The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is the newest memorial to be built in Washington D. C. The memorial was finished with construction in the summer of 2011. This memorial celebrates the life of one of the most influential leaders of the Civil Rights era, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is a reminder of Dr. Kings’ powerful impact on the country and even the world. It was only right that a memorial was built in Washington D. C. to honor the life of this powerful man. Dr. Kings’ memorial is located on 1964 Independence Avenue. The street number represents the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Martin Luther King had a huge role in.
The vision in adding the Martin Luther King’s memorial was to have a “line of leadership” which is the combination of three different memorials–the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and now, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial celebrates the life and historical significance of President Abraham Lincoln. He was the President who stopped abolished slavery and his monuments the famous place where Martin Luther King gave his “I have a Dream” speech. The Jefferson Memorial honors one of the founders of the Declaration of Independence and one of the founders of the United States.
Dr. Kings’ memorial is also situated in the center of Washington D. C. famous cherry blossom trees. These trees were a gift from Japan to symbolize peace. The memorials’ location is perfect because Martin Luther King envisioned peace for everyone. He hoped to spread equality as well as peace. The purpose and thought in the building of this monument could of not of been more perfect but with every perfection there is a defect and in the case of this memorial, controversy. On the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial website there is that gives a thorough description of the monument.
It tells us that Dr. King’s memorial was built right in the center of the famous cherry blossoms trees. They say that it is not a coincidence that the flowers begin to bloom around April 4, Martin Luther Kings’ assassination (About the Memorial). This is an example of kairos because the designers of this memorial knew that tourists from all over come to see these trees bloom. As the tourists come to see the first bloom, they will also be walking along Dr. King’s memorial. This is like them honoring the anniversary of his death. The author also connects to the audience’s pathos.
They describe how the monument how the monument will make the visitors feel. “The boulder is the Mountain of Despair, through which every visitor will enter, moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life. (About the Memorial)” The author is telling the visitor and the reader that walking through the monument is like walking with Dr. King, through everything he faced. This can give whoever goes to the monument and whoever reads this a certain emotion about the monument before they even visit the monument just from reading this. Also in the quote above, the author uses a Toulmin argument.
The support the author uses to back up his claim is that certain elements of the memorial symbolize the struggle that Dr. King went through. The author assumes that upon a person’s visit to this memorial, they already know the history of Dr. King’s life and journey. They also assume that the visitor will have prior knowledge of the life of Martin Luther King, that the visitor will have an idea of what he went through. Because they included a part of Mountain of Despair and several other pieces of the monument that symbolize the struggle of Dr. King, the visitors will have an idea of what he went through.
The author discusses the choice of the creator of the monument to not include one of Dr. King’s most inspirational speeches. “The other reason for not including the Dream Speech is that it is Dr. King’s best known speech out of the hundreds he delivered. It is the most taught piece of his work in schools, and, at minimum, the history books reference the famed speech when presenting Dr. King’s role in American History. ” This claim is telling us that the Dream speech is so widely known that there was no need to display any of the words from the famous speech.
The author tells the reader that this speech is taught in school and is in every history book. The author assumes that everyone knows about this speech. The author also assumes that everyone would be able to identify the speech with just a few lines of it. Because this speech is well known, they found no need to include it in the memorial because everyone should know the words. Once again the author reaches the audiences’ pathos because they talk about how this memorial will make a person feel and this can change the feeling of the reader because the reader will now expect to feel what the author is describing.
They trust that what the author says will be how they will feel when visiting this memorial. The author also reaches the readers logos because they are trying to persuade the reader that because Martin Luther King was so influential, there is so much about him we can learn, just from walking through the memorial site. Hundreds Celebrate First Anniversary of Martin Luther King Memorial text says, “We are so pleased that millions of people have come to visit this memorial,” said Johnson, who calls Houston, Texas home. I think it’s evident that when you come here you see people of all hues, races, creeds and colors. We’re excited about it. ” The author is quoting a man who feels this memorial is bringing together people from all walks of life. One thing that Dr. Martin Luther King stood for was the equality, peace and justice for all individuals. When Johnson attended this he saw people from all over who were different in every way. He assumes that everyone understands the history of this nation. He also assumes that we should all be excited that this memorial is bringing everyone together.
To support the authors’ argument, he talks about the most memorable moment of the ceremony in which Robert G. Stanton, senior advisor to the U. S. Secretary of the Interior, asks the audience to applause the young people in the audience. This was for recognition of a facet of Dr. King’s dream. The author expresses the excitement for this memorial, from everyone. What could be more exciting than to see Dr. King’s dream come to life; people from all walks of like coming together and young people, who are the future, gathered with their elders to celebrate his dream. The author uses this idea to further support his claim.
The whole purpose of this memorial is to celebrate the humility, determination, and the overall life of Dr. King. Manteuffel talks about the controversy of the words that were placed on the right side of Dr. King. “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness,” this quote is from Dr. King’s famous “Dream” speech. This quote can make Martin Luther King seem arrogant to whoever reads this quote, the author goes on to write. The problem with this quote is that this is not exactly what Dr. King said. The author says, “This quote is awfully self-aggrandizing for a man who so often ymbolized the strength in humility (Manteuffel),” which goes along with the fact that the memorial doesn’t reflect the type of person everyone knew Dr. King to be. Upon first glance of this quote, a reader can assume that Dr. King was a very self-absorbed person who was not one bit humble. The reader would have to have prior knowledge to know that he was not like this at all. This quote that is placed on Dr. Kings’ side reaches the readers pathos. It makes the reader feel that Dr. King was not as humble as he portrayed. The choice to leave out several words in the Dr.
King’s speech does not allow a person who never heard the speech, to understand that this is a poor representation of Dr. King as a man. It also goes against ethos because this quote does not allow for the reader to trust the goodness of a man if they think he said these words. Manteuffel uses words such as, “bad” “tragic” and “mistake” in her piece that gets the reader believing and trusting that the words displayed on Dr. King’s statue really should not be there. The idea behind the creation of this memorial was to honor the life of a man who fought for the rights of everyone.
A lot of what was hoped to be accomplished was achieved. The fact that the memorial was supposed to display the struggle and the life of Dr. King and the historical significance of the location of the memorial adds to this achievement. Although there is a lot of good that came from this memorial, there is still a lack of quality representation of who Dr. King was when it comes to some of the words that were chosen to be displayed. Overall the beauty and the essence of what made Dr. King so influential was achieved and we now know that this branded appreciation for him will always be around.
Works Cited About the Memorial. ” Design Elements-Build the Dream. National Memorial Project Foundation, n. d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. . Hundreds Celebrate First Anniversary of Martin Luther King Memorial. ” Political News and Opinion from a Multicultural Point of View. Politics365, 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. . Manteuffel, Rachel. “Martin Luther King a Drum Major? If You Say So. ” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 26 Aug. 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. . Writer’s Letter My paper addresses the newly built monument, The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
Throughout the paper I discuss several aspects of the memorial and the significance of each part to history. The main topic of my paper is that although this was a beautifully thought out monument and the various elements with perfect with Dr. King’s life, there can always be something that may be wrong. There may be controversy even through perfection. Throughout writing this piece, I definitely learned how to analyze text in a more in depth way. From my free write to my rough draft, I really didn’t know how to construct my claims and my support as well as using the rhetorical terms in the way.
My timing for these terms also was not where it should have been. I used several terms in places that I shouldn’t of. I feel like my full understanding of these terms was not where it should have been. I think another problem I had was fully understanding what the assignment was asking at first, but the comments from my peers and my instructor actually helped me transform my paper a little more. A huge problem I was having was going more in depth with my analysis of the text and a way I addressed that was adding more examples in the text to support the argument I was making as well as the authors.
I do think this was a major problem in my paper so I wish that I could have did a better job with this concept. I think that my most beautiful paragraph was my introduction because it described in great detail the monument and the meaning of mostly every element of the memorial. I have to say my worst paragraphs were my body ones because I feel I could have expanded more. Overall, I feel that I tried my best to come up with a quality paper and I enjoyed learning about Dr. King’s monument.
