Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial

Posted by: DjBigO317

Information Provided by: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-National-Memorial/10857589166217

Hello Ohio! Charleesmiles coming at ya with some wonderful historic news… If you have an interest in showing you family some important historical events you may want to head East instead of South. Yes, bypass/or add Georgia and head straight to Washington, D.C.

kCane MarkCO made this great find on his recent (May 23& 24, 2013) visit to Washington, D.C. on The Anti-Bullying Bully Bashers Tour.

See where Dr. Martin Luther King  Jr. gave his famous, “I Have a Dream”, speech. I was blessed enough on many occasions to not only see the bridge that Dr. King and many others (including my great-grandmother) marched across in Selma, Alabama. But, I got to walk across it with my grandmother and family members.  I got to hold this necklace with a picture of  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on one side and President John F. Kennedy on the other. Pieces of my family history of such an important time in American history.

Somewhere in this march is my great-grandmother

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is located in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., southwest of the National Mall (but within the larger area commonly referred to as the “National Mall”). The national memorial is America’s 395th unit in the national park service. The monumental memorial is located at the northwest corner of the Tidal Basin near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, on a sight line linking theLincoln Memorial to the northwest and the Jefferson Memorial to the southeast. The official address of the monument, 1964 Independence Avenue, S.W., commemorates the year that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law.

Covering four acres, the memorial opened to the public on August 22, 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising and construction. A ceremony dedicating the Memorial was scheduled for Sunday, August 28, 2011, the 48th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 but was postponed until October 16 (the 16th anniversary of the 1995 Million Man March on the National Mall) due to Hurricane Irene.

Although this is not the first memorial to an African-American in Washington, D.C., Dr. King is the first African-American honored with a memorial on or near the National Mall and only the fourth non-President to be memorialized in such a way. The King Memorial is administered by the National Park Service (NPS).

HOW CAN YOU SAY WHERE YOUR GOING IF YOU CAN’T RESPECT WHERE YOU CAME FROM?

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Although during his life he was monitored by the FBI for presumed communist sympathies, King is now presented as a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism.

Delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 Washington D.C. Civil Rights March.

At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King imagined an end to racial inequality in his “I Have a Dream” speech. This speech has been canonized as one of the greatest pieces of American oratory. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregationand racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means.

By the time of his death, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. In 1968, he was backing the Memphis Sanitation Strike and organizing a mass occupation of Washington, D.C., called the Poor People’s Campaign.King’s assassination inMemphis on April 4, 1968 disrupted the Campaign and led to unrest in cities across the US. King was posthumously awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medalin 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986, and was first observed in all states in 2000.