Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

How to Get There

Take 16th St NW, 17th St NW and E Street Expressway to Ohio Dr SW. Continue on Ohio Dr SW. Drive to West Basin Dr SW.

Overview

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is a four-acre memorial in West Potomac Park at the northwest corner of the Tidal Basin, near the FDR Memorial, on a sightline between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Its centerpiece is the Stone of Hope, a granite statue by sculptor Lei Yixin, inspired by a line from King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." Visitors "pass through" the Mountain of Despair to reach it.

A 450-foot crescent wall is inscribed with 14 quotes from his sermons and speeches, from the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott to his final sermon at the National Cathedral four days before his assassination in 1968. Cherry trees around it bloom near the anniversary of his death.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0