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Martin Luther King Jr. was planning a trip to the Soviet Union after surviving an assassination attempt, and his letter explaining his reasons for the visit is up for grabs.
The famed civil rights leader was only 2 months removed from being stabbed at a book signing in Harlem when he wrote to the National Council of Churches, explaining his motivations behind a visit to the USSR.
MLK’s 1958 letter outlines 6 reasons for the stopover, on his way back from India, including a desire to investigate why Soviet citizens were still religious despite state-sponsored atheism.
Dr. King also told the National Council of Churches he wanted to meet with Baptists in the communist nation to figure out how Soviet policies affected minorities.
One really eye-opening part of the letter is the price … MLK estimated the trip would cost a whopping $35 per day for his hotels, trains, planes, interpreters, cars and chauffeurs. Yeah, different time — today that would be about $370 per day.
The rare piece of MLK history is going up for sale through Moments In Time for $54,000 … after being stored for years by a private collector.
By the way, MLK ended up scrapping the trip a few months later, for fear the Soviet visit would be seen as political.