In November 1996, after a 12-year effort by Martin Luther King Jr.’s fraternity to create a permanent memorial to the slain civil rights leader, Congress authorized its construction on federal land (Public Law 104-333, Division I, Title V, Section 508). Coverage in The Washington Post noted that fraternity members would undertake fundraising for the memorial, initially slated to cost an estimated $500,000.
Two years later, Congress passed a joint resolution approving its location in Washington, D.C., and it took another 13 years to build it.
In a ceremony Oct. 16, 2011, on the National Mall, President Barack Obama dedicated the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, consisting of a three-story column of granite pulled forward from the center of a colossal boulder. King’s likeness is carved into the front face of the forward section, embodying a passage from his immortal “I Have a Dream” speech from Aug. 28, 1963: “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”
To honor the memorial’s dedication, poet Maya Angelou composed “Abundant Hope,” which she delivered for the first time on Aug. 26, 2011, at the Women Who Dare To Dream luncheon honoring the unsung women of the Civil Rights Movement. The luncheon was initially part of the celebratory dedication events, and it proceeded as scheduled, but the threat of Hurricane Irene forced the actual dedication’s postponement to October.
Using vivid metaphor, analogy from Scripture and passages from the famous gospel hymns “Lord Don’t Move the Mountain,” “I Opened My Mouth to the Lord” and “We Shall Overcome,” Angelou captured the power of faith, persistence and will.
“Abundant Hope” is available on the archived White House blog from the memorial’s dedication in 2011.
The University of Dayton dedicated its own memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. in 2016 along a walkway in the green space between Albert Emanuel Hall and St. Mary’s Hall. Read more about the monument in Campus Report.
Other Works To Explore in Library Collections
Many other poetic works about King and by scholars of King and poetry are available to people with access to library resources at the University of Dayton. Use the links below if you’re at UD; if not, inquire at your local library.
In Origins of the Dream: Hughes’s Poetry and King's Rhetoric, author W. Jason Miller explores the connections between the poetry of Langston Hughes and some of King’s powerful messages.
Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era, edited by Jeffrey Lamar Coleman, contains a host of works composed following King’s assassination, including:
- “Martin Luther King, Jr.” and “Riot,” by Gwendolyn Brooks
- “Reflections on April 4, 1968,” by Nikki Giovanni
- “Rites of Passage,” by Audre Lorde
- “April Fourth,” by Robert Mezey
- “Amos, 1963,” by Margaret Walker
Additional works:
- “In Montgomery,” by Gwendolyn Brooks, available in the collection In Montgomery and Other Poems
- “Brotherly Love,” by Langston Hughes, available in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 3, The Poems: 1951-1967
- “Never Too Much Love,” by Jim Collier, printed in The Black Panther, April 15, 1978, Page 33 (available in the database Black Thought and Culture)
— Maureen Schlangen is the digital publishing and scholarly communications manager in the University Libraries. The photo of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is by John Dillenbeck, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.