Via NPR: Martin Luther King Memorial Opens To The Public
Today, a memorial to civil rights leader Martin Luther King opened to the public. The official dedication is on Sunday, but visitors to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., can see the 30-foot sculpture today.
The memorial is the first honoring an African American and the first honoring a person who did not serve as president. The Washington Post describes the memorial like this:
The sculpture, called "Stone of Hope," stands looking onto the basin, across from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and next to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. King's head, his upper body and the tops of his legs emerge from stone. Lei Yixin (pronounced "lay ee-shin"), a granite sculptor from China, designed it so that King is part of the stone.The memorial was also a long time coming. The Post has a timeline of the memorial's history. The idea was first presented by a chapter of King's fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha in 1984 and President Clinton signed a congressional authorization for the memorial in November 1996.
The sculpture's name refers to a line in King's "I Have a Dream" speech. "With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope," King said. His statue is designed to look as if he were once a part of the "Mountain of Despair" but is now the "Stone of Hope."
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