Where to seek out the spirit of Martin Luther King
Sometimes, the most decisive moments in history are the most accessible – seismic ticks of the clock which are pinned to the map with firmness and precision. Think Germany’s official surrender in a Reims school in the early hours of May 7 1945, the birth of Ludwig Van Beethoven in a house, at Bonngasse 20 in Bonn, on (probably) December 16 1770, the Wright Brothers’ first leap to flight on a sandbar at Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina on December 17 1903 – events of different levels of significance and effect, but ones which, should you choose, you can look for in the exact places where the world changed.
The same certainly applies to an afternoon which ranks among the most crucial of any in the 20th (or any other) century. One of the reasons why Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech – delivered amid the summer heat of August 28 1963 – has rung down through the intervening decades with such clarity is that, for all the wonder of its words, its location is so well defined. There – in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, to 250,000 people thronging the National Mall at the very heart of America’s capital.
This feted corner of a famous city will be in focus again this morning. Not because we have arrived at an anniversary of the speech, but because today is the regular milestone that is Martin Luther King Jr Day – a national holiday held across the USA on the third Monday of every year (in tribute to the great man’s actual birthday, on January 15 1929).
But then, the Lincoln Memorial (nps.gov/linc) waits in focus on any day. Because you can stand on the spot where the most potent rhetoric of a tumultuous era was delivered (a simple inscription – “I Have A Dream. Martin Luther King Jr. The March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom. August 28 1963" – was etched into the marble of the Lincoln Memorial, 18 steps below the 16th president's statue, in 2003) and know that life was altered here. You can stare down the torso of the National Mall, across the top of the Reflecting Pool, towards the huge obelisk of the Washington Monument in the distance, and easily picture the quarter of a million people who would have filled your line of sight 55 years ago. You can appreciate that your feet are pressed to a site of global importance.
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It is for this reason that, for all the corners of the American South which shaped the Civil Rights struggle, it is perhaps Washington DC which remains the most pertinent place to seek out the spirit of one of the last century’s foremost orators. Not least because, if you wander half a mile to the south-east, you can encounter him again at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial (nps.gov/mlkm). Pitched on the edge of the Tidal Basin, this overdue monument finally appeared amid the totems and testaments of this star-striped parade ground in 2011. And though it stands close to several other keynote landmarks of the National Mall, it also stands apart. Where other tributes are dedicated to terrible conflicts – the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the National World War II Memorial in particular – the recognition of King's achievements which is positioned alongside them sounds a rather different tone. One of calm and reconciliation.
This is not to denigrate the dreadful sacrifices involved in any of the aforementioned wars – just to say that the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial feels like a careful, considered moment which somehow looks forward hopefully, rather than back in sadness. It is laid out around a central sculpture of King – created by the Chinese artist Lei Yixin – seen emerging, semi-carved, from a hard block of granite. This is a reference to one line from “I Have A Dream”: “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” Further prescient King quotations are chiselled into a curve of stone which frames this statue – “We shall overcome, because the arc of of the moral universe is long. But it bends toward justice.”; “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
When I visited the monument on a muggy Washington day several summers ago, I found it almost silent, only a few visitors strolling its flagstones. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because it was a Monday, maybe it was because, in terms of the National Mall, the landmark is still a relative newcomer. But this lack of people did not matter. If anything, it helped underline the site's value as a place for contemplation and quiet. And in a century currently short on peace, love and understanding, what could be wrong with that?
Three other places associated with Martin Luther King
National Civil Right Museum (Memphis)
Notoriously, of course, King's life ended in a crack of gunshot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4 1968. It is a tribute to the skill and care with which the site has been handled that what is now the National Civil Rights Museum (001 901 521 9699; civilrightsmuseum.org; $15/£10) feels neither like an infamous dot on the grid nor a mawkish shrine. Instead, the motel has been slotted into a complex which puts King's life and triumphs into context. True, the fatal rifle and bullet are here, and Room 306, where he was staying, is preserved. But a wealth of video, audio and digital footage – as well as exhibits on desegregation – charts the the Civil Rights struggle in modern detail.
Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site (Atlanta)
King's life comes full circle in the Georgia's state capital and biggest city. This national monument (001 404 331 5190; nps.gov/malu; free) – out in the Sweet Auburn district, east of Atlanta's Downtown – encompasses the house where he was born and lived as a child (at 501 Auburn Avenue), and his stately tomb, which sits on a small platform, surrounded by water. The Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he and his father preached, is also here – while the adjacent King Center provides a record of his speeches and writings.
St Paul's Cathedral (London)
While King's story is almost always tied to America, it is worth remembering that he also made waves in London. And you can listen for echoes in St Paul's Cathedral (020 7246 8348; stpauls.co.uk; £18), where he appeared while breaking his journey to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. He gave an address – “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” – in Sir Christopher Wren's giant Baroque creation on December 4 1964. There is also a disputed claim that King visited Liverpool, and even wrote the first draft of his 'I have a dream' speech on Adelphi Hotel headed notepaper.
