Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Will Be Built in D.C.
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — On November 13, a half-mile from the Lincoln Memorial, where in 1963, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, celebrities, corporate leaders, and ordinary Americans will turn the first shovels of dirt for a memorial honoring the civil-rights leader murdered 38 years ago. It will be the first monument to an African American on the National Mall .
Poet and novelist Maya Angelou, 80, is scheduled to join Oprah Winfrey and others who have been working for more than a decade to help build the monument.
Following the deaths of Mr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and civilrights pioneer Rosa Parks, who died in October 2005, efforts to raise the $100 million to build and maintain the 4-acre memorial accelerated.
