Maya Angelou is complaining – and she’s right.

Somehow, in all the events of Hurricane Irene and the crashing economy, I missed the quiet unveiling of the impressive and dignified Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial on the National Mall.  It was probably a smaller event than originally envisioned, pre-earthquake, pre-hurricane. (We wrote about MLK a few days ago, in connection with the postponed opening).

So when I first saw the headline that poet (laureate) Maya Angelou was kvetching about King’s words on the statue, saying it made King sound “arrogant,” I thought, well, that she was just kvetching, the way everyone on the internet kvetches.  I ignored the article.

Then I read it.  She’s right.

Here’s what’s one of the inscriptions, placed on one side of the statue says:

“I was a drum major for justice peace and righteousness.”

Here’s what King said on Feb. 4, 1968, two months before he was assassinated, in a sermon at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church about a eulogy that might be given in the event of his death:

“If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Context is all.

Get out the chisel, Washington.

Postscript #1 : Elaine Ray wrote in to say: “I like your bookhaven item on the King monument. Just wanted to clarify that the opening of the monument was not postponed. In fact, the monument had a quiet opening days before the scheduled dedication. It was the dedication that was postponed.” Also read her comment and link in the comments section below.

From Jim Erwin: “Maybe I’ll feel differently once I see it in person, but from the photos it looks like Stalinist monumentalism, which could hardly be more wildly inappropriate for the subject. I suspect Frederick Hart, who did the ‘Three Soldiers’ Vietnam memorial sculpture, could have come closer.”

Author: Cynthia Haven

Cynthia Haven has written for The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, World Literature Today, and other publications. Her work has also appeared in Le Monde, La Repubblica, The Kenyon Review, Quarterly Conversation, The Georgia Review, Civilization, and others. She has been a Milena Jesenská Journalism Fellow with the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. Peter Dale in Conversation with Cynthia Haven was published in London, 2005. Her Czestaw Mitosz: Conversations was published in 2006; Joseph Brodsky: Conversations in 2003; An Invisible Rope: Portraits of Czestaw Mitosz was published in 2011 with Ohio University Press / Swallow Press. She is currently a visiting scholar at Stanford. Her biography René Girard, A Life will be published next year. Join me at twitter: @chaven View all posts by Cynthia Haven