Lawyer involved in sale of Martin Luther King Jr.'s hearse

<p>The hearse that carried the body of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is up for sale on the online auction site eBay, and a St. Louis man is acting as the middleman.</p><p>So far, Jerry Morgan's efforts to generate interest among museums and foundations have gone nowhere. The bids on eBay have not met the minimum sale price that he declined to disclose.</p><p>But that hasn't stopped Morgan's enthusiasm for the project. The hearse carried King's body from a hospital to a funeral home in Memphis, Tenn., after he was assassinated there in 1968.</p><p>"Certainly, it's been an interesting process to be involved in something like this," he said. "We all know what a critical role Dr. King played in the history of our country, so certainly that's an exciting moment for us, to say that we were a part of it.</p><p>"It would also be exciting for us to know that a museum or something picked it up and put it on display for others to appreciate."</p><p>The National Civil Rights Museum, which occupies the former Lorraine Motel in Memphis where King was shot, is not interested in buying the hearse in part because of lack of space, a spokeswoman said.</p><p>Gwen Harmon said she also found the sale troubling.</p><p>"It's a part of American cultural history, certainly, because it's part of something that happened in this nation that changed the face of the civil rights movement," she said. "I would like to see people that have these types of artifacts use them for education rather than something to quote-unquote sell. That's when you start to question motives."</p><p>The King Center in Atlanta declined to comment.</p><p>Morgan, an attorney at a law firm in O'Fallon, Ill., a St. Louis suburb, said he is selling the hearse on behalf of its owner, a former dealer with the Superior Coach Co. The auction is due to end Sunday.</p><p>As of late Wednesday, visitors to the eBay auction site had placed 16 bids on the hearse, a 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood with an odometer reading of 77,960 miles. The top bid for the hearse, which the auction page describes as "an incredible part of civil rights history," was $15,651.</p><p>Morgan said he met the hearse's owner through a client. He said the owner sold the hearse to the R.S. Lewis & Sons funeral home in 1966 and reacquired it three years later when the funeral home traded it in for a newer model. The owner keeps it in a warehouse and has driven it only rarely, most recently last month, Morgan said.</p><p>R.S. Lewis Jr., the owner of the funeral home, has signed an affidavit attesting to the hearse's authenticity, Morgan said.</p>

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