Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, monument built between 2009 and 2011 in Washington, D.C., honouring the American Baptist minister, social activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr., who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. The monument is located along the west bank of the Tidal Basin, near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and not far from the Lincoln Memorial, from which King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington in August 1963.

map of the National Mall, Washington, D.C.

The design for the monument—by the Roma Design Group, from suggestions by historian Clayborne Carson, the editor and publisher of King’s papers—was chosen from more than 900 design submissions from dozens of countries. The entry portal to the memorial is framed by two towering mounds of pink granite, “The Mountain of Despair.” Out of them (when viewed from the entrance to the memorial) a huge slab, “The Stone of Hope,” thrusts into an open plaza on the Tidal Basin. The words “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope,” taken from the “Dream” speech, are inscribed on one side of the stone. The words “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness,” were originally inscribed on the other side. However, in response to protest over what some saw as a sense of self-aggrandizement conveyed by this paraphrase of a statement King once made about himself, it was decided in 2012 to change the inscription to more accurately represent King’s full statement: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness.” Emerging from the front of the stone, facing the Jefferson Memorial across the basin, is a 30-foot (9-metre) likeness of King by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin. Arcing from the portal around the memorial’s plaza is a 450-foot (137-metre) crescent-shaped wall on which are emblazoned 14 quotations from King on the themes of justice, democracy, love, and hope. Cherry trees and crape myrtle bushes add to the design, which was implemented by the project’s executive architect, Ed Jackson, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., during the March on Washington

The memorial, built at a cost of about $120 million (raised through donations by individuals, organizations, and corporations), was officially opened to the public in August 2011. It was the first monument on the Mall or in its associated memorial parks to be dedicated to an African American. The effort to establish the memorial was initiated in the 1980s by Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically black fraternity, and in 1996 Pres. Bill Clinton signed congressional legislation authorizing the establishment of the memorial. The memorial’s official address, 1964 Independence Avenue, alludes to the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.