Park Service to remove inscription on MLK Memorial

[onpatrol98]

Park Service to remove inscription on MLK Memorial
The Associated Press

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120210/NEWS03/120210027/Park-Service-remove-inscription-MLK-Memorial?odyssey=mod|mostview

WASHINGTON — The National Park Service announced plans Friday to remove an inscription from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and replace it with a full quotation from the civil rights leader a move the memorial project's architect said would "destroy" the monument.

Critics including the poet Maya Angelou, had said the paraphrase didn't accurately reflect King's words. It reads, "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."

Angelou had said the shortened phrase made King sound like an "arrogant twit." She had served on a panel of historians to select inscriptions for the memorial before they were hand-carved into stone, but she did not attend meetings about the inscriptions, memorial officials have said.

[d_r]

1. In a way it kind of misses the point

He said "If you want to say I was a drum major...." so the point of the monument is to say it now, posthumously, not to have the exact quote he said. It is the fulfillment of the quote, not the repetition.

[MADem]

2. I agree with Maya Angelou. I also agree with the people who think the statue looks like

"Black Mao."

I really think the search committee should have found an American sculptor, of African heritage if at all possible, to create that memorial. I just think outsourcing the thing to China was a horrible mistake. It does not look a thing like the man.

It's like the WW2 memorial--they had a German firm oversee that, and it looks it, too! Anyone stopping by from another planet could not be blamed if they thought the Nazis won the damn war!

Some things should be home-grown...like memorials to important events and figures in our history.