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Morehouse Awaits King Papers

By W. Hassan Marsh
Black College Wire

Photo credit: Morehouse College The just-acquired papers of alumnus Martin Luther King Jr. will attract scholars to Morehouse College, says President Walter E. Massey.

Morehouse College stands to gain much more than the 10,000 documents in the collection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bought by a coalition of business leaders, individuals and philanthropic leaders in Atlanta.

Questions about housing the collection and accessibility to the papers linger, but the college, in acquiring the papers, is positioning itself for change and improvement in opportunities for scholarship, facilities and perceptions of the college, its officials said.

"We have, in our long-range campus development plan, plans for a facility that would house the papers we already have, so we'll have to go back and visit those long-range plans, but we're going to do that in conjunction with the mayor, other universities and the Atlanta History Center before we make any final plans," said Walter E. Massey, Morehouse College president.

The Morehouse community is celebrating the acquisition as a homecoming. The news came after Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin assembled a coalition of business and civic leaders to donate money to obtain the collection before a scheduled June 30 auction at Sotheby's auction house in New York.

The collection, bought directly from the King family for $32 million on June 23, includes some 10,000 documents of the late thinker and social activist, according to Sotheby's. The auction was canceled.

"Obviously, the papers are priceless," the mayor told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "The key is to establish Atlanta as the home of civil rights and human rights. Getting the papers shows that the entire community is embracing that legacy."

When the auction was first announced, former ambassador Andrew Young, who collaborated with King during the civil rights movement, was quoted as saying, "this is a cheap city if it does not come up with enough money to keep that heritage here."

As it celebrated the announcement, Morehouse was mourning the death of Melvin H. Watson Sr., an alumnus and former chairman of the Philosophy and Religion department.

At Watson's funeral, which took place at King International Chapel on campus, speakers noted the appropriateness of the news. Watson had overseen the school's reception of the papers of Howard Thurman, a Morehouse theologian.

"It can only enhance Morehouse's reputation, nationally and internationally, and carries the Morehouse tradition of our alumni, prominent, well-known alumni, be[ing] closely connected with the college," Massey said in a June 26 interview, just before catching a flight to New York to view an exhibit of the collection at the auction house.

"It's another recognition that we are among the finest colleges in the world, the fact that this kind of collection would be entrusted into our oversight," said Massey.

"One of the reasons that the city was able to make a deal to buy the papers before going to auction was that the family really wanted [it] to come to Morehouse, and they are very pleased," he said.

There had been speculation that the papers would be housed in other Atlanta locations. However, Massey dispelled that concern.

"At first, there was some discussion of putting together a consortium with Emory" University, "the Atlanta History Center and other institutions, but in the end everyone decided that it would be more straightforward, just cleaner and better if Morehouse owned the papers, and then Morehouse would work with other institutions in the future. And the president of Emory himself supported that," Massey said.

That does not mean that Morehouse has an exclusive deal.

Stanford University's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute has seen to it that Stanford has photocopies and scans of the documents, according to a statement posted on its Web site by Clayborne Carson, the director.

Along with the gift the city gave Morehouse came the understanding of open accessibility.

"The mayor is interested in building a civil rights museum in the city that might house some of the papers or an exhibit," he said. If that happened, Morehouse would likely comply with a request to house the papers at the museum, or at least exhibit them there, according to Massey.

Left unsaid was whether Morehouse might be a possible home for that museum.

Despite the assurances of access to the collection, some students fear they will not be able to use the documents as undergraduates.

"First, where are they going to hold it?" asked Steven Ford, a senior history major from Houston and a research assistant for two years, speaking of the collection.

"And how is Morehouse going to make it available to the public? In the past, for students as well as faculty," he said, the archives "really have not been accessible or been easy to get to. I think Morehouse really needs to upgrade the work that they're trying to do because it's not just students that are going to [be] accessing these papers, but people around the world."

Ford noted that he had been able to research the personal documents of John Hope, the third president of Morehouse. "Just researching him was a really good experience for me," he said. "I learned a lot about not just him, but the time that he lived and the people that worked around him," said Ford. "So, I can't even imagine being able to look at some of Dr. King's work. It would be a really good opportunity and I think that if I had the chance, I would really enjoy it."

Ford is correct in thinking some students would have limited access, according to a leading professor and researcher of history at Morehouse, Alton Hornsby Jr. "Collections of this sort are very carefully guarded, and generally speaking, many of the major collections are unavailable to undergraduates," Hornsby said.

Yet Hornsby recognized the research benefits of King's writing for Morehouse students. He and others said Morehouse has many scholars and serious students who would be eager to use this opportunity to engage in scholarship.

"I would hope, as some of us on the faculty have tried, to expose undergraduates to original research," he said. "It enhances their academic composition while they are undergraduates and it is a leg up once they are in graduate school. I would hope that at some point that serious upperclassmen doing serious research would be given access."

Morehouse College already houses the Howard Thurman and the John and Lugenia Hope papers, among others, in a number of locations.

The Thurman papers are in Sale Hall, the same building where King once attended daily chapel. The Hope papers are in the Robert W. Woodruff Library, which according to Massey, will be the immediate home of the King papers.

The library serves the Atlanta University Center Consortium, the world's largest and oldest consortium of historically black colleges and universities: Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Morris Brown College and Spelman College.

This newest acquisition spurs the need for a single location to house a more comprehensive archive, Massey said.

W. Hassan Marsh is a Black College Wire intern at the Atlanta Voice.

Posted June 28, 2006