Link Press
A bitter lawsuit is unravelling in court regarding the rights to Martin Luther King Jr’s Bible and Nobel Peace Prize medal.
King’s sons – Martin Luther King III and Dexter Scott King – run his estate, and want to sell the relics to a private buyer. It is thought the Bible could fetch between $200,000 and $1million, while the medal could go for more than $10million.
However, King’s daughter, Bernice, controls their mother’s estate and contests that King gave the medal to his wife as a gift and therefore belongs to her. She opposes the sale.
According to the Associated Press, Bernice gave an address in February at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where her father and grandfather both preached, in which she argued that the Bible and medal were cherished possessions of her father and “speak to the very core of who he was”.
She has also said that profiting from the sale of the medal would be “spiritually violent” and “outright morally reprehensible”.
“These items should never be sold to any person, as I say it, or any institution, because they’re sacred,” Bernice told a news conference. “I take this strong position for my father because Daddy is not here to say himself my Bible and medals are never to be sold.”
Dr Joseph Lowery, another key civil rights leader who marched with King, told African American news website theGrio last year that he supported Bernice’s decision. “I don’t even want to admit there’s a discussion about putting those items on the market,” he said.
“They are sacred items, not only are they sacred to the family but they’re sacred to the community. They represent Martin’s life work and commitment to justice and serving God.”
