Only Love Can Do That
by Ed Weidman
Title
Only Love Can Do That
Artist
Ed Weidman
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is located in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., southwest of the National Mall (but within the larger area commonly referred to as the "National Mall").[1] The national memorial is America's 395th unit in the national park service.[2] The monumental memorial is located at the northwest corner of the Tidal Basin near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, on a sightline linking the Lincoln Memorial to the northwest and the Jefferson Memorial to the southeast. The official address of the monument, 1964 Independence Avenue, S.W., commemorates the year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law.[3]
Covering four acres, the memorial opened to the public on August 22, 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising and construction.[4][5] A ceremony dedicating the Memorial was scheduled for Sunday, August 28, 2011, the 48th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963[6] but was postponed until October 16 (the 16th anniversary of the 1995 Million Man March on the National Mall) due to Hurricane Irene.[7][8][9]
Although this is not the first memorial to an African-American in Washington, D.C., Dr. King is the first African-American honored with a memorial on or near the National Mall and only the fourth non-President to be memorialized in such a way. The King Memorial is administered by the National Park Service (NPS).
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 � April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.[10] He is an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent resistance inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.[11] Although during his life he was monitored by the FBI for presumed communist sympathies, King is now presented as a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism.[12][13]
Delivering the "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 Washington, D.C. Civil Rights March.At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King imagined an end to racial inequality in his "I Have a Dream" speech.[14] This speech has been canonized as one of the greatest pieces of American oratory.[15] In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means.[16]
By the time of his death, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War.[17][18] In 1968, he was backing the Memphis Sanitation Strike and organizing a mass occupation of Washington, D.C., called the Poor People's Campaign.[19] King's assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968 disrupted the Campaign and led to unrest in cities across the US.[20] King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986, and was first observed in all states in 2000
The street address for the memorial is 1964 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, D.C., with "1964" chosen as a direct reference to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a milestone in the Civil Rights movement in which King played an important role.[3] The memorial is located on a 4-acre (1.6 ha) site in West Potomac Park that borders the Tidal Basin, southwest of the National Mall.[3] The memorial is near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and is intended to create a visual "line of leadership" from the Lincoln Memorial, on whose steps King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, to the Jefferson Memorial.[3][6]
The centerpiece for the memorial is based on a line from King's "I Have A Dream" speech: "Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope."[42] A 30 feet (9.1 m)-high relief of King named the "Stone of Hope" stands past two other pieces of granite that symbolize the "mountain of despair."[42] Visitors literally "pass through" the Mountain of Despair on the way to the Stone of Hope, symbolically "moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life."[43]
A 450 feet (140 m)-long inscription wall includes excerpts from many of King's sermons and speeches.[5] On this crescent-shaped granite wall, fourteen of King's quotes will be inscribed, the earliest from the time of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, and the latest from his final sermon, delivered in 1968 at Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral, just four days before his assassination.[43]
View through the opening of the Mountain of Despair, revealing both the Stone of Hope and across the Tidal Bay, the Jefferson MemorialThe relief of King is intended to give the impression that he is looking over the Tidal Basin towards the horizon (not towards the Jefferson Memorial as many believe), and that the cherry trees that "adorn the site" will bloom every year during the anniversary of King's death.[44]
This memorial is not the first in the U.S. capital to honor an African American, because one already exists for Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women, who also served as an unofficial advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[45] A 17 feet (5.2 m)-tall bronze statue of her is located in Lincoln Park, East Capitol St. and 12th St., NE.[45] However, this will be the first memorial to an African-American on or near the National Mall.[45]
The memorial is the fourth that commemorates an individual who never served as President of the United States that is located on or near the National Mall.[46] The others include the George Mason Memorial, honoring George Mason, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (the basis for the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights), near the Thomas Jefferson Memorial; the John Ericsson Memorial, erected to honor John Ericsson,[47] the Swedish-born engineer and inventor who designed the USS Monitor during the Civil War; and the John Paul Jones Memorial, erected in 1912 near the Tidal Basin in memory of John Paul Jones, the Scottish-born American naval hero who served during the American RThe Inscription Wall[edit]Fourteen quotes from King's speeches, sermons, and writings are inscribed on the Inscription Wall.[49] The "Council of Historians" created to choose the quotations included Dr. Maya Angelou, Lerone Bennett, Dr. Clayborne Carson, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Marianne Williamson and others,[50][51] though the memorial's executive architect stated that Maya Angelou did not attend the meetings at which the quotations were selected.[52] According to the official National Park Service brochure for the Memorial, the inscriptions that were chosen "stress four primary messages of Dr. King: justice, democracy, hope, and love."[53]
The earliest quote is from 1955, spoken during the time of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the latest is from a sermon King delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., four days before he was assassinated.[43] The quotes are not arranged in chronological order, so that no visitor must follow a "defined path" to follow the quotations, instead being able to start reading at any point he or she might choose.[43] Because the main theme of the Memorial is linked to King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, none of the quotations on the Inscription Wall come from that speech.[43]
The selection of quotes was announced at a special event at the National Museum on February 9, 2007 (at the same time the identity of the sculptor was revealed).[54] The fourteen quotes on the Inscription Wall are:[49]
"We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." (31 March 1968, National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.)
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." (1963, Strength to Love)
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
"Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in." (18 April 1959, Washington, D.C.)
"I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world." (25 February 1967, Los Angeles, California)
"If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective." (24 December 1967, Atlanta, Georgia)
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits." (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
"It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace." (24 December 1967, Atlanta)
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." (25 February 1967, Los Angeles)
"Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies." (4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York)
"We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (5 December 1955, Montgomery, Alabama)
"We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience." (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice." (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
Some of King's words reflected in these quotations are based on other sources, including the Bible, and in one case�"the arc of the moral universe" quote�upon the words of Theodore Parker, an abolitionist and Unitarian minister, who died shortly before the beginning of the Civil War.[55][56][57]
Inscriptions on the Stone of Hope[edit]In addition to the fourteen quotations on the Inscription Wall, each side of the Stone of Hope includes an additional statement attributed to King.[52] The first, from the "I Have a Dream" speech, is "Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope"�the quotation that serves as the basis for the monument's design.[52] The words on the other side of the stone read, "I Was a Drum Major for Justice, Peace, and Righteousness", which is a paraphrased version of a longer quote by King: "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. And all of the other shallow things will not matter." The memorial's use of the paraphrased version of the quote has been criticized and was removed in August 2013.
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January 26th, 2013
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