By Michael Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 21, 2008

The foundation building Washington's Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial announced yesterday that the Wal-Mart Foundation has provided a $12.5 million letter of credit to help begin construction on the Tidal Basin.

The letter of credit will allow the memorial project to obtain a construction permit from the National Park Service, the memorial foundation said. The project applied for a construction permit and submitted final design documents to the Park Service in October.

The $120 million crescent-shaped memorial, to be built amid the cherry trees on the northwest shore of the Tidal Basin, will feature a 28-foot sculpture of King, which is being crafted by an artist in China. Initial utility work began on the site in August, and the memorial is to be completed in 2010.

The memorial foundation has raised $100 million of the project's $120 million cost and said the letter of credit will help it raise the rest. Wal-Mart donated $1 million to the project in 2005.

"The Wal-Mart Foundation has played a vital role in the development of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial," said Harry E. Johnson, president and chief executive of the memorial foundation. "Wal-Mart's partnership demonstrates the company's ongoing commitment to the community. . . . The company's continued support helps to uphold the ideals of hope, democracy, justice and love for which Dr. King stood."

The memorial foundation also announced this week that former president Bill Clinton, who signed the congressional resolution authorizing the memorial in 1998, will receive its Humanitarian Award and speak at a Jan. 8 fundraiser in Miami.