Belafonte Settles Dispute Over Martin Luther King Documents

By ALLAN KOZINN

April 11, 2014, 5:02 pm

• e-mail
• facebook
• twitter
• save
• more

Damon Winter/The New York TimesHarry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte and the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have settled their differences over the ownership of documents that Mr. Belafonte said had been given to him by Dr. King; his widow, Coretta Scott King; and a close aide, Stanley Levison. According to a joint statement by Jonathan S. Abady, Mr. Belafonte’s lawyer, and Michael W. Tyler, the lawyer for Dr. King’s estate, “the parties have reached a compromise, the terms of which are confidential and have resulted in Mr. Belafonte retaining possession of the documents.”

The dispute, which led to a lawsuit filed by Mr. Belafonte in October against Dr. King’s three surviving children – Dexter, Bernice and Martin Luther King III – revolved around three documents given to Mr. Belafonte during his long friendship with Dr. King.  They include a three-page handwritten outline for a speech, “The Casualties of the War in Vietnam,” that Dr. King wrote in Mr. Belafonte’s apartment, and delivered in 1967; a letter of condolence from President Lyndon B. Johnson to Mrs. King, and an envelope with notes for a speech, which Dr. King had in his pocket when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

When Mr. Belafonte tried to sell the papers through Sotheby’s, in 2008, saying that he hoped to raise money for Barrios Unidos, a charity that works with street gangs, the King family challenged his ownership, saying the documents were “wrongfully acquired.” Under New York law, Sotheby’s could be held liable if it returned the documents to the wrong party, so they remained in a storage vault pending a resolution. On Friday, a spokeswoman for Sotheby’s said, “We are very pleased to hear that the parties have reached an agreement and anticipate returning the documents to Mr. Belafonte.”

Both Mr. Abady and Mr. Tyler, reached by telephone, said that both sides had agreed not to comment further on the agreement.

A version of this article appears in print on 04/12/2014, on page C3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Belafonte in Settlement Over King Documents.