Kris Broughton asks in his excellent Open Salon post today, “does the civil rights movement owe the King children?” His question arises amid news that Martin Luther King, Jr’s close friend and comrade-in-arms, Harry Belafonte, wants to auction off some letters written by King to Belafonte.  However, the auction was pulled after objection from the King estate. So the question is, should the King children profit from their father’s legacy. Broughton smartly answers, “why not?  Because the reality was that a young, attractive black widow with four kids and practically no money back in 1969 was not going to find a rich Greek shipping tycoon to marry her”.  But Broughton also makes a fine case that Belafonte need not answer to the King children given his stake in the civil rights movement.

I look at the issue of King intellectual property a little differently. The King family is unlike any other existing in the United States and  a unique solution needs to be found, even if I don’t know whar that I know what that solution is.

If you think about it, it is not uncommon for celebrity descendants to profit for generations from the intellectual property of an artist or writer. Hell, the William Faulkner Literary Estate is still collecting revenue.  And it is well worth noting that Dr. King poured just about every extra dollar he earned back into the movement - most famously, the $55,000 dollars awarded along with his 1954 Nobel Peace Prize. King never took home more than $4,000 per year for his family, even the years when he earned $200,000. 

If, as a society, we value the genius of literature, movies, and music to the point where pieces made 50 years ago still generate revenue for the artists' children, the question becomes how much do we value King's genius and why can't it be valued in a similar way?

Yet, because, I live in the open-source generation, I believe it is in everyone's interest to open up, digitize, and share for free any and all king materials with scholars, students, and citizens alike. Kings work and words is just too important not to allow it to spread and flow easily through America and out across its borders, but the King family is notoriously guarded in granting access to the King Center’s resources. 

I do think King's papers do belong at the King Center. I think having Belefonte's King papers at the King Center would do a lot more good for a lot longer than the money raised by public auction - but only if the papers were open and free to the public, which as of now isn’t so much the case.

The inter-generational transfer of property and wealth is crucial to building the American dream. Dr King converted his blood, sweat, tears, and his body and soul into a very unique legacy. And that legacy, just like traditional inheritances like homes and cash, should be converted into a practical security and assets for King's children. King more than earned the right for his kids to have security. Furthermore, King, in his absence due to the movement, left a debt to his kids that he did not live long enough to repay; he owed them what a typical father would provide for his kids. He didn’t leave a big house or a large company, but the sweat equity king pored into this nation is unparalleled. 

Yes, the King children have a right to material possession of his legacy. However, there must be a balance between giving King providing for his family posthumously and giving America access to the legacy of the greatest American of the 20th century and arguably the greatest American ever. 

I’m not a lawyer, but I would think that Mr. Belafonte has the right to sell his own possessions. I hope that this issue doesn’t reduce letters from MLK to a simple issue of possession and physical property.  I further hope that the Kings and Belafonte find this as an opportunity to work together and come to an innovative solution benefiting every party involved, including the causes Belafonte wanted to help via the auction.  King is first the father to his children and dear friend to Belefonte, but King and his legacy belongs to us all. It is something I’m looking forward to passing along to my own children in the future.  Keep King open-source.