Martin Luther King Jr.'s estate sued his daughter in 2014 to take his Nobel medal and Bible for sale, and a judge locked both in a bank box

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968. He left no will, and his estate passed to his widow, Coretta Scott King, and their 4 children. In 1980 a company sold plastic busts of King for $29.95 after the King Center refused to endorse them. The King Center, Coretta Scott King as administratrix and Motown sued. In 1982 the Supreme Court of Georgia held that the right of publicity survives death and can be inherited. In 1996 the estate sued CBS for using about 60 percent of the "I Have a Dream" speech in a documentary. On 5 November 1999 the Eleventh Circuit reversed a ruling for CBS: "A performance, no matter how broad the audience, is not a publication." The case settled in July 2000 with a CBS donation to the King Center. Coretta Scott King died in January 2006. In July 2008 Bernice King and Martin Luther King III sued their brother Dexter, alleging he mishandled King Inc. funds and took money from their mother's estate. In October 2009 a Fulton County Superior Court judge announced a settlement that put a temporary custodian over King Inc. In January 2014 the estate's board voted 2 to 1, Martin III and Dexter against Bernice, to sell King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize medal and his travelling Bible to an unnamed private buyer. The estate sued Bernice, alleging she had "secreted and sequestered" the items, which she called "sacred". Judge Robert McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court ordered both into a bank safe deposit box and kept the key. Former President Jimmy Carter mediated. On 1 July 2016 McBurney ruled the Bible belonged to the estate, and on 15 August 2016 a consent order released both items to Martin III as chairman. Dexter King, the estate's president, died on 22 January 2024. In October 2025 OpenAI paused Sora videos of King at the estate's request.