Exploring the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial
The Martin Luther King Jr. memorial will be dedicated on Aug. 28, the 48th anniversary of the day King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
About the sculpture
The sculpture, called the “Stone of Hope,” gets its name from a line in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” At the entrance to the memorial two stones stand apart, representing the “Mountain of Despair.” A single wedge is pushed out, and from there King’s form emerges.
The sculpture stands on a four-acre plot on the northwest corner of the Tidal Basin, across from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and next to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. It creates a visual “line of leadership” from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial.