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WASHINGTON - US civil rights leaders today dug gold-tipped shovels into a trough of dirt to break ground for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the first monument to an African-American on the National Mall.
"As we turn these shovels we are just beginning to turn the dirt, and as we turn this dirt at this ground, let us go back to our communities and turn the dirt there," said former King aide Andrew Young, admonishing attendees to continue the slain leader's work against racism, poverty and violence.
Nearly 5,000 people, including TV show host Oprah Winfrey and former President Bill Clinton braved the morning cold to celebrate the life of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Speakers quoted King's sermons and speeches and paid tribute to his belief that non-violent protest could help end discrimination against black Americans.
Democrat Barack Obama from Illinois, the only African-American serving in the US Senate and a possible presidential candidate in 2008, wondered what to tell his daughters when they visit the monument.
"I will tell them this man gave his life serving others," Obama said. "I will tell them this man tried to love somebody. I will tell them that because he did those things they live today, with the freedom God intended, their citizenship unquestioned, their dreams unbounded."
Construction officially begins on the crescent-shaped four-acre site in the spring and is scheduled to be completed in 2008.
So far, organizers have raised US$63 million toward the estimated US$100 million cost of the project, which is located on the National Mall, an area of memorials to presidents and the nation's major wars.
When the memorial is finished, 40 years will have passed since King was shot to death on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. By then, the 39-year-old Baptist minister had helped boycott buses in Alabama to change segregation laws and led demonstrations that pressured Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act.
The memorial's centerpiece will be a "stone of hope," a boulder engraved with King's image and words from the now-immortal "I Have a Dream" speech he delivered on the steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
The memorial will rest on the banks of the Potomac River's tidal basin across from the monument to Thomas Jefferson.
- REUTERS
