MLK and WWII Monuments

It was a rainy and grey day out but the bf and I had gotten up early by the miracle of God and instead of wasting life away sitting on the couch or watching tv, we decided to visit the city before heading off to Hannah's birthday party festivities. The main reason for going into the city was because I wanted to see the AIDS Quilt being displayed on the National Mall. Unfortunately either because it wasn't ready or they hadn't brought it out yet because of the rain, it was no where to be found :/ So we decided to go out and walk to a few monuments. He had never been the WWII memorial, so we walked to that. I had walked it before but never actually walked down into it. Well, I was surprised!!! The water fountains were beautiful up close and I saw the Price of Freedom wall below.

WWII memorial

Sign that explains

The Price of Freedom

Freedom Wall holds 4,048 gold stars. Each gold star represents one hundred American service personnel who died or remain missing in the war. The 405,399 American dead and missing from WWII are second only to the loss of more than 620,000 Americans during our Civil War

All of the stars on display 

Then after that, I mentioned I hadn't seen the MLK monument, so we went there too! I knew there was controversy and problems but I wasn't sure what it was. Well, this article sums up the problems with the quote:

The words, " I was a drum major for justice peace and righteousness" currently are displayed on the memorial.

Those familiar with the February 1968 speech where that message was taken from argued that those were not the original words said by Dr. King.

The exact words were "Yes, 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."

The more condensed version of that message was paraphrased for the memorial, but some say the way it currently reads changes the tone of the message.

The entrance to the memorial

One of the quotes in the marble around the statue

Statue from the side. You can't really see it, but the quote on the side you can see, was misquoted and there was a huge controversy around it.

Statue from the front