1

May 3, 1968

Dr. Hugh Gloster, President
Morehouse College
233 Chestnut Street, SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30314

Dr Dr. Gloster:

I have been turning a proposal over in my mind and thought I would write you to get your opinion of it.

As a bit of background, I was disturbed about some years ago Dr. King announced that he was leaving his papers to Boston University, althought I assumed it was because Boston University might be better equipped than Morehouse to store, catalogue and oversee them. I know that Booker T. Washington's papers are lying in boxes in the Tuskegee Library, never to my knowledge having ben catalogued, and I am sure Dr. King would not have wanted his manuscripts to meet the same fate.

The thought struck me that Morehouse could incorporate in the plans for a memorial for her most distinguished son the establishment of a library of oral history of the "King years". This, I believe, would be a fitting remembrance, both historically and academically.

My proposal is that Morehouse seek foundation support for a three to five year project which would involve tape recorded memories of Dr. King. I am not concerned particularly here with Dr. King as a man, but with King as a social innovator and as the man who most affected the course of race relations in the 1950's and '60's. I should like to see Morehouse undertake such a project because I think it would be the most fitting way to honor Dr. King's memory. I feel also that the campus would benefit through its association with such a project and that this sort of historical recording needs to be done.