Reconciliation. It’s a word we have heard repeatedly since the death of Dexter King on Jan. 22.

We have learned that Dexter King and Bernice King were able to reconcile their differences during the past 10 months. At the candlelight celebration in honor of Dexter King on Feb. 10, we learned that Martin Luther King III and Bernice King will work together to carry on the legacy of their mother and father – Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King III.

Now is the time for a true reconciliation between Atlanta and the King family.

Let us roll back the clock to June 2006. That’s when we learned Sotheby’s had set a date in 30 days to auction off a collection of 10,000 items of Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings – many with handwritten notes – as well as several of his personal items.

Immediately when the news came out, several key leaders believed it was time for Atlanta to act.

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young reached out to then Mayor Shirley Franklin. “I told Shirley that we really needed to keep those papers in Atlanta,” Young said. 

In recalling that time, Young said he had heard New York (at the urging of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki) was working on a $50 million bid to acquire the papers. There also were a host of rumors of other potential buyers for all or parts of the collection.

Franklin also had conversations with several others – John Ahmann, then executive director of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, as well as A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress.

“I called a handful of people including Raymond King (of SunTrust) and Ingrid Saunders Jones (of the Coca-Cola Co.),” said Franklin, to gauge the level of interest in the community.

She then had dinner with Phillip Madison Jones, who was working closely with…