By Martha Isabel Andrés
Photo: DionySanabia
A monument was erected on that date in Washington D.C. to honor the person who deserved the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and who 54 years after his death continues to be an example for many who want a better world.
The value of his legacy can be seen, partly, in the four-acre site located near the area known as National Mall, near the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his vibrant and remembered speech I Have a Dream on August 28, 1963.
The area dedicated to the activist includes a piece known as the nine-meter-high Stone of Hope, from which the sculpture of the fighter against racial discrimination and economic differences emerges.
The work, sculptured by Chinese artist Lei Yixin, shows the reverend looking at the horizon above the Tidal basin, near which thousands of cherries bloom, precisely at times close to the anniversary of his murder that occurred on April 4, 1968.
King’s image and the mountain that surrounds it are made of 159 granite blocks that were carried from Lei’s studio in China, where 80 percent of the work was done, and after which the artist completed the rest of the monument’s actual space.
First of its kind to honor an African American at National Mall, the architectural complex also includes a 140-meter-long wall in the form of a half-moon in which excerpts of the activist’s speeches can be read. (Published in Orbe)
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