National Mall Site Chosen for Memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Butler T. Gray, Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The National Capital Planning Commission unanimously approved late December 2 a site for a memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the historically hallowed ground of the national Mall -- where it will join monuments to the highly select and small number of the most revered Presidents of the United States.

Symbolically, the memorial to Dr. King will be near the place where he made his "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, four and a half years before his assassination. The memorial, which was approved in a unanimous 10-to-0 vote by the planning commission, will be built on 4 acres adjacent to the Tidal Basin, halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, across the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial and just north of the memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

King will be the first African-American honored with his own memorial in the Mall area and the second non-President to be commemorated in such a way: A monument honoring George Mason, the American patriot who opposed slavery during George Washington's presidency, was approved by the commission earlier this year.

The commission, which reviews every federal construction project in Washington, approved the site after earlier rejecting it in favor of another location that was in turn rejected by another federal panel, the Commission of Fine Arts. Those two, along with the National Capital Memorial Commission are the three federal agencies required to grant approval for the King memorial location.

The commission's approval stipulates that the proposed monument avoid the basin's walkway and waters. They also placed a 20-foot limit on the height of the monument.

Immediately after King's death in 1968, officials of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the nation's oldest and largest predominantly black Greek-letter fraternity of which King was a member, proposed erecting a permanent memorial to him in Washington. Their efforts gathered strength in 1986, after his birthday became a national holiday and led to the creation of the memorial foundation.

During the summer of 1998 the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives unanimously approved resolutions that would allow Alpha Phi Alpha to build a memorial honoring its most illustrious brother -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -- in the heart of Washington, D.C.'s monuments to the most renowned figures in American history.

Although there are other hurdles, including raising what is expected to be tens of millions of dollars, the leaders of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, said that their dream would start to take form in eight months, when submissions for the design competition are due.

Specific features of the King monument have yet to be decided, pending an international competition for selection of the architectural design. The King foundation has until November 12, 2003, to complete a design, finish a fund-raising campaign and break ground on construction. The monument's design would have to be approved by the same three federal agencies that approved the location. After a design is chosen, organizers will have as long as seven years to build the memorial, although it could be completed before then.

Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (Democrat-Maryland) and Senator John Warner (Republican-Virginia) were the leading U.S. Senate sponsors of the legislation that allowed the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity to build the King memorial.

"The memorial will stand as a tribute to what Martin Luther King Jr. represented, which, in my judgment, was a commitment to achieving change through nonviolence," Sarbanes said. "A memorial to Dr. King erected in the nation's capital will provide continuing inspiration to all who visit it," Sarbanes said.

"We hope young people who visit the monument will come to understand that it recognizes not only the enormous contribution of this great civil rights leader, but also two very basic principles for the healthy functioning of our society which Dr. King taught and practiced," Sarbanes said. In a series of Senate floor remarks over the past few years, Sarbanes described these two principles as "equal treatment and enfranchisement for all Americans through nonviolent means."

Sarbanes said that Dr. King became "an American hero" in 1955, when he led the boycott against city buses in Montgomery, Alabama that began after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat near the front of one of those buses to a white person.

Representative Constance A. Morella (Republican-Maryland) who sponsored the measure in the U.S. House of Representatives along with Representative Julian Dixon (Democrat-California) said "no American in our history has embodied more genuinely the spirit of brotherhood and cooperation so desperately needed in facing the social and economic problems that plague our nation today."

"Dr. King challenged us to envision a world in which social justice and peace will prevail among all people. This memorial will provide a symbol of that message and will help pass that message from generation to generation," Morella said.

The memorial will be paid for with private donations. The deadline to register for the design competition is April 1, and entries must be submitted by May 1. The foundation plans to announce the winner on June 15.

King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, would have been 71 years old in January 2000.