With four months left until the planned dedication of the state?s first memorial to Martin Luther King Jr., Anne Arundel County community leaders and civil rights activists need to raise another $150,000 to construct the monument.
Carl Snowden, an Anne Arundel civil rights activist and county intergovernmental affairs director, said the memorial committee has raised about $250,000 since August 2005, mostly from small private donations. Denny?s Restaurant in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County School Board President Konrad Wayson have been the project?s largest contributors so far.
“This will be the best answer to the intolerance and bigotry that have plagued our community,” Snowden said. Anne Arundel has battled periodic outbreaks of racial and religious incidents in recent years. Earlier this month, an effigy of a black man was found hanging from a pedestrian bridge over Route 2.
The monument?s cost ? $400,000 ? has almost doubled since fundraising began last year, due to increased engineering and materials costs, Snowden said. Plans call for a 70-foot wide plaza and garden dedicated to the memory and message of King and his wife, Corretta Scott King, on thegrounds of Anne Arundel Community College. Denver-based Ed Dwight Studios has been commissioned to cast the sculpture of King. Dwight Studios also worked on the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley memorial in downtown Annapolis. Snowden said organizers hope to dedicate the memorial, the first in the country honoring the couple, in August on the anniversary of King?s “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
