The Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc. made history with the Ceremonial Groundbreaking of a Memorial to Dr. King on the National Mall. President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, members of the House and Senate including Senator Barack Obama and Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Maya Angelou, Tommy Hilfiger, and Memorial Foundation president Harry Johnson led the symbolic “turning of soil” groundbreaking.
The event allowed three of King’s children, Yolanda, Martin Luther III, Bernice Albertine King, and Black America’s leading civil rights, church, union and political activists to “turn the ground” for the four-acre memorial. If it gets the necessary funding, King’s will be the first memorial on the National Mall honoring a person of color. The site is at the edge of the Tidal Basin, adjacent to the F.D.R. Memorial, and in direct line between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. In its center will be a 30-foot statue of King called the “Stone of Hope.” Visitors will pass through an entryway cut through a massive stone symbolizing the mountain of despair and once inside, will come upon a carved profile of King. The memorial is to be ringed with walls chiseled with King’s words that may eventually be the base for a waterfall.
“When we finish this Memorial, we will have a King among presidents,” said MLK National Memorial Foundation President, Harry Johnson. The memorial “groundbreaking” is more than 20 years after it was conceived by King’s fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha in 1983. A combination of planning disputes, fundraising hurdles and design discrepancies have impeded the project’s progression.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed Joint Resolutions authorizing its establishment. Organizers hope the King’s Memorial will be completed by 2008. If actual construction starts soon, the monument can be completed in the next year and a half. In spite of the high-profile “groundbreaking”, the memorial’s foundation only have $72 million of the estimated $100 million necessary for construction in hand.
Until the $100 million minimum is raised, the Memorial’s rate, and reality, of construction is in question.
Almost two-thirds of the $72 million has been raised from government and corporate sources. Ironically, it was West Virginia Senator Byrd, a key adversary of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, that offered the June 2005 amendment to provide $10 million in federal funding for the memorial. Other individuals and organizations giving support to the Memorial Project include: General Motors, the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation, NBA/WNBA, The Walt Disney Company Foundation, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Procter & Gamble, GE, PepsiCo, FedEx, Exxon Mobil Foundation, filmmaker George Lucas, State Farm Insurance, AFLAC, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Fannie Mae Foundation, Fannie Mae Corporation, Wal-Mart, Sheila C. Johnson, MacFarlane Partners, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, The Ford Motor Company Fund, AARP, The Horowitz Family Foundation, Federated Department Stores Foundation, Bell South, Continental Airlines, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Delta Airlines Foundation, The Dyer Family Foundation, Black Entertainment Television (BET), Carlos Santana, Toyota, Emerson, and Chevy Chase Bank. Most corporate donations have been in the $1 million range.
The qualifier for “the dream” to become reality is “money”. Despite donations from current contributors - federal appropriations, corporations, fraternities and sororities, and celebrity endorsements - the endeavor will need public support for actually building the site. The project’s organizers are pursuing an additional and essential $30 million to start construction. YRC Worldwide Inc., a large trucking company, plans to put billboards on three of its traveling tractor-trailers to advertise the memorial and need.
Though thousands of thoroughfares, buildings, and a site at Atlanta’s King Center, honor MLK, National Memorial advocates say having “King among presidents” is a symbol African Americans need. The “groundbreaking” means the memorial is closer to a reality, but there’s a ways to go before sufficient money is raised to actually “build the dream”. Donors should send contributions of $5 or more to: The National Memorial Project Foundation, Suite 334, 401 F Street, Northwest, Washington, DC 20001. The telephone number is 888.484.3373 and web address
is MLKMemorial.org.
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