The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial has a prime spot in West Potomac Park, overlooking the waters of the Tidal Basin on a direct line between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. The sculpture of the renowned civil rights leader faces Jefferson and his great promise of freedom for all, found in the Declaration of Independence. The steps of the Lincoln Memorial also resonate profoundly, having been the site where King uttered those famous words - again and again - on Aug. 28, 1963, before a crowd estimated at 250,000.
“What better place to put a King, but between two presidents,’’ said Harry E. Johnson Sr., CEO of the MLK Memorial Foundation, as he guided me around the final stages of the construction in June.
It has been almost 15 years since Congress passed a resolution authorizing Alpha Phi Alpha, the fraternity to which King belonged, to build a memorial in Washington that would honor the legacy of the man and his message of justice, hope, and compassion. That’s not to say Johnson didn’t overcome his own heap of adversity to ensure that the memorial would be built exactly how the fraternity envisioned.
“At first, we were offered a plot of land across the street from RFK Stadium on the outskirts of town,’’ he said. Others objected to a memorial on the Mall being used for a person who was never president, but Johnson prevailed, eventually receiving the choice 4-acre lot just around the bend from the FDR Memorial.
The next daunting task was raising the $120 million required to build the memorial through such challenging times as 9/11 and a recession.
“Of course, I’m grateful for the corporate sponsorship. But it’s the little guy, the man who writes me a letter and says here’s $15 from my Social Security check to see this thing built. That really touches me and kept us going,’’ said Johnson.
