Martin Luther King’s words inspire memorial design

"The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial will not only honour a great American patriot who made our democracy stronger and more inclusive," Coretta Scott King told a gala assembly of finalists, corporate sponsors, guests and media.

"It will also provide a permanent symbolic reminder that we can continue to make America better through our ongoing commitment to the non violent philosophy and strategy that empowered Martin’s leadership."

The ROMA Design Group of San Francisco won the grand prize in the competition sponsored by King’s former fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, who are coordinating the memorial effort overall, for their tribute inspired by King’s own words.

Alpha Phi Alpha has until November 12, 2003, to raise money and break ground on the monument, whose ultimate cost remains unclear.

The monument, a site which has already been approved near the grassy National Mall between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, would incorporate inscriptions from King’s speeches as well as tangible evocations of his oratorical images.

A quote from a 1963 speech — "With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope" — would be etched onto one side of a stone entry resembling the mountain, with a smooth stone placed at a distance.

Streams of water flowing over rough rock with varying intensity would echo another of King’s images: "Let Justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

A profile of King himself, chiseled out of a rock inscribed with another passage calling on America to make good on the "promissory note" of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, would look out toward the Jefferson Memorial.

ROMA noted adjacent cherry trees also blossom annually near the April 4 anniversary of King’s 1968 assassination.

The memorial, allotted a four-acre (1.6 hectare) plot across the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial, is less than a mile from where King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech near the Lincoln Memorial.

Planners gave special exemption from a ban on new memorials on the Mall to King’s monument. The only other memorial to win such an exemption is a controversial piece commemorating World War II and due to go up between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Among other critics, some civil rights leaders have expressed concern that the World War II memorial would impinge on the associations the area has with King and his movement.

Adding to the controversy, the Resources Committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a Bill allowing a monument to former President Ronald Reagan to be built on the Mall, in defiance of the moratorium and laws requiring a person so honoured to have been dead 25 years. Reagan is still alive.

King’s memorial, the design for which must still be approved by several federal committees, would be the first to be erected on the Mall honouring an African-American.