Ground was broken for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on The Mall in Washington, D.C., and tears fell while smiles shined on an overcast day.
King’s longtime friend Andrew Young cried as he prayed and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, almost on cue, also wept.
It belongs here,” said former President Bill Clinton, basking in the crowd’s enthusiasm. Jefferson “told us we were all created equal,” and Lincoln abolished slavery; but both “left much undone.”
He added that contemporary lessons could be learned from King’s legacy of nonviolence. “Civil disobedience works better than suicide bombing,” he said. And the memorial to King reminds people that “the time is always ripe to do right.”
Clinton and President Bush were joined by talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), poet Maya Angelou, three of King’s children and designer Tommy Hilfiger, among others.
On her way to the stage, gingerly stepping around the edges of mud puddles, Winfrey said she came to the event because “I’ve lived the dream.”
On stage, she elaborated: “It is because of Dr. King that I stand, that I have a voice to be heard,” Winfrey said. “I do not take that for granted. Not for one breath. . . . Because he was the seed of the free, I get to be the blossom.”