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Rare original 3.75 x 6.25 invitation card for an event celebrating Kenya’s first anniversary of independence and its newfound designation as a republican government, held at the Hotel Malmen in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 13, 1964, signed boldly in blue ballpoint, “Martin Luther King,” and in black ballpoint, “Ralph D. Abernathy.” In fine condition, with a horizontal fold. Encapsulated in a PSA/DNA authentication holder. Accompanied by a printed photo of King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, dancing at the Malmen Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, where he was a guest of honor on the first anniversary festivals for the Republic of Kenya.
Following King's assassination in 1968, Abernathy attempted to carry forth his vision and succeeded him as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, leading the Poor People's Campaign and their 1968 March on Washington. A remarkable piece signed by two of the most prominent and important organizers of the Civil Rights Movement—items signed by both King and Abernathy are exponentially rare, this being one of only a handful we’ve ever offered.
On December 10, 1964, three days before he attended this celebration in Sweden, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the guest of honor at the University of Oslo in Norway, where he received the Nobel Prize for Peace for being the 'first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence.'
Although the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to King for his exceptional leadership skills in the principles of peace, nonviolence, and direct action, he stated, as quotes from his autobiography: ‘This Nobel Prize was won by a movement of great people, whose discipline, wise restraint, and majestic courage has led them down a nonviolent course in seeking to establish a reign of justice and a rule of love across this nation of ours: Herbert Lee, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, and the thousands of children in Birmingham, Albany, St. Augustine, and Savannah who had accepted physical blows and jail and had discovered that the power of the soul is greater than the might of violence. These unknown thousands had given this movement the international acclaim, which we received from the Norwegian Parliament.’
