Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Dedicated
The Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial in Washington, D.C. was dedicated on this day. The dedication was timed to mark the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington (August 28, 1963) and King’s famous “I have a Dream” speech.
Considerable controversy surrounded the design of the Memorial, however, and one of the King quotations engraved in the walls was found to be in error.
Highlights of Martin Luther King’s life include: his first arrest in Montgomery, Alabama, on January 26, 1956; his leadership of the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, demonstrations that led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act (see January 15, 1963); his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail, on April 16, 1963; his famous “I Have a Dream” Speech to the March on Washington on August 28, 1963; and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on December 11, 1964.
King was also the target of a vicious and illegal vendetta by the FBI. See October 15, 1963; December 23, 1963; January 5, 1964; and November 21, 1964.
Visit the King Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/mlkm/index.htm
To learn more, read Taylor Branch’s monumental three-volume biography, America in the King Years: Parting the Waters (1988); Pillar of Fire (1998); and At Canaan’s Edge (2006)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here