Tape of MLK speech found at thrift store

Associated Press

PHOENIX

Mary Scanlon had no idea a $3 purchase from a Goodwill store in Phoenix would turn out to be a rare link to the civil-rights movement’s most revered leader.

Last April, Scanlon was at the thrift store when she spotted a pile of 35 vintage reel-to-reel tapes, including one labeled with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name. Despite the moldy and torn packaging, she snapped up all of them.

“I didn’t really necessarily have any expectation that this tape would be rare,” Scanlon said.

Arizona State University archivists have found that tape is the only known recording of speeches the slain civil-rights leader gave at ASU and at a Phoenix church in June 1964. The hourlong audio has since been digitized and is available for listening on ASU’s website through June 30.

The tape illustrates that King had been eager to visit supporters in Arizona, a state that would draw criticism more than 20 years later for rescinding the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Scanlon, who donated all the tapes to the school, said the find is one of the high points of her life.

“To have anything about myself connected in any way to Martin Luther King, what more could a person ask for? I’m so proud,” Scanlon said.

Rob Spindler, a university archivist and curator, said it’s miraculous that the audio was still intact. When he first spoke with Scanlon, he immediately warned her not to try to play the tape.

“When the material is that old, sometimes you only get one shot to preserve it,” Spindler said.

The tapes were taken from the Ragsdale Mortuary, which was owned by Lincoln Ragsdale, a civil-rights leader in Phoenix who died in 1995, Goodwill employees said.