2008 Woodie Awards
Memorial for King a ground-breaking event
Gavin Jamieson
Issue date: 11/21/06
Last Updated: 12/26/07
Last week an opening ceremony was held for the commencement of construction on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Monument. This ceremony was attended by numerous representatives of the civil rights community including Jesse Jackson and also significant African American citizens such as author Maya Angelou and talk show host Oprah Winfrey. This ceremony was an important landmark in the legacy of King as his monument is to be the first for an African American on the National Mall of Washington D.C. The monument will be located near the existing monuments commemorating Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. The construction of the monument should be viewed as a noteworthy addition to the National Mall for an important American historical figure.
The construction of the monument was approved during President Bill Clinton's administration in 1996. The project has a $100 million funding goal and sponsorship has arrived chiefly from private donors and corporations including Boeing and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The monument design itself has been largely uncontroversial and will place an emphasis on the most well known speeches of King. The memorial draws special inspiration from King's famed "I Have a Dream" speech that was delivered in 1963 to a hundreds of thousands of spectators at the height of the American civil rights movement. This speech is noted by AmericanRhetoric.com as being the most important speech of the 20th century, beating out other notables such as John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's address to the nation following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The dedication of the monument to King was also attended by President George W. Bush and Clinton along with rising political star Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois. The presence of Obama was an interesting note as his African heritage is for the most part unrelated to the historic African American presence in the United States. Obama's black father was a first generation immigrant from Kenya and his mother was white.
The construction of the monument was approved during President Bill Clinton's administration in 1996. The project has a $100 million funding goal and sponsorship has arrived chiefly from private donors and corporations including Boeing and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The monument design itself has been largely uncontroversial and will place an emphasis on the most well known speeches of King. The memorial draws special inspiration from King's famed "I Have a Dream" speech that was delivered in 1963 to a hundreds of thousands of spectators at the height of the American civil rights movement. This speech is noted by AmericanRhetoric.com as being the most important speech of the 20th century, beating out other notables such as John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's address to the nation following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The dedication of the monument to King was also attended by President George W. Bush and Clinton along with rising political star Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois. The presence of Obama was an interesting note as his African heritage is for the most part unrelated to the historic African American presence in the United States. Obama's black father was a first generation immigrant from Kenya and his mother was white.
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