Mlk Memorial

ENG075

Word Count: 625

11/1/11

Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Reflection

Standing on the platform of the metro station I heard a white man making strange noises in what sounded like an attempt to mock the women that I was with. Then, I heard him say, “Oh, my God black people are so annoying.” I thought to myself, why are you telling God that black people are annoying, when he created us all equally? The timing of all this was very ironic because my friends and I were on our way to visit the new Martin Luther King Memorial. When I decided to visit the monument, this was the last thing I expected to happen. This encounter was a very eye-opening experience for me because I had never really experienced such blatant racism. When we arrived at the large statue of Martin Luther King Jr. I realized how much he helped African-Americans to overcome. At the same time, the memory of the racist man on the subway made me realize how much more we still have to overcome. In an area filled with monuments of white men, African-Americans must take great pride in the fact that we have come all the way from slavery to having a large monument for an African-American. Standing next to the large shrine, I felt very empowered and proud to be African-American because of all that we’ve been through. As demonstrated by the incident on the subway, however, we must continue the fight for equality.

Placed all around the statue of Dr. King are quotes from his speeches and letters during the civil rights movement. The one that stood out to me the most was from April 16th, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, which stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (King). Of all the quotes at the monument, this stood out to me because I could relate it to Robert Joseph Pershing Foster from The Warmth of Other Suns. Foster was a surgeon who...