Dr. King’s Papers Will Be Published

Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., announced plans Thursday to publish a 12-volume edition of the slain civil rights leader’s papers that will chronicle his life.

“With the publication of the King papers, we will have an invaluable source of information about the civil rights movement that revolutionized American society,” Mrs. King said at a news conference.

“The published King papers will also help illuminate the philosophy and methods of nonviolence, as taught by one of its leading practitioners,” she said.

The papers, to be published by the University of California Press, will include early letters and recordings, articles, books, speeches and correspondence, Mrs. King said.

Clayborne Carson, a Stanford University historian who will edit the volumes, said the first volume will be published in 1990. He said additional volumes will be published annually.

Carson said the volumes will help historians understand the development of King’s thinking and philosophy but he added: “Not too many things will come forward which are surprising.”