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Mr. Belafonte’s lawsuit involves 3 documents that were given to him by Dr. King, which were part of his collection of photos, letters and other memorabilia garnered during their long friendship. Mr. Belafonte tried to sell the documents in 2008 at Sotheby’s auction house to raise money for Barrios Unidos, a charity that works with street gangs. However, just prior to the sale, Dr. King’s children — Martin Luther King III, Bernice and Dexter — said the documents were taken without permission and belonged to the estate. They challenged Mr. Belafonte’s ownership of the papers with a letter to Sotheby’s that the documents are “part of a wrongfully acquired collection,” effectively halting the sale.
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Under state law, Sotheby’s is liable to the actual owner if it releases property to a wrong party. They have since refused to return the documents to Mr. Belafonte until the dispute is legally settled.
The lawsuit by Mr. Belafonte seems to be the end result of a gradual deterioration of the relationship between him and the surviving children, who refused to invite Belafonte to Coretta Scott King’s funeral in 2006. Belafonte, who frequently housed Dr. King in his travels and supported the King family financially during the civil rights struggle, said the dispute pains him and that he believes Dr. King’s children have drifted away from their father’s values. “The papers are symbolic,” he said. “It’s really about what happened to the children, and I feel that somewhere, in this one area, I really failed Martin.”
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Taylor Branch, a historian who wrote a trilogy of books on Dr. King, called the family’s attempt to take the items from Mr. Belafonte “sad to the point of tragedy.” Clarence B. Jones, Dr. King’s lawyer and close friend, said their attempt to recover documents from Mr. Belafonte was “inconsistent with, and, really, a denigration of, the love and integrity that their dad had for the people who worked with him.”
“Harry Belafonte is not just another person,” he added.
