KNOXVILLE — The lead architect for the Martin Luther King memorial will discuss the project Feb. 20 at the University of Tennessee.
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Ed Jackson
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Dr. Ed Jackson, Jr. will speak at 5:30 p.m. in the McCarty Auditorium of the Art and Architecture building. Construction begins on the $100 million project in March. Jackson’s team will translate his work the civil rights activist’s vision for democracy, justice and hope into a grand, public space on Washington’s National Mall.
Ted Shelton, lecturer in the UT College of Architecture and Design, said Jackson’s lecture honors Black History Month and anyone interested in architecture and design is invited to attend.
Approved in 1999, the King memorial site will be seen from the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as from the Jefferson Memorial. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation has described the related memorials as the “line of leadership.”
Jackson, along with ROMA Design Group and the memorial design team, intend to make King-s ideas a recurring theme throughout the design. A wall will have inscribed excerpts from his speeches and sermons, and a stone statue of King at the center will be called the “Stone of Hope.”
Groundbreaking for the memorial is set for March with completion expected in 2008. So far, $53 million in private funds have been raised, with the largest contributions from General Motors, In Kind Promotions, Tommy Hilfiger Corporation Foundation, Procter & Gamble and the National Basketball Association.
Jackson has more than 25 years of experience in architecture, and has held numerous project management and design positions including director of research for the American Institute of Architects and president/CEO of ArchD Consulting Ltd. Co.
King envisioned world peace and called for change through non-violent social initiative. He was fatally shot by as assassin on April 4, 1968, in Memphis.
For more information about the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial visit http://www.mlkmemorial.org.
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Contacts:
Beth Gladden (865-974-9008, beth.gladden@tennessee.edu)
Ted Shelton (865-974-3238, tshelto4@utk.edu)