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To W. T. Handy, Jr.

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Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Montgomery Improvement Association)

Date: July 3, 1956

Location: Montgomery, Ala.

Genre: Letter

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Family

Details

King declines his Boston University classmate's invitation to speak at a Louisiana church on 8 November.

The Rev. W. T. Handy, Jr., Pastor
Newman Methodist Church
Corner Fulton & Eighth Streets
Alexandria, Louisiana

Dear W. T., 

This is to acknowledge receipt of your very kind letter of June 8. Absence from the city for several days has delayed my reply. 

After checking my schedule I find that I have accepted as many speaking engagements for the next five or six months as my schedule will allow. For this reason I will have to decline your gracious invitation to speak for the Community-wide Fellowship Banquet. Please know that I regret this very deeply. It is even more regretful in the light of our personal friendship and my real concern and respect for the great work you are doing. I certainly hope that it will be possible for me to serve you at some future date.

I hope everything goes well with you and Ruth.1 It would really be a gratifying experience to see both of you, since it has been so long since we have seen each other. I hope you will find it possible to stop through Montgomery next time you are in this section.2 Coretta and I are doing fine. We have a little daughter now, Yolanda Denise, who is a little more than seven months old. She is really the boss of the family.

With warm personal regards.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] M. L.
M. L. King, Jr.,
President 

MLK:b

1. Ruth Odessa Robinson, a friend of the King family, married Handy on II August 1948.

2. On 18 September Handy wrote King to thank him and Coretta for a wonderful visit during the summer.

Source: WTH-INP, W. T. Handy Collection, In Private Hands

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