A sign for which Stevie Wonder and Reverend Jesse Jackson campaigned is for sale at UK collectibles specialists Paul Fraser Collectibles.
It once stood on the 7-mile Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The street was originally named in the usual US grid-pattern style as 40th Street, later becoming Santa Barbara Avenue.
It became a memorial to the United States’ most famous and most revered civil rights leader in 1983.
That’s thanks largely to Celes King III (no relation to Dr King), a businessman from a famous LA family, and a former Tuskegee Airman (the name given to black pilots who fought in World War II in segregated units).
He led the campaign to honour Reverend Doctor King with an LA street, hoping to get the signs up in time for Los Angeles’ hosting of the 1984 Olympics.
It took a battle and celebrity backing from the likes of Stevie Wonder and Reverend Jesse Jackson. Victory was celebrated on January 15, 1983, which would have been Martin Luther King’s 54th birthday.
Celes King said: “When we went to war, we went with 350 preachers and busloads of people. When we showed up at the city hall, there was not even standing room.”
Martin Luther King won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964 and was murdered, aged just 39 in 1968, triggering a wave of mourning and anger.
It’s a 37.5” by 12” metal sign, and Paul Fraser, chairman of Paul Fraser Collectibles, is confident it will find a home.
He said: “This is definitely a display piece with the ‘WOW’ factor. It’s big, bold, and iconic. And it’s also highly uncommon to find one of these signs available to purchase on the market.”
Driving the street will take you through some of Los Angeles’ most famous areas, including Crenshaw, one of the cradles of West Coast Hip Hop, and past the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the 1984 Olympics was hosted, and to which the Games will return in 2028.
Space Shuttle Endeavour was driven along the street in 2012 on its way to a new home at the California Science Center.
Unusually for US street signs, this one fully spells out Dr King’s name.
As early as August 1968, just four months after he was murdered in Memphis, streets in the US have been named in honour of Dr King. The first one was in Chicago. There are now at least 1,000.
Dr King is still hugely influential.
No American politician can be taken seriously without properly paying respect to his memory.
Alongside its political significance, Paul Fraser says this is a rare sale.
“It’s a tribute to a truly inspirational man,” he said, “and I’ve never seen another of these genuine MLK street signs for sale anywhere, in all my years as a dealer. I doubt I’ll ever find another.”
The sign is listed now at Paul Fraser Collectibles for £2,500.
