MLK's final papers on display at Center for Civil and Human Rights

ATLANTA — The briefcase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. carried the day he was assassinated and his handwritten, private papers are showcased in a new exhibit at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta.

The exhibit named “Down Jericho Road: Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Final Year,” features Dr. King’s writings, including speeches and sermons from the last year of his life.

It includes a handwritten draft of his speech, “Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam,” which was delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in the late 1960s.

Cobb County second grade teachers Brooke Patrick and Jocelyn Smith spent their MLK Day at the Center.

“We’re actually just finishing a unit on MLK, and we decided there’s no better way to celebrate his birth than being here and remembering him,” Patrick told Channel 2’s Rikki Klaus.

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Smith said she came “to take this day as an educational opportunity to further our knowledge, to teach our kids better about his life.”

King’s words on display focus on racial equality, the violence of war and economic justice. These are the things Shana White wants her kids to know.

“To me, it’s important that my children understand the historical implications of Martin Luther King and not necessarily a tempered, whitewashed history but to really understand what he stood for,” White said.

White goes to the Center once a year to instill in her kids King’s lessons.

“My kids need to know that he did so much for not only African-Americans in this country but for white Americans and other people of color,” White said.

The exhibit, which is a collaboration between the King family, Morehouse College and The Center for Civil and Human Rights, is on display until April 23.

Cox Media Group