Obama to use King, Lincoln Bibles during swearing-in

President Obama will use Bibles that belonged to civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and former President Abraham Lincoln while taking the oath of office during his inauguration later this month.

The president will take his public oath switching between the two copies, according to a report in The New York Times. 

The first book, given as a gift to King in 1954, contains notes and marginalia from the slain civil-rights leader. The Bible, which belongs to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, was King's traveling Bible and was used by the pastor while preparing sermons during his assignment to Montgomery, Ala., in the 1950s.

The president will also again use the Bible that was first purchased for President Lincoln's inauguration in 1861. Obama took the oath of office from that book, now in the collection of the Library of Congress, during his first inauguration in 2009.

Interestingly, Obama will actually use a third Bible during his inaugural festivities. Because Jan. 20 — the constitutionally mandated inauguration day — falls on a Sunday, the president will take the oath of office during a private White House ceremony a day before his public swearing-in. There, he will use a Bible that was owned by first lady Michelle Obama's grandmother, the first African-American woman manager of a Moody's Bible Institute bookstore.

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