Washington – Two presidents, a renowned poet and lions of the civil rights movement joined thousands on the National Mall on Monday to mark the site where a memorial will be built to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who beseeched the nation to live up to its principles and earned a place in the pantheon of American history.
Ground was broken for a memorial to the slain civil rights leader to be built along the edge of the Tidal Basin, between monuments to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, near the steps where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
It will be the first on the Mall honoring an African-American individual and the first that does not memorialize a president or war veterans.
Ignoring the gloomy weather, people in winter coats came by the area’s light-rail system, by bus, by limousine.
Fathers brought sons to impart a history lesson. Celebrities waved and smiled. Dignitaries spoke of a movement sparked by a man trying to be a good minister.
President Bush said the memorial will give King his “rightful place among the great Americans honored on our Mall.” He said King’s message of justice and liberty “continues to inspire millions across the world” and was not silenced by an assassin’s bullet.
“Dr. King was on this earth just 39 years,” the president said, but his ideas are eternal.
The crowd of several thousand attending the ceremonial groundbreaking gave a standing ovation to former President Clinton, who in 1996 signed a bill authorizing the monument; he also signed the one in 1998 to locate it on land tucked in the Tidal Basin’s famous ring of cherry trees.
“It belongs here,” said Clinton, basking in the crowd’s enthusiasm. Jefferson “told us we were all created equal,” and Lincoln abolished slavery; but both “left much undone,” Clinton said.
He added that contemporary lessons could be learned from King’s legacy of nonviolence.
“Civil disobedience works better than suicide bombing,” he said. And the memorial to King reminds people that “the time is always ripe to do right.”
Clinton and Bush were joined by talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., poet Maya Angelou, three of King’s children and designer Tommy Hilfiger, among others.
On stage, Winfrey said: “It is because of Dr. King that I stand, that I have a voice to be heard. I do not take that for granted. Not for one breath. … Because he was the seed of the free, I get to be the blossom.”
King’s children said they hoped the memorial would be a place where millions of children would come to learn about their father’s work and the beginnings of the civil rights movement.
“Our father just wanted to be a great pastor,” said Bernice King, his youngest daughter. “Little did he know, he became a great pastor to a nation.”
The memorial is scheduled to open in 2008, though fundraising is still underway and construction hasn’t officially begun. Organizers have raised about two-thirds of the $100 million to develop the 4-acre site, which will include a sculpted likeness of King and references to many of his speeches.
Some in the audience remembered the sweltering August day in 1963 when King made his “I Have a Dream” speech. The young men who marched with King are now in their 60s and 70s.
Organizers have been pushing for a monument for more than 20 years and want participants in the movement to see its completion, said Harry Johnson Sr., president of the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation.
That opportunity slipped away for King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, who died in January.
Civil rights stalwarts Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson teared up while recalling the man they had walked alongside to help tear down the walls of segregation.
As the shovels dug into the ground, Young turned to audience members and urged them: “Keep turning the dirt. Keep turning the dirt.”
