LOS ANGELES, Jan. 15, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) announced today that it will donate $1 million as a major sponsor of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, a holding of more than 7,000 manuscripts, books and artifacts.
The collection includes many extraordinary documents that chronicle the life and thoughts of the late civil rights icon. Documents range from Dr. King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize lecture to papers he was working on just before his 1968 assassination to texts of most of his significant speeches, including an early draft of "I Have a Dream." The collection also includes the "sermon box," kept by Dr. King in his library, which contains nearly 100 sermons, sermon notes, meditations and other theological works, many dating from the late 1950s and 1960s.
"Northrop Grumman is honored to help fund the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection," said Ronald D. Sugar, Northrop Grumman's chairman and chief executive officer. "Dr. King was a great American. It is fitting that these important documents, an invaluable repository that will educate generations to come, reside at Morehouse College, Dr. King's alma mater. On behalf of all our employees, I am very proud of our contribution to this important archive."
Morehouse College will house the collection at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center (http://www.auctr.edu/). The Atlanta History Center (http://www.atlhist.org/) will host the first major exhibit of this collection starting today, Dr. King's birthday.
"We are grateful for the generosity of Northrop Grumman Corporation and its support of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection," said Walter E. Massey, president of Morehouse College.
"The synergy created around the acquisition of these papers has made people from all walks of life realize that the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection is a national treasure. This is something that is extraordinary and unifying for all of America - and the world," said Phillip Howard, vice president for Institutional Advancement at Morehouse College.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.