The manuscript, written on yellow legal pad pages and kept in an envelope marked simply "speech," was found in the late 1990s among the belongings of Edward T. Clayton, a trusted King aide, speechwriter and public relations director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His widow, longtime Atlanta civil rights leader and broadcasting executive Xernona Clayton, kept the pages for decades before deciding to bring them forward.

Christie's announced Monday that the document will be offered at auction on Jan. 22, 2027, in New York. Proceeds will benefit several organizations, including the Xernona Clayton King Foundation and charitable groups.

Before the sale, the manuscript will be displayed publicly at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta from Nov. 16 through Nov. 22, giving residents a chance to see the draft up close.

King wrote the draft in the final hours before delivering the speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. According to Christie's manuscripts specialist Peter Klarnet, King completed the draft around 4 a.m. on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, after aides and advisers had urged him to focus his remarks. The pages contain extensive crossed-out passages, corrections and revisions, including a reordered passage and repeated references to hotels and motels.

Klarnet described the physical manuscript as remarkable, noting the long sheets of paper held together with a rusty paper clip and cross-out marks that make the document distinctive. He said King's handwriting is immediately recognizable, comparing it to the distinctive hands of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Albert Einstein.

In the handwritten version, King ended with the familiar refrain "Free at last," though the draft does not include the "I have a dream" refrain that became the speech's most famous passage. Klarnet said the draft shows King working through the address, and that the "I have a dream" language appears to have been delivered extemporaneously rather than written into the prepared text.

Xernona Clayton said she recognized the significance of the pages but did not celebrate them as a national treasure. She said she left them in the desk until 2024, when she looked again. She described her husband as a thinker who collaborated with King and said the connection extended beyond his work.

"I'm glad I looked just in time," she said in a statement released by Christie's.

The discovery adds to a long history of Atlanta institutions grappling with how to preserve and display King's legacy. In 2006, the papers of King's father, Martin Luther King Sr., were organized and sold at auction in Atlanta for roughly $1 million after a civic effort to keep the collection in the city. More recently, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights has displayed materials tied to the movement.

The auction house said the manuscript is not just a national treasure but a rare physical record of one of the most consequential speeches in American history. Christie's has handled other landmark documents, including a copy of the U.S. Constitution that sold for $43 million and a Leonardo da Vinci codex that fetched $30.8 million.

King's family members welcomed the potential support for the legacy. Martin Luther King III said the past is a protective asset for the future. Bernice King, chief executive of the King Center, said the proceeds would help sustain the institution her mother, Coretta Scott King, founded.

"We would welcome the support of anyone who wants to join our mother's work," she said.

Xernona Clayton said she hopes the manuscript will be available for public viewing wherever it goes, and that she would welcome an exhibit at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

"Open invitation," she said.

The manuscript will remain on view in Atlanta through Nov. 22 before traveling to New York for exhibition ahead of the Jan. 22 auction at Christie's Rockefeller Center. Visitors can reserve tickets for the Atlanta exhibition through the museum's website.

"And I wait for the opportunity to give this speech to new people," Clayton said. "It is so amazing, and I cannot give it for free."