Washington DC is one of my favourite parts of the US, mainly because I just love all the memorials along the Mall.
And one of my favourite memorials is the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, which was opened to the public on 22 August, 2011. This Memorial is one of the few not on the Mall, rather located on the Tidal Basin near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (another of my favourites).
The memorial’s centre piece is based on a line from Dr King’s “I Have A Dream” speech: “Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”
The “Stone of Hope” is a 9.1m-high statue of Dr King, in front of two pieces of granite symbolizing the “mountain of despair”. It is designed for visitors to walk through the Mountain of Despair on the way to the Stone of Hope, symbolically “moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life.”
I, however, didn’t walk through it that way!
As much as I love the statue, I really loved the wall of quotes that encircles the memorial.
What you need to know:
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Open year round
Location: intersection of Independence Ave and West Basin Drive SW, Washington DC
Website: www.nps.gov/mlkm
Have you been to DC? What was your favourite memorial?
Loved Washington DC. Such a wealth of history, science and culture along their Mall. Library of Congress is amazing; and yes – the MLK memorial was very powerful.