By LaTika Lee
Special Correspondent

Whether the visit is during the day or night, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., provides a spectacular cultural site.

The 30-foot granite monument − which was hand-carved from one stone symbolizing the “mountain of despair” and transformed into three separate stones − is the newest memorial at the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

The living memorial preserves the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was a visionary, minister and public intellectual.

Born on Jan. 15, 1929, Dr. King took a leading role in the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He also was a tireless advocate for racial equality and social justice.

The non-violent philosopher was an activist for the nation’s working class and oppressed people around the world. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was conceived by members of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, where Dr. King was a member, and completed under the leadership of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation.

After a lengthy review and selection process, as well as an exhaustive fundraising campaign, the memorial was completed last year and dedicated on Aug. 23, 2011, the 48th anniversary of the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” It was during this march − before an audience of 200,000 people − that Dr. King delivered his famous speech “I Have a Dream” at the Lincoln Memorial.

This year’s Dr. King holiday commemoration, which was observed on Jan. 16, was the first where visitors to the nation’s capital could visit the memorial.

Known for its monumental scale, the memorial stands in the vista between the Lincoln Memorial and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The four-acre site, located at 1964 Independence Ave., incorporates the elements of stone, earth and water.

An inscription wall, carved with 17 of Dr. King’s quotations in relief, stress his four primary messages of freedom, democracy, hope and love. Free-flowing water cascades down the walls and is illuminated at night.

Detached from the Mountain of Despair, the lifelike image of Dr. King, sculpted by Chinese Master artist Lei Yixin, emerges from the “Stone of Hope.” It was made from 182 blocks of an unique white granite and is inscribed with two quotations: “out of the mountain of despair…a stone of hope”. It faces the Tidal Basin and neighbors the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. The MLK Memorial is the first memorial to honor a United States citizen who was not a war hero or president. 

An international competition for the design of the memorial was held where more than 1,500 entries were requested from 52 different countries. Construction on it began in 2010 and was managed by the oldest minority-owned architecture/engineering firm in the United States, McKissack & McKissack.

One hundred eighty-two flowering Japanese cherry blossoms have been planted on the site and will bloom in early spring as a reminder of the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. He was 39 years old at the time of his death.