Free previewStop 7 of National Mall Walking Tour
The Stone Pulled From the Mountain
You're standing in West Potomac Park on the edge of the Tidal Basin, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. In front of you are two massive slabs of granite with a narrow passage between them. Walk through that gap, and then turn around and look at the single great block that seems to have been pushed out of them. That block is the Stone of Hope, and Dr. King is stepping out of it, arms folded, looking across the water.
The whole design comes from one line of the speech you just heard about at the Lincoln Memorial. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., the Baptist minister who led the civil rights movement, told the crowd at the March on Washington that with faith they could hew "out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." So the two slabs behind you are the mountain.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 7 of National Mall Walking Tour (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
