Existing comment:
I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
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In addition to the fourteen quotations on the Inscription Wall, each side of the Stone of Hope includes an additional statement attributed to King. The first, from the "I Have a Dream" speech, is "Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope" -- the quotation that serves as the basis for the monument's design. The words on the other side of the stone read, "I Was a Drum Major for Justice, Peace, and Righteousness," which is a paraphrased version of a longer quote by King: "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." The memorial's use of the paraphrased version of the quote has been criticized (see "Controversy" below). ...
Quotation paraphrase
One of the two quotes appearing on the Stone of Hope and attributed to King, "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness," is a paraphrased version of King's actual words, which were: "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." The Washington Post's Rachel Manteuffel noticed the change and publicized it in an August 25, 2011 column, arguing that the revised quote misrepresented both King himself and the meaning of the 1968 sermon from which it was taken, in which King imagined the sort of eulogy he might receive.
In a September 1 piece, and again on December 31, The Post's editorial board agreed with Manteuffel that the wording on the monument should be changed. Poet and author Maya Angelou, a consultant on the memorial, also emphatically agreed, telling the Post: "The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit...It makes him seem less than the humanitarian he was...It makes him seem an egotist." She also pointed out, "The 'if' clause that is left out is salient. Leaving it out changes the meaning completely."
The memorial's planners had originally intended to use the unrevised version of King's words, but adopted the paraphrased version when changes to the monument's design left them without enough space on the sculpture. "We sincerely felt passionate that the man's own eulogy should be expressed on the stone," said the memorial's executive architect, Ed Jackson, Jr. "We said the least we could do was define who he was based on his perception of himself: 'I was a drum major for this, this and this.'"? Jackson said the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and two memorial advisers had not objected to the change, and that Angelou had not attended meetings where the inscription was discussed. |