Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Inscription To Be Changed To Full 'Drum Major Instinct' Quotation

WASHINGTON -- A controversial truncated inscription on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial that critics say makes the slain civil rights leader sound arrogant will be changed to reflect the full quotation.

In January, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave the National Park Service one month to explore options for changing the quotation

Now, according to The Washington Post, there are details about how the change is going to be made:

A spokeswoman for the National Park Service said the correction ... may necessitate shaving off a slice of the memorial a few inches thick, and replacing it with a new slab bearing the full quotation.

The quotation -- "Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter." -- is from "Drum Major Instinct," a speech King delivered two months before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

The truncated 10-word quote -- "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness." -- made King out to sound like "an arrogant twit," poet Maya Angelou famously complained last summer, when the memorial was getting ready to be dedicated.

But not everyone is happy with the change. As The Associated Press reported Saturday, Harry Johnson, the president and CEO of the Martin Luther Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, said he was upset with the "unilateral decision" made by Salazar and the King family. Johnson fears the change will "threaten the design, structure and integrity" of the MLK monument.

The MLK memorial sits adjacent to the Tidal Basin in an alignment between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.

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Comments

[Siera Griffin]

07:19 PM on 02/14/2012

The real question is, why wasn't it correct when they first built it?

[lucy88lucy]

12:05 PM on 02/14/2012

Are these the same people who want to run our health care?

[Greg O Weatherford]

01:25 AM on 02/19/2012

No.

[Desert Dune]

04:25 PM on 02/13/2012

I think we should re-name Ronald Reagan Airport to Martin Luther King Airport. MLK fought for the basic respect of a human being. Reagan fought to enrich the rich.

[TheFabOne]

02:09 PM on 02/13/2012

Look.........I'm a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. As such, to help bring this monument to its fruition, each Brother in the Fraternity was charged an additional assessment in addition to dues to help pay for this Monument, and thus, I feel I have the right to say what I'm about to say.

Plenty of people don't like different things about the Monument. But plenty of people ALSO didn't help PAY for it.

So if Maya Angelou doesn't like it, she should dig into her pocket to pay for the inscription to be changed.

Otherwise, respectfully...........shut it.

[Davi Car]

11:13 AM on 02/13/2012

It seems to be getting harder for America to build appropriate, fitting monuments. If you were going to build a monument to MLK with a brief inscription, even though it is obvious, the best choice would have been, "I have a dream." Sure it might be a cliche, but it is an extremely well-known quotation for a reason. This passage was an odd one to choose, and the distillation into ten words was correctly recognized to be abysmal. The designers of the monuments to Lincoln, Washington, or Jefferson would never have been so strangely inept. Likewise the WWII Memorial doesn't make much sense. Why do they have a pillar for each of the states. The fact that the US is a nation composed of many states was utterly irrelevant to that War.

We seem to be in a period where the motivation to build monuments is exceptionally high, but the sense of how to do them is rather low.

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

09:35 AM on 02/13/2012

Why not change it to his most famous quote..."I have a dream..."?

While we're changing monument text to obscure quotations, lets get rid of the Gettysburg Address at the Lincoln Memorial and replace it with his lunch order dictated to his assistant on March 23rd, 1862? "I'll have a half loaf of pumpernickel and some of that lovely cheese Johnson picked up in Boston."

[pavlo darcangelis]

09:27 AM on 02/13/2012

change it to "word to your mutha"

[Dr Alexander Hamilton]

09:17 AM on 02/13/2012

There is a greater problem with this monument than the inaccuracy of King's quote. There have been numerous reports that the monument was built with Chinese slave labor. The laborers who constructed the monument were flown in from China and supposedly housed in hotels in Crystal City, VA, right outside D.C. Some reporters supposedly interviewed them and discovered that they were not being paid anything. Some felt their payment was in shelter, food, and the chance to visit a foreign land. If this is true, how is this any different from slavery, where slaves were fed, sheltered, and often traveled with their masters (including Thomas Jefferson). When my wife and I were attending the grand opening of King's memorial, there were tons of protesters at the monument passing out information on the slave labor used to construct King's memorial. First, would Dr. King have approved of a memorial being made unto him? Second, would he have approved of it being done with slave labor? If the reporters comments are correct, this can easily be made right by seeking out all the construction workers and retroactively paying them a fair wage. As for the other criticisms, such as the statue being made of white stone and King's face having a Chinese resemblance and arrogant look, I leave that to each visitor's interpretation. www.dralexanderhamilton.com, @ DrAlexHamilton

[virginoliveoilisyummy]

11:46 PM on 02/12/2012

Change it to the full quote.

[DakkonA]

12:49 AM on 02/13/2012

Agreed. Enough of the pithy soundbites.

[TheTightwireGuy]

09:46 PM on 02/12/2012

About this MLK memorial:

My impression is that MLK would like us to remember him by his willingness to be subjected to injustice in order to shame others in realizing the error in their ways. And this photo, IMO, reminds me that willingness:

http://straightfromthea.com/2012/01/15/in-remembrance-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-1929-1968-quotes-photos/martinlutherkingjr1960/

While some, and perhaps many, might consider this photo demeaning of MLK's memory, my guess is that they really did not understand this great man and the solidness of his beliefs in actively engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience in order to effect a more just -- and also a more compassionate -- society.

And for that, I say...

Thank you, Martin, for helping me come to understand this.

Truly,

The Tightwire Guy

P.S. If you would to learn more about what I was inspired inspired by MLK's legacy, you can do so here:
http://thetightwireguy.com/2012/01/17/some-videos-i-watched-on-mlk-day/

[Renee27]

09:21 PM on 02/12/2012

from the link - "He says the new plan will "threaten the design, structure and integrity" of the monument. The project's architect has taken a similar position, saying new granite added to the memorial would be a noticeably different color."

They should just leave it alone.

[uninterestedbystander]

08:29 PM on 02/12/2012

Having visited the memorial site, I can only say it is a horrid thing. Not the idea - the execution, It seems poorly rendered and comes off not befitting the man.

Not unlike the Arthur Ashe abomination on Monument Ave, in Richmond.

http://www.monumenthouse.com/richmond/ashestatue/

Neither are worthy of both men.

[12crunch]

08:53 AM on 02/13/2012

I completely agree!

[Varys]

07:53 PM on 02/12/2012

Leave well enough alone, artists know what they're doing.

[HoosierInMaryland]

03:54 AM on 02/13/2012

"Artistes" are always correct?

"Artistes" always know best?

Yeah, sure.

[ResearchtheFacts]

07:40 PM on 02/12/2012

The least known excerpt makes no sense. Most won't identify King with drum major anything. His kids are a let down to their parents in terms of preserving their memory if they approve of the image, made in china monument and excerpt.

[pottedferne]

07:16 PM on 02/12/2012

he looks way to "severe" in this statue and what was wrong with "I have a Dream"?