The only known handwritten final draft of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech has resurfaced after more than six decades in a desk drawer, and Christie's will offer it as a single lot in New York on 22 January 2027, expecting it to fetch more than $10 million.

King finished the draft in the early hours of 28 August 1963, in his room at the Willard Hotel in Washington, writing in blue ink across seven yellow legal-pad pages after days of discussion with his advisers, including speechwriter Edward T. Clayton. The pages were handed to assistants to be typed and sent to the media, and hours later King delivered the speech to 250,000 people at the March on Washington. The draft does not contain the words 'I Have a Dream' — King added that refrain spontaneously while speaking — but it does preserve his closing lines: 'Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty, we are free at last.'

Xernona Clayton, the civil rights leader and widow of Edward T. Clayton, first found the pages in the late 1990s in an envelope marked 'speech' inside her late husband's desk, then tucked them back away. She came across them again in 2024, and working with Christie's and her adviser Eddie Bridgeman identified the seven pages as the only known handwritten final draft. The manuscript carries King's edits and crossings-out, offering a direct look at how he shaped the speech overnight.

The sale is being made through the Still Marching Irrevocable Charitable Unitrust, with proceeds going to charities including the Xernona Clayton Foundation and The King Center in Atlanta. The manuscript will be shown publicly for the first time at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta from 16 to 22 November, then in Chicago at a date still to be set, and at Christie's New York from 15 to 21 January, ahead of the single-lot sale on 22 January 2027.