Adam Parker/The Post & Courier

It was unclear nearly three years ago what would happen to a cache of civil rights-era items with a Charleston provenance.The collection included the original tape of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech delivered July 30, 1967, at Charleston County Hall, as well as a recording surreptitiously made of a Ku Klux Klan rally the night before King's appearance.It also contained audio of Ralph Abernathy's lengthy speech of April 1, 1969, delivered during the Charleston Hospital Workers Strike.The collection went to auction in 2019 and sold in New York City for $55,000 plus a 25-percent buyer's premium.Now it's back in Charleston, part of the holdings of the College of Charleston's Avery Research Center thanks to a donation from the Merrill C. Berman Collection.

One year after the John C. Calhoun monument in Marion Square was removed, and four months after the cornerstone was pried open to reveal its long-hidden contents, we can see what was inside the sealed lead box. And we can better appreciate how these materials add to our understanding of one of South Carolina's most controversial statesmen.