WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack
Obama saluted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday as a man who "stirred our
conscience" and made the Union "more perfect," rejoicing in the
dedication of a monument memorializing the slain civil rights leader's life and
work.
"I know we will overcome,"
Obama proclaimed, standing by the 30-foot granite monument to King on the
National Mall. "I know this," the president said, "because of
the man towering over us."
Obama and his wife, Michelle, and
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, joined a host of civil rights
figures for the dedication on the sun-splashed Mall. Designed as what King
described as a stone of hope hewn from a mountain of despair, the memorial is
the first to a black man on the National Mall and its parks.
"He had faith in us," said
Obama, who was 6 when King was assassinated in 1968. Obama told the crowd,
"And that is why he belongs on this Mall: Because he saw what we might
become."
The dedication has special meaning
for the Obamas. The president credits King with paving his way to the White
House. Before his remarks, he left signed copies of his inaugural speech and
2008 convention address in a time capsule at the monument site. The first
couple and daughters Malia and Sasha made a more private visit to the site on
Friday night, before the crowds and the cameras arrived.
In his talk, he focused on King's
broad themes — equality, justice and peaceful resistance — as the nation
confronts, 48 years later, some of the same issues of war, an economic crisis
and a lingering distrust of government in some quarters.
Referring to citizen protests against
the wealthy and powerful that have spread from Wall Street and Washington, even
abroad, Obama said: "Dr. King would want us to challenge the excesses of
Wall Street without demonizing those who work there."
The monument, situated between the
Lincoln and Jefferson memorials in what the designers call a "line of
leadership," was 15 years in the making. Several speakers noted that its
designers could not have predicted then that the monument would be dedicated by
the nation's first black president.
Obama urged Americans to harness the
energy of the civil rights movement for today's challenges and to remain
committed to King's philosophy of peaceful resistance.
"Let us draw strength from those
earlier struggles," Obama said. "Change has never been simple or
without controversy."
King didn't say in the famous 1963
speech that he thought there could be a black president, but he did indicate
his belief in interviews that it would happen one day.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
