From the proposal to design to construction to opening day, the new memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. has been 15 years in the making. On Nov. 12, 1996, President Clinton signed legislation proposing a memorial honoring King in D.C. Four years later, ROMA Design President Boris Dramov and Principal Landscape Architect Bonnie Fisher won an international design competition hosted by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Foundation, and 10 years later, Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin finished building the 28-foot-tall white granite statue.
In Dramov and Fisher’s design, visitors pass through the “mountain of despair” to reach the “stone of hope,” on which King’s face is etched. “You enter through strife and you are able to achieve higher levels of social equity and democracy,” Fisher said.
