Statue makes Luther King look arrogant – Maya Angelou

The quote was taken from a sermon King gave shortly before his death, where he imagined what his own eulogy would sound like. “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice,” King said. “Say that I was a drum major for peace. I […]

The quote was taken from a sermon King gave shortly before his death, where he imagined what his own eulogy would sound like. “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice,” King said. “Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Angelou, who read a poem at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, told Weingarten that taking out the “if clause” at the beginning of the quote makes King sound conceited, as if he were praising himself for no reason. Angelou was on a committee of historians who helped choose the inscriptions, and the memorial’s chief architect, Ed Jackson Jr., said that she didn’t attend any of those meetings. But it also appears that the historians chose the entire quote, not the shortened version memorial officials eventually selected due to space constraints.

Angelou isn’t the only one who has found fault with the four-acre, $120 million monument, which sits on the National Mall alongside monuments to Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Much of the criticism centers around the statue of King, which was controversially designed by a Chinese artist and built by Chinese workers. (Critics said an African-American artist should be chosen.)