The foundation working to build a memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Mall has raised a third of the $100 million in private donations needed and plans to begin construction in 2006.
The memorial would be the first tribute to an African American or any individual of color on the federal space reserved to honor the most important American historical figures. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation Inc. has received $32.5 million from corporate and other private sponsors. It must raise an additional $68 million by next year to cover construction costs, foundation officials said.
Congress approved the memorial in 1996 and gave the foundation an extension in 2003 to raise funds for the groundbreaking, said Harry E. Johnson Sr., the group's president. He said he is confident that the group will draw additional corporate sponsors this year and spread awareness among citizens to raise the funds by the deadline.
A campaign, "Build the Dream," was developed to fund the project, which began as an idea among friends sitting around a kitchen table.
The federal holiday tomorrow will be observed with speeches, dinners and other commemorative events, and Johnson said the planned memorial would serve as a space where Americans could reflect on the history-changing deeds of the civil rights leader.
"Failure is not an option," Johnson said. "This will be a reality. We want to get this memorial up for the memory of Dr. King."
The memorial would sit on a four-acre triangular site in West Potomac Park, on the northwestern corner of the Tidal Basin, near the Jefferson Memorial and north of the memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The design is centered on a 28-foot-tall structure, "Stone of Hope," that will feature an inscription and a likeness of King on its facade. Visitors entering the memorial would pass through a narrow entryway of two tall stones that symbolize "mountains of despair."
The inspiration, said Boris Dramov of ROMA Design Group, lead designer on the project, came from King's August 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial: "With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope."
The memorial also will feature a crescent-shaped granite wall with cascading water that will contain inscriptions to be decided this year by a panel of African American scholars and a diverse group of clergy, said Ed Jackson Jr., the project's chief architect.
Jackson said the foundation will submit schematic drawings of the project in April to the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, federal entities that review new projects in the nation's capital.
The idea came in 1984 when George H. Sealey Jr., a retired Army major, and friends sat at a kitchen table and kicked around the idea of a memorial on the Mall to honor an African American, Jackson said. Several names came up, but the group settled on King. Sealey pitched the idea to his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, the nation's oldest black fraternity -- of which King was a member. The group endorsed the idea and spent the next 12 years seeking support on Capitol Hill.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) said that space on the Mall is at a premium but that King deserves the honor. "King did as much for this country as many presidents did. The Mall is where he belongs." Norton said.
The National Park Service issues the building permit for Mall projects and will submit the project to the separate commissions for review, said John Parsons, associate regional director of the National Park Service lands, resources and planning. Ten years typically passes between an act of Congress and the start of construction on a memorial, and the timeline is affected by the amount of money raised and how quickly, Parsons said.
The centerpiece of the foundation's fundraising strategy is an executive leadership cabinet chaired by a General Motors Corp. executive and made up of other corporate sponsors. They must pledge or seek out at least $1 million and find three additional sponsors who will join the group and do the same.
A. Knighton Stanley, pastor of Peoples Congregational Church in Northwest Washington, said the fundraising should have a stronger grass-roots strategy.
Although King, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, became an international figure, he retained the common touch that put him at the forefront of the civil rights movement, leading bus boycotts and writing inspirational letters to his followers even as he was jailed.
"They're going to have to make it a movement of the people, which is what he was about, if they're going to make it a reality, and that hasn't happened yet," said Stanley, who heard King speak at Montgomery, Ala., rallies as a college student.
But Stanley said he planned to get involved in the project and would encourage his church members to do the same.
"We're going to give our nickels and dimes," Stanley said. "King belongs to the people."
