The Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial (D.C.)

-
The new memorial sits on the Washington Mall between statues of Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and stands a huge 30 feet tall.

"The sculpture depicts King with a stern expression, wearing a jacket and tie, his arms folded and clutching papers in his left hand. Lei said through his son that "you can see the hope" in King's face, but that his serious demeanor also indicates that "he's thinking."

The statue depicts King emerging from a stone. The concept for the memorial was taken from a line in the "I Have a Dream" speech, which is carved into the stone: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." Visitors to the memorial pass through a sculpture of the mountain of despair and come upon the stone of hope.

The National Mall site will be surrounded with cherry trees that will blossom in pink and white in the spring."

"...A stone of hope" is so much more than President Obama has turned out to be. Instead of laying down a standard of new shoes to fill the nation's first black president - just saying that still rings amazing - proves just how hard it is to match up to a giant of a man who was a helluva leader.