ATLANTA
When Barry Tulloss heard an interview between Martin Luther
King Jr. and his father, former radioman Jerry Tucker, he said the hair stood
up on his neck.
"I couldn't believe what I was hearing," Tulloss said. "He didn't see it for anything significant, but I saw it as priceless, a lost part of history."
The interview sat in a shoe box in a closet for 40 years, until Tulloss began quietly shopping for prospective buyers six years ago. Then he saw Atlanta auction house owner Paul Brown on CNN.
"They'll be able to do something with it," Tulloss said of the interview, now one of a few items from the era up for sale next month in Brown's Atlanta gallery.
Brown gained national attention in April when an anonymous woman attempted to sell a small collection of documents said to belong to King through an auction at Gallery 63. Although the King family ultimately halted the sale, the episode suddenly thrust Brown into the civil rights business.
Suddenly, people came forward with items from their attics, closets and basements, hoping each relic might fetch a small fortune. Eager buyers started contacting him, too, with plans to invest in civil rights-era collectibles.
And Brown knew he was onto something.
"I've stumbled upon a market I really didn't realize existed," said Brown, an antiques dealer who specializes in estate sales. "When you can get your hands on a piece of history, that touches you. This stuff is out there and people want it."
After the Martin Luther King Jr. collection was purchased for $32 million last year from auction house Sotheby's, those who had been saving similar items from the civil rights era saw the potential for profit. And many items that may have gone directly to a university, library, museum or other institution are now up for grabs on the open market.
That has put more pressure on nonprofit groups chasing those documents. They must now work more aggressively to reach donors before they die or choose to sell them on the open market, said Doug Shipman, executive director of Atlanta's proposed Center for Civil and Human Rights.
