Memorial includes the Stone of Hope, a granite statue of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. carved by sculptor Lei Yixin

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 national memorial located in West Potomac Park next to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It covers four acres (1.6 ha) and includes the Stone of Hope, a granite statue of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. carved by sculptor Lei Yixin. The inspiration for the memorial design is a line from King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

The monumental memorial is located at the northwest corner of the Tidal Basin near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, on a sightline linking the Lincoln Memorial to the northwest and the Jefferson Memorial to the southeast.

Structure

Pale pink granite was used to create the Stone of Hope to ensure that the carving's details would be visible at night, and to contrast with the Mountain of Despair. Visitors figuratively "pass through" the Mountain of Despair on the way to the Stone of Hope, symbolically "moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life." Stone of Hope is carved out of granite from China's Fujian Province.

A 450 feet (140 m)-long inscription wall includes excerpts from many of King's sermons and speeches. On this crescent-shaped granite wall, fourteen of King's quotes are inscribed, the earliest from the time of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, and the latest from his final sermon, delivered in 1968 at Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral, just four days before his assassination.

The relief of King is intended to give the impression that he is looking over the Tidal Basin toward the horizon, and that the cherry trees that adorn the site will bloom every year during the anniversary of King's 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