<text>  A condolence letter . from President Lyndon Johnson to the widow of slain civil rights . leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was sold for just half the price expected at an auction on Thursday. The typed note from Johnson to Coretta Scott King dated . April 5, 1968, the day after King was gunned down by a white supremacist in Memphis,Tennessee, sold for 60,000 at Quinns Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Virginia. The 47-year-old correspondence, written on White House Stationary, expressed the then Commander-in-Chiefs sadness at the civil rights leaders death and reiterated his determination to find the assassin. Historic: The letter from President Johnson to Coretta Scott King, dated April 5, 1968, the day after King was shot by a white supremacist, has sold for 60,000 at Quinns Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Virginia . Relationship: Johnson pictured shaking Kings hand during the signing of the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 told his widow they would do everything possible to track down his killer . It read: We will overcome this calamity and continue the work of . justice and love that is Martin Luther Kings legacy and trust . to us. Since early morning, I have devoted all my hours and energy to honoring your good husband in the manner he would most approve. I have sought by word, deed and official act to unite this sorrowing and troubled nation against further and wider violence. Johnson won election to his own four-year term in 1964 but . chose not to run again in 1968 after Kennedys younger brother, . Robert F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from New York, entered . the race for the Democratic nomination. RFK was himself . assassinated in Los Angeles two months after King was slain. The opening bid was 60,000, the sum an online bidder ultimately . paid for it, though the item had been expected to fetch at least 120,000, according to the companys website. Auctioneer Matthew Quinn said the letter had special . resonance given the 50th anniversary this month of the Bloody . Sunday protest march at Selma, Alabama, a turning point in the . U.S. civil rights movement, and the release of the King-centered . movie, Selma. Collection: Sixteen MLK items in all sold for a total of 99,668. They included a guest book with more than 1,500 signatures from one of two wakes for King bottom However he told The Washington Post the turnout of the sale was unexpected: Were obviously disappointed. But thats what the market does. Coretta Scott King held on to the letter until 2003, then . gave it to singer and social activist Harry Belafonte. She died . in 2006. When Belafonte tried to auction it off in 2008, Kings . children objected, and the sale was canceled. The two sides . became embroiled in a legal battle. A 2014 settlement allowed Belafonte to keep the letter and . Belafonte gave it to his half-sister, Shirley Cooks. She and her . husband, Stoney Cooks, a staff member of Kings Southern . Christian Leadership Conference, put it up for sale with other . memorabilia. Stoney Cooks said the letter was remarkable because Johnson, . who had signed landmark civil rights legislation into law, wrote . it while grappling with the unrest unleashed by Kings murder. I thought that quick response showed something about the . nature of the relationship between the two men, Cooks said. Sixteen MLK items in all sold for a total of 99,668 at the auction. They included a guest book with more than 1,500 signatures from one of two wakes for King and drafts of speeches he had written. 