Mystery of Obama's New Rug - Letter Surfaces from Author of King's Words

YONKERS, N.Y., May 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. resonate, but sometimes they aren't his.

Before the latest misquote on Twitter, Pres. Obama's new White House rug included words attributed to King.

An auction on May 17th will include an original letter of the true author of those words - Theodore Parker, a white abolitionist.

Written in 1852, his handwritten document applauds the rescue of Jerry, a slave fleeing "government kidnappers."

Bob Snyder, of auction house Cohasco, Inc. (http://cohascodpc.com) in Yonkers, N.Y., stated, "Parker is one of those core thinkers of the nineteenth century, brilliant but forgotten.

"He lived to only 49. What makes this letter particularly special is its length - seven pages, in Parker's fine script - bearing his heartfelt sentiments about the dignity of the human being."

Snyder said, "People wonder where things like this have been hiding. We've been in business for 65 years, and have seen the most astonishing things emerge from bureau drawers, attics, and of course, old collections."

There are over 600 items in the auction, each telling part of the human story.

"Because this is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, a new generation of the public has awakened to this chapter in American history," Snyder continued.

"One of the most disturbing items is an original poem in the hand of Theodore Winthrop, who was the first Union officer killed in a land battle of the Civil War. He actually predicts his own death."

The Civil War hobby has grown into a substantial industry, including reenactors, preservationists, scholars, and collectors. It's the latter two categories that form most of the market for original documents, letters, and collectibles, Snyder said.

Collectors even vie for items like the 9th-century fragment of a manuscript, written by a scribe in an imperial abbey in Germany. "This is the end of the rainbow for collectors of Western European documents. Anything much earlier becomes prohibitively expensive," he continued.

The item in the sale that could have changed the course of history?

"Maybe the workbook of future President Andrew Johnson, prepared in the two frantic weeks preceding Fort Sumter, as he tried to avert war in April 1861."

And the most inspiring lot?

It's a document of noted black soldier Gad Ashur, kidnapped from Africa as a boy. He fought for years during the Revolutionary War, even after he went blind, but ultimately won his freedom.

Nearly a hundred years later, his grandson wrote of him, "... my first ideas of the right of the colored man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were received from those old veterans and champions for liberty."

Contact Name:

Bob Snyder
Cohasco, Inc.
ESTABLISHED 65 YEARS
P.O. Drawer 821
Yonkers, New York 10702
Contact Phone: 1-914-476-8500
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://cohascodpc.com

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SOURCE Cohasco, Inc.