The personal papers of Martin Luther King Jr. will go on the auction block at Sotheby’s on June 30, the Associated Press reported today. The papers span the years 1946 to 1968, when the civil-rights leader was assassinated, and include more than 10,000 items, among them handwritten drafts of King’s early sermons, his “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963, and his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of 1964. The collection also contains some 1,000 books from King’s personal library and 800 index cards on which he jotted facts, sayings, and Biblical quotations as a graduate student.

Sotheby’s expects the papers to go for $15-million to $30-million, and to be acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, a major university, or a similar organization.

The sale has been in the works for years, often amid criticism of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which holds the documents, over its management of the collection (The Chronicle, July 25, 1997). The death this year of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, made it more urgent for the cash-strapped King estate to reach a deal, according to a Sotheby’s official.