Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

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Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial
Buildings in Washington, DC 02400.JPG
location Washington, DC , USA
surface 0.016 km²
Geographical location 38 ° 53 '  N , 77 ° 3'  W Coordinates: 38 ° 53 '10 "  N , 77 ° 2' 42"  W
mark
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial
Setup date August 28, 2011
administration National Park Service
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The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial (Martin Luther King National Monument ) is a national memorial near the National Mall in Washington, DC It embodies the honorable memory of the American Baptist pastor , civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, who was murdered in 1968 , the history of the African American civil rights movement and its content-related concerns. Martin Luther King is the first African American and the fourth non-President to have a National Memorial erected on the Mall.

The monument was designed and created by the Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin on behalf of a non-profit organization and handed over to the United States on August 28, 2011, and is maintained by the National Park Service . The official inauguration took place on October 16, 2011.

location

The monument stands on a 16,000 m² state-owned site on the west bank (West Bassin Drive) of the so-called Tidal Basin - an artificial lake-like bulge of the Potomac River south of the National Mall, which runs in an east-west direction. The King Memorial is deliberately positioned exactly as the crow flies between the nearby Lincoln Memorial in the northwest (west end of the Mall) and the Jefferson Memorial on the opposite southeast bank of the bay. A "line of leadership" is to be drawn between Thomas Jefferson, author of the American Declaration of Independence and advocate of personal freedom, Abraham Lincoln, who pushed through the abolition of slavery in the USA , and Martin Luther King. Directly south of the King Memorial is the Roosevelt Memorial . In front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for Work and Freedom - one of the high points of the American civil rights protests of the 1960s against racial discrimination in the United States - King gave his famous speech I Have a Dream to around 250,000 people . In the area of ​​the National Mall so far only monuments for whites, mainly important former presidents ("founding fathers") of the USA, were erected.

The memorial's address is 1964 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC , a reference to the major Civil Rights Act of 1964 that made discriminatory election testing against African Americans and racial segregation illegal in public places illegal.

description

The monument dominates a square-like extension of the path to the bank. It consists of three parts that were carved by the artist in China from a total of 159 individual granite blocks and were only put together on site. They symbolize central principles of the civil rights movement: justice, democracy and hope, represented by the use of the three elements stone, water and trees.

The round of the monument is framed by the so-called wall of quotations , two 70-meter-long walls made of polished dark Chinese granite, in which 14 quotations from Martin Luther King from his speeches and sermons are carved, for example I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality (I believe that the naked truth and unconditional love will have the last word in this reality) .

The entrance is formed by the Mountain of Despair (Mountain of Despair), two several meter high rocks made of light, sand-colored Chinese granite , which look as if they were created from a single stone that cracked almost smoothly in the middle.

A photo from 1964 for illustration

Through this gap you get to the center of the complex, the Stone of Hope , literally from narrowing despair to hope. The stone of hope is also made of light, sand-colored Chinese granite. From the front third of the otherwise rough-looking block emerges the nearly ten meters (30 feet) high, carefully worked standing figure of Martin Luther King. It is a good three meters taller than Lincoln and Jefferson's. The sculpture shows King standing, in a suit and tie, with his arms folded, his face serious and straight across the pond to the Jefferson Memorial . In the right he holds a scroll, in the left a fountain pen as a symbol of his strongest weapons in nonviolent resistance. On the right side of the block is the slogan Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope - a quote from King's speech I Have a Dream - on the left is I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness (I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness). Due to reviews that the figure resembled Lenin's statues in the style of Socialist Realism , the artist had to partially revise his original design. Due to the posture with crossed arms, the statue looks a bit repellent in the final version, which did not correspond to King's character.

There are 24 semicircular niches along the upper path through the complex . They remember different people who died for the civil rights movement. Some of the niches remain open and unfinished to accommodate people to be honored in the future. In addition, 182 Yoshino cherry trees (Prunus x yedoensis) from Japan were planted in the area of ​​the memorial square , which bloom around the anniversary of King's birth.

History of origin

Around a decade and a half passed from the initial planning of the project to the decision to build, collecting donations for financing to the completion of the monument.

The memorial was initiated by the first African-American student association , Alpha Phi Alpha (ΑΦΑ), founded in 1906 , of which King became a member in 1952 at Boston University . After King's assassination, ΑΦΑ proposed the erection of a memorial again after King's birthday was declared a national holiday.

The establishment of a National Memorial requires separate approval from the United States Congress . This was granted in, 1996, in 1998 erhielt received approval to set up a foundation to carry out a competition, implementation planning and fundraising. In 1999 the United States Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) and the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) approved the site selection. The symbolic groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 13, 2006 in West Potomac Park . The final building permit was issued in October 2009 and work began in December 2009.

General planner and sculptor

After an international architecture competition in which around 900 designs from 52 countries were submitted, the ROMA Design Group , an interdisciplinary office of architects, landscape architects and urban planners based in San Francisco , was awarded the contract in 2000 the overall design.

At the beginning of 2007, the Monument Foundation commissioned the artist Lei Yixin (* 1954) , who lives in Changsha , China, as the lead sculptor of a team of ten to realize the sculpture . He has designed over 150 monumental statues on behalf of the state, including some by Mao Zedong , and was awarded a lifelong scholarship as a master sculptor in his home country. The selection committee was part of the stone sculptor symposium Minnesota Rocks! Held in Saint Paul, Minnesota , partner city of Changsha in 2006 . became aware of him by chance. His sculpture Contemplation , which is a good 2 meter high, which was presented there, is said to have been his first granite sculpture executed by himself, according to his own admission. Among the favorites for Chief Sculptor was initially the Afro-American sculptor Ed Dwight , as he had already designed several King monuments, but only from bronze. The fact that an artist from the Communist People's Republic of China was selected instead without a formal evaluation process provoked considerable protests; an international initiative called King Is Ours (King is ours) was established. The foundation was accused of making the decision because of lower costs and / or in the hope of large grants from the People's Republic of China. That denied this. The selection was not made on the basis of the artist's skin color, but rather on the basis of the convincing quality of the creative idea and the artist's extensive experience in creating large personal sculptures made of granite. In April 2008, the US Commission of Fine Art described Yixin's design as an inappropriate representation of King.

opening

The facility was opened to the public on August 22, 2011. The main donors were then honored at gala events. The official opening of the memorial was to take place by the first African American President Barack Obama on August 28, 2011, the 48th anniversary of King's speech I Have a Dream . The opening was postponed because of Hurricane Irene . On October 16, 2011, it was inaugurated by Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in front of around 50,000 spectators . Singers Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder and civil rights activists such as Jesse Jackson performed at the ceremony .

financing

The total cost of the monument is about $ 120 million. About $ 800,000 of this is said to have been billed by the Kings family for using the name. This amount was raised by donations that were raised by a specially established foundation . Alpha Phi Alpha donated the first four million dollars, and numerous companies and organizations in the US and worldwide joined, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , The Walt Disney Company Foundation , National Association of Realtors , the filmmaker George Lucas , AT&T , Viacom and Xerox and Congressional Matching Funds .

Web links

Commons : Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the inscription on the plaque attached on site during the construction phase: “The memorial will embody the man, the movement and the message. [...] "
  2. ↑ a b Obama inaugurates memorial for Martin Luther King at orf.at, October 16, 2011 (accessed October 16, 2011).
  3. ^ Jesse Hamlin: A Dream Written in Stone / SF firm designing Martin Luther King memorial in Washington , San Francisco Chronicle, October 10, 2000
  4. ↑ Chinese master sculptor to produce MLK memorial carving ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , CNN, February 15, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mlkmemorial.org
  5. ↑ Todd Messelt, Symposium Showcases Diversity of Minnesota Stone ( February 17, 2007 memento in the Internet Archive ), Building Stone , Winter 2006
  6. ^ Lei Yixin and a Clash of Cultures , Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 2007
  7. ^ Uwe Schmitt: Black US artists poison against Chinese sculptors , Die Welt , August 28, 2007
  8. ↑ Mao sculptor to chisel Martin Luther King ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Standard , February 17, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thestandard.com.hk
  9. ↑ A King Statue 'Made in China'? , Washington Post Foreign Service, Aug. 15, 2007
  10. ↑ Federal Panel Rejects Design for King Memorial Sculpture ( Memento July 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Kevin Chappell, Jet Magazine, June 16, 2008
  11. ^ New York Times: A Dedication to King, and the Work Yet to Do , October 16, 2011
  12. ↑ Ronald D. Gerste: Monument to Martin Luther King , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 22, 2011