Boston University Is Creating a Massive Digital Archive of the Papers of Martin Luther King Jr.

Boston University has announced that it is creating an online digital archive of the papers of Martin Luther King Jr., which  will include more than 80,000 pages of documents from the university’s collection of Dr. King’s papers. King earned a doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955, and he donated a vast paper archive to the institution in 1964.

In addition, the new digital archive will include 10,000 pages of documents housed at the Robert W. Woodruff Library in Atlanta. This collection was put on the auction block in 2006 by the King family. But a consortium of investors assembled by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Jackson paid $32 million to keep the collection in Atlanta. The papers were donated to Morehouse College, King’s alma mater. Additional papers from Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institution will also be part of the digital collection.

Boston University hopes to complete the digital archive by September 2009.

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