What it is

The four-acre Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, administered by the National Park Service, is directly south of the National Mall, near the White House and principal museums and monuments in the District of Columbia.

Its main features:

Mountain of Despair. Enormous paired boulders you pass through as the main entrance. Each bears an inscription.

Stone of Hope, designed to resemble the missing middle portion between the Mountain of Despair… pushed forward; the 30-foot statue of MLK faces its “forward” side. The idea of hope emerging from a mountain of despair harkens to a line in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

The Mountain of Despair and Stone of Hope are of Chinese granite.

The Inscription Wall, an arc emanating from both flanks of the Mountains of Despair. The 450-foot wall, made of green granite from Canada, includes excerpts from King’s speeches.

Where it is

The memorial’s street address is 1964 Independence Ave., NW (The street number is a reference to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which MLK pushed to have enacted.)

The site is south of the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Memorial, and is on the northwest side of the Tidal Basin. It is north of the Roosevelt Memorial and across the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial.

Charlotte connection

Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, an architect, chaired the National Capital Planning Commission when it chose the MLK site in 1999. The NCPC is a federal agency that guides planning for the District of Columbia.

Carolina connection

Some of the granite at the memorial’s curbs and crosswalks was quarried in the Mount Airy area.

African Americans and the National Mall

The Capitol and White House were built with slave labor.

In 1939, black opera singer Marian Anderson was not allowed to perform at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall. The NAACP and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt responded by staging Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

In 1947, President Harry Truman spoke at an NAACP demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial.

There were civil rights demonstrations at the Lincoln Memorial in 1957, ’58 and ’59.

On Aug. 28,1963, MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, a key moment in the civil rights struggle.

In 1995, the Million Man March held on and around the National Mall.

Coming soon to the National Mall

National Museum of African American History and Culture, scheduled to open in 2015 near the Washington Monument.

MLK Memorial timeline

April 4, 1968 – MLK assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

1983 – federal holiday enacted to honor MLK’s birthday.

1986 – Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, to which King belonged, proposes memorial.

2006 – Memorial groundbreaking ceremony.

Oct. 16, 2011 – Dedication, opening of memorial.

MLK Memorial info

www.nps.gov/mlkm; www.mlkmemorial.org.

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THE STATUE is carved from shrimp-pink granite quarried in China; it was selected because when illuminated at night, it gives a brownish tone to the statue.

The sculpture is by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin.

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INSCRIPTIONS ON THE STONE OF HOPE

“Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope" – 1964 “I Have a Dream Speech.”

“I Was a Drum Major for Justice, Peace, and Righteousness.” – February 1968 sermon at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Controversy: The “drum major” quote paraphrases King’s actual words. What he actually said was, “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” Poet Maya Angelou, a consultant to the memorial, said the shortened quote misses King’s point and downplayed MLK’s humility. The memorial’s chief architect said the full quotation was too long to fit its intended space.

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LANDSCAPING: Initial plans called for the site to be landscaped with trees native to MLK’s home state of Georgia: magnolia, pine and crape myrtle.

Because Washington’s famous Japanese cherry trees are in bloom in April, the month MLK was killed, the design was changed to include 182 cherry trees, seven crape myrtles and 31 American elms.