« Day #2 | Main | A Rage in Literature »
Kids for King
If you work with children, the Kids for King program will be an excellent ongoing project!
Students to raise money for MLK memorial
By KRISTIE A. MARTINEZ
Cox News Service
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
WASHINGTON — Backers of a permanent monument for civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. kicked off a program Monday challenging students across the U.S. to raise money for the project.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation unveiled the "Kids for King" program less than a week after King's widow, 78-year-old Coretta Scott King, suffered a stroke in Atlanta. It also came in advance of the 42nd anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, which he made Aug. 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The "Kids for King" program encourages elementary and secondary school students across the U.S. to collect donations and write 75-word essays about their "dream for a better America." The foundation will choose 12 of the students to fly to Washington D.C. for the memorial's ground breaking next November.
The monument will be a granite boulder with an image of King emerging from one side of the rock, said Harry Johnson, president of the foundation. The monument memorializes the sentence, "With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope," from King's "I Have a Dream" speech. The monument will also feature 24 panels with King's words written on them, Johnson said. He expects the project to be finished in 2008.
The King memorial, which will stand near the Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt memorials, will be the first on the National Mall — the area stretching from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, and from the White House to the Jefferson Memorial — that does not honor a president or a war. It also will be the first on the Mall to honor an African American.
"I feel personally that once this memorial is complete, that the Mall itself will be reflective of America," Johnson said. "I believe it's just right to have him there with the other heroes."
Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and owner of the Washington Mystics women's basketball team, announced she is donating $1 million dollars to the project on behalf of her children.
"Martin Luther King is not with us physically," Johnson said at a press conference at the Tidal Basin, "but standing here on this memorial site, he will continue to speak to all of us, to all the children and the generations to come, to challenge you to become leaders and to love not only yourself, but all mankind."
The memorial will cost $100 million to complete, and the foundation has raised $39.5 million in private funds so far. General Motors is currently the memorial foundation's lead sponsor.
Last month, lawmakers in Congress agreed to provide $10 million in matching funds if the foundation raises $10 million in the next two years. Johnson said he expects the "Kids for King" program to bring in at least $3 million by next June.
Some lawmakers opposed the matching funds, saying they should be used only for presidential memorials.
Judy Scott Feldman, chairman of National Coalition to Save Our Mall, a group seeking to preserve the National Mall's "historical and cultural integrity," said the group does not oppose the construction of the King memorial.
"I don't think there is any opposition and I think everyone feels that this kind of memorial is deserved," she said of the King monument. "We're just going to be watching as the design develops. That's going to be the only concern."
In addition to the "Kids for King" project, the foundation is raising money by selling blue "Build the Dream" bracelets similar to Lance Armstrong's yellow "Livestrong" arm bands. And in New York, Texas and Illinois, the organization is airing commercials featuring black celebrities, including actor Morgan Freeman and rapper Nelly.
In 1996, King's fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, set up the memorial project foundation and former President Bill Clinton authorized the building of the memorial two years later.
Posted by Rashid on August 25, 2005 7:08 AM