Inscribed Martin Luther King memoir fetches £2.5k

A rare, inscribed copy of Martin Luther King memoir has fetched more than £2,500 at auction after turning up in a charity shop.

The inscribed first-edition copy of Stride Toward Freedom had initially been placed on the shelf for general sale after being donated to the Oxfam Bookshop in Thame, Oxfordshire.

It was later identified by volunteers for its distinctive dust jacket, before its opening revealed a handwritten note, along with a stamped signature from King.

Julia Worms, manager of the shop, said her team of volunteers were "very pleased" after the book went on to sell for £2,560 at London-based auction house Bonhams.

"It is special to find a book which is actually a tangible piece of history, and to be able to preserve it," she added.

The book is thought to be an author's presentation copy from 1958, and still has its original dust jacket and the publisher's blue and black cloth binding with silver lettering on its spine.

Beneath its inside cover it is inscribed: "To Mr & Mrs Richard Llewellyn Davies, with best wishes and warm regards Martin Luther King Jr."

Oxfam's book expert Ian Falkingham said volunteers in Thame "knew they had something of interest and that more research was going to have to be done" after uncovering the message.

Falkingham explained that the memoir detailed King's experiences during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began in 1955 after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white passenger - defying segregation laws in Alabama at the time.

"It was an absolutely extraordinary moment in American history" which "still resonates", he said.

He described the boycott as "the moment in which ordinary people in the black community in the southern states realised that they could take power".

"From an Oxfam point of view, you couldn't get a better book because it chimes so much with our values," he added.

King was a Baptist minister and civil rights leader who spearheaded the non‑violent fight against racial segregation and injustice in the US, before being assassinated on 4 April 1968 aged 39.

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