Harry Belafonte tried to sell Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers, King's children said they were wrongfully taken, and Belafonte sued them and kept the papers

Harry Belafonte was a close supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and joined his strategy meetings in the 1960s. He held three documents: an early outline of King's 1967 speech against the Vietnam War, written in Belafonte's apartment; notes found in King's pocket when he was shot in April 1968, which Coretta Scott King passed to Belafonte; and President Lyndon Johnson's original condolence letter to Mrs. King. In 2008 Belafonte put them up at Sotheby's to raise money for the charity Barrios Unidos. The King estate stopped the sale, calling the papers part of a wrongfully acquired collection. Sotheby's held them for five years. On 15 October 2013 Belafonte sued King's three surviving children, Dexter, Bernice and Martin Luther King III, in federal court in Manhattan for a declaration that he owned them. His lawyer said the estate had never shown he stole anything and that New York's three-year time limit had passed. Historian David Garrow said the estate had far less credibility than Belafonte. The estate had lost a similar suit against King's former secretary, Maude Ballou. On 11 April 2014 the sides announced a confidential settlement. Belafonte kept the documents and Sotheby's said it would return them to him. In 2026 their location after his death is unconfirmed^†.