Throngs Reflect On Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream.WASHINGTON - In wheelchairs and walkers, strollers and canes, holding hands, linking arms and other people who gathered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial yesterday sang a chorus of "Happy Birthday" for the slain civil rights leader. He was 83 years old yesterday.
But after the small ceremony, after the son of King addressed the crowd and park rangers have laid a wreath at the foot of the granite statue of 30 feet located between the powerful Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, people stayed. They discussed with their children cite King carved in the surrounding walls - "Out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope", a young mother reading to her son. "Despair is what existed before Dr. King," she said, while others posed for pictures with families and puppies and sat on the benches overlooking the tidal pool sparkling and examined the message of the man they had all come to remember.
Earlier this morning, a visit to the White House, I sneaked a extra-long PEEK inside the Oval Office. Directly across the president's office, looking him straight in the eye, is a bronze bust of the king, the first time civil rights leader was in the office's largest nation. It was clear that the impact of the man immortalized in stone and metal on the man to decide the fate of the world. And the impact it had on all the people gathered in his honor, almost 44 years after he was killed.
Shana Roberts fell to DC from Cleveland just for the weekend. With two busloads of people in his community - she even brought her two children along so they can understand the importance of man and the day - it took all in.
"He deserves to be honored for the great works he has done for our country and our people," she said. "For an African American man and what he represented in the spotlight here, and how it has helped the country and the world with their beliefs and humanitarian efforts, it speaks volumes about the man he was and his legacy.”
Taneshia Thomas driven from Williamsburg, Virginia, to pay his respects. "It's important," she said. "Different ages, different ethnicities, I am very pleased and excited to see the interest of others outside the African-American race took him."
But while Thomas, Roberts and hundreds of others were enjoying newest monument in the capital, the tension surrounding a short quotation engraved on the side of the main statue was growing. When the statue was unveiled last fall, the poet Maya Angelou paraphrased registration - shortened for space reasons - ". Twit arrogant" made its king as a Friday; the Washington Post reported that the line paraphrased be changed.
Cheryl Robertson traveled from Maine to visit the new monument. Roberts, a professor at the University of Maine, said she often draws on lessons from the King of equality and justice in his teaching in a multicultural course, is for students studying to become teachers.
"I think his message is the key to world peace, peace in the country. And I think that Martin Luther King Jr. was so far ahead of its time," she said. "I think Human beings are here on this earth to be happy and get along. I think his message is that. And I think the time has come. "
But after the small ceremony, after the son of King addressed the crowd and park rangers have laid a wreath at the foot of the granite statue of 30 feet located between the powerful Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, people stayed. They discussed with their children cite King carved in the surrounding walls - "Out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope", a young mother reading to her son. "Despair is what existed before Dr. King," she said, while others posed for pictures with families and puppies and sat on the benches overlooking the tidal pool sparkling and examined the message of the man they had all come to remember.
Earlier this morning, a visit to the White House, I sneaked a extra-long PEEK inside the Oval Office. Directly across the president's office, looking him straight in the eye, is a bronze bust of the king, the first time civil rights leader was in the office's largest nation. It was clear that the impact of the man immortalized in stone and metal on the man to decide the fate of the world. And the impact it had on all the people gathered in his honor, almost 44 years after he was killed.
Shana Roberts fell to DC from Cleveland just for the weekend. With two busloads of people in his community - she even brought her two children along so they can understand the importance of man and the day - it took all in.
"He deserves to be honored for the great works he has done for our country and our people," she said. "For an African American man and what he represented in the spotlight here, and how it has helped the country and the world with their beliefs and humanitarian efforts, it speaks volumes about the man he was and his legacy.”
Taneshia Thomas driven from Williamsburg, Virginia, to pay his respects. "It's important," she said. "Different ages, different ethnicities, I am very pleased and excited to see the interest of others outside the African-American race took him."
But while Thomas, Roberts and hundreds of others were enjoying newest monument in the capital, the tension surrounding a short quotation engraved on the side of the main statue was growing. When the statue was unveiled last fall, the poet Maya Angelou paraphrased registration - shortened for space reasons - ". Twit arrogant" made its king as a Friday; the Washington Post reported that the line paraphrased be changed.
Cheryl Robertson traveled from Maine to visit the new monument. Roberts, a professor at the University of Maine, said she often draws on lessons from the King of equality and justice in his teaching in a multicultural course, is for students studying to become teachers.
"I think his message is the key to world peace, peace in the country. And I think that Martin Luther King Jr. was so far ahead of its time," she said. "I think Human beings are here on this earth to be happy and get along. I think his message is that. And I think the time has come. "
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