The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
MARTIN’S MEMORIAL
1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 93 today
In 1996, The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation held a design competition. A total of 906 entrants joined the competition, though jurors only knew the registration number of each entry. After three days, the panel narrowed the submissions down to 23 finalists. Unable to reach a decision, the jury asked the 23 finalists to submit a fourth revision of their design.
In 2000, the judges selected Roma Design Group's plan for a stone with King's image emerging from a mountain. The plan's theme referenced a line from King's 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech: “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”
The foundation interviewed and hired Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin in 2007.
A 30-foot fiberglass replica of the entire sculpture served as a reference for the stone sculpture. The sculpture and the mountain are composed of 159 granite blocks that were transported to Lei's studio in Changsha, China, where he assembled and sculpted 80% of the artwork. It was then disassembled and transported by ship to Baltimore and reassembled at the memorial. Lei completed the last 20% of the sculpting on-site in Washington, D.C.
Nick Benson and his team completed the text engravings that captured King's words. Benson, a third-generation stone carver, spent more than two years on the project.
Controversial quote
Upon opening in 2011, the memorial immediately faced controversy due to a paraphrased quote inscribed on the Stone of Hope: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” The inscription sparked controversy when author and poet Maya Angelou said it made King “look like an arrogant twit.” King's original words from a Feb. 4, 1968, sermon were, “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”
On Dec. 11, 2012, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced his decision to remove the controversial quote. It is no longer visible.