What a difference a decade makes.
It was 10 years ago this year that a coalition of Atlantans, led by former mayor Shirley Franklin came up with $32 million to keep the personal papers of Martin Luther King Jr. at home – in Atlanta.
Now, dozens of scholars have researched them, hundreds of students have studied them, and thousands of tourists have gazed upon the writings and intellectual development of one of the 20th Century's leading figures.
“It is a collection to be studied,” said Vicki Crawford, the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection. “There is great depth and breadth here. It is possible to build an entire curriculum around this collection. A lifetime that we have only begun to peel it back.”
As part of the deal, Morehouse College, where King attended school, would own them, the new Center for Civil and Human Rights would serve as the primary exhibitor and the Atlanta University Center's Robert W. Woodruff Library would maintain the papers.
The primary caretaker at Woodruff is the library’s chief archivist Andrea Jackson, charged with preserving 13,000 pieces, including more than 1,100 books, once owned by King spanning from 1944 to his death in 1968.
"I am a lover of history and I studied history, so to touch this is a dream come true," said Jackson, a graduate of Spelman College and New York University, who has worked at Woodruff for 10 years now. "These papers really show that Dr. King was not just smart on his own, he was a real student."
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