Martin Luther King's kids in estate battle

The children of Rev Martin Luther King Jr are fighting over possession of his Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Bible he carried.

The children of Rev Martin Luther King Jr are fighting over his Nobel Peace Prize medal and Bible. (AAP)

A generation after the Rev Martin Luther King Jr's death, his children are fighting again over control of his legacy.

This time it involves two of his most cherished possessions: his Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Bible he carried.

King's daughter Bernice King has both items, and she says her brothers, Dexter King and Martin Luther King III, are demanding she hand them over so they can be sold.

It is the latest in a string of disputes over the years that some historians have come to see as a sad and unseemly footnote to history that could damage King's name.