Shipman said. "We can go out and say they're secure and this is how we're going to use them."

The King collection includes items ranging from canceled checks, to a term paper King wrote as a student in college and a draft of his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream," delivered at the 1963 March on Washington.