King Memorial Breaks Ground

WASHINGTON, DC-Groundbreaking for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial here was attended by some 5,000 people, including President George Bush and former President Bill Clinton, on a rainy Monday morning. The memorial will be located at a prime spot on the Mall, a four-acre site next to the Roosevelt Memorial that is part of the line of sight from the Lincoln Memorial and Tidal Basin. The site location is also symbolic as it is near the Lincoln Memorial where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

The Memorial’s design is centered around a figure of King in a landscape of boulders, water, hedges and trees. Other elements of the Memorial, including niches carved in some of the boulders, have been incorporated to acknowledge contributions other civil rights leaders have made to the movement. San Francisco-based ROMA Design Group is the designer.