Source: Universal History Archive / Getty
Monday, a judge signed an order ending a dispute over Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Bible and Nobel Peace Prize medal. The dispute had put the slain civil rights leader’s two sons against their sister. During a January 2014 board meeting, the brothers, Martin III and Dexter Scott King, voted 2-1 against their sister, Bernice, to sell the two items to an unnamed private buyer. The items had long been in Bernice’s possession, and the brothers filed suit on behalf of the estate to ask a judge to order her to surrender them.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney says the items are to be released to Martin Luther King III as chairman of the board of his father’s estate. Dexter is its president and CEO. Along with them, Bernice King is the third shareholder and director of the estate. Prior to the order, Bernice King had indicated that selling the items was unthinkable.
King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The Bible was his personal traveling Bible and was used by President Barack Obama during his second inauguration in January 2013.
