Interior Secretary Ken Salazar recently gave the National Park Service 30 days to revise a truncated and controversial quote inscribed on the newly built Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The inscription, paraphrased by architect Ed Jackson Jr. and artist Lei Yixin, turns a speech about humility into a quote that makes MLK look like, in the words of Maya Angelou, an “arrogant twit.” Thankfully this will be corrected, but it remains unclear to me how the design team will satisfyingly right this wrong.
As it is now, the quote chiseled into the MLK Memorial reads, “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” The quote was shortened when the planners decided to switch the then much shorter quote, “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope” to the south side of the statue and the “Drum Major” quote to the north side. With the north side already prepared for the shorter inscription, Ed Jackson Jr. made the executive decision to paraphrase the quote to fit within the smaller space. Unfortunately, he misunderstood King’s speech.
