The Martin Luther King Memorial Commission meets to address the quote controversy

When we last left the star-crossed Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had boldly declared that the Interior Department was ordering the embarrassing misquotation of the martyred civil rights leader changed, so he would not sound to future generations like “an arrogant twit,” in poet Maya Angelou’s neat phrasing. Now a war of words and intentions has broken out, with Salazar declaring that the entire made-up quotation (“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”—something King never said, and probably never thought, either) had to be removed, and the correct quote (“…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. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”) added, and Ed Jackson, the architect who oversaw the memorial’s development for years, saying that Salazar’s plan would wreck the structure. Asked if there was any way to remove the inscription from the memorial without destroying it, Jackson answered, “No.“

And there we have it: an impasse, with the choice apparently being between scarring the memorial for all time, or leaving upon it a quote that dishonors and misrepresents the man whose legacy it is supposed to celebrate.* Thus we have our lesson: Carelessness and incompetence at the outset of a project can make success impossible, because the incompetence becomes an inseparable part of the project itself.

Just to recap the culprits who brought the Rev. King’s honor to this sorry state:

• George Jackson, Jr., who began this epic botch by choosing a Chinese Communist artist to design the memorial, causing political and racial controversy that could easily have been avoided, and finished by allowing the truncated, paraphrased quote to be placed on the memorial without having the sense to guess that it would be criticized.

• The Memorial Commission’s Council of Historians, who chose the quotes for the memorial, and did a stunningly bad job. It’s not as if this is a Bill Clinton memorial, and there is a dearth of memorable quotations to choose from. Why was the awkward drum major quote chosen, in place of, for example, “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live,”  or “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” or “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools” or many, many, many others, most of which are shorter and more memorable than the drum major quote. What did those historians  do, throw darts at quotes taped on a dart board? Are lot of historians frustrated drum majors?

• Maya Angelou, who first blew the whistle on the quote, but only after it had been chiseled in granite. Angelou was on the Council of Historians, but couldn’t be bothered to attend the meetings. If she had, she could have made sure that the wannabe drum majors got shouted down.

• Secretary Salazar, who appears to have decided on a solution without bothering to determine whether it was feasible or not. This isn’t a blackboard, after all…it’s granite.

So now, when the King Memorial should be standing peacefully on the Mall, a lasting symbol of courage and hope in the memory of the man who changed the nation with his message of equality and peace, it is now the center of a war of ineptitude, all because the people who admired him wouldn’t apply the necessary diligence and care to make sure that he received a monument worthy of his achievements.  They should change the mangled quote to another King statement, one that fits the ethics train wreck his memorial has become:

“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

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* For the record: Leaving an incorrect and ungraceful quote that was never said by King on his memorial is not acceptable, so the only real option is to fix it. If it results in a visible scar, so be it. A scar is better than a lie.