#TheDailyRecord Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

How can archival documents help us learn more about the sequence of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s voter registration campaigns and the role of Dr. Martin Luther King in mobilizing donors to fund the movement?  In a 1962-1963 fundraising letter in the George A. Singleton Special Collection at Payne, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes on behalf of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, “I am Martin Luther King, Jr. I want to tell you about the secret weapon that may win the battle for human dignity in the South”.

 In this particular letter King uses the election of a “Negro” to the Georgia Senate, the first in 92 years to persuade donors to that they are in a crucial moment, “When you write your write your check you write history”. Another digitized letter dated March 1963, from the University of Kentucky containing much of the same message excludes the paragraph about the election the to the George Senate and instead emphasizes that “more than 40,000 Negro voters were added to the registration roles last year”. Which was written first? What’s the purpose of including the Georgia contests? Are there different audiences? How stylistic features different (personal address, built in return envelope, hand signed rather than mass generated signature)? Explore the differences between the two letters by visiting: http://nyx.uky.edu/dips/xt7j0z70xm3d/data/2012ua022/2012ua022_1/82805/82805.pdf