Charity Sues Detroit Museum for Damage to “Malcolm X” Manuscript

The owner of 15 unpublished pages originally intended by author Alex Haley for inclusion in The Autobiography of Malcolm X is suing a Detroit museum where they have been displayed, saying the papers were damaged while under its care, reports The Detroit Free Press.

Gregory Reed, an entertainment lawyer in Detroit and founder of the Keeper of the Word Foundation, donated the pages, acquired in 1992, to the foundation. The foundation lent the 15 pages, which include Malcolm X’s unpublished 13-point plan for blacks to achieve integration, to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

On display at the museum from 1997 to 2002, the pages, valued at $280,000 before they were put on display, have faded from white to brownish-yellow and have a white stripe where they were held down by bands, the paper reports.

“There is no rational explanation for what happened here,” the Keeper of the Word Foundation’s lawyer, Francois Nabwangu told the Free Press, adding that the museum has refused to file an insurance claim to reimburse the foundation for the damage.

Museum officials would not comment.