WASHINGTON — Organizers of the national memorial for Martin Luther King Jr. have submitted a revised plan for a 28-foot granite statue of King that appears almost identical to one that has spurred controversy across the country.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which must give final approval to all memorials built on the National Mall, has said the statue of King resembled the stiff political art of totalitarian regimes and called it too "confrontational." The critique touched off a lively debate in newspapers and on the Internet.

In materials filed late Thursday afternoon, the privately run Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Project Foundation included images of the figure that appeared only slightly different than the original design. The photos were available for viewing, but copies were not released.

The pictures showed the upper part of the statue unchanged but indicated slightly more rough stone at the bottom half, where the figure rises out of the "stone of hope" — the central theme of the memorial.

In its critique last April, the Fine Arts Commission urged the foundation to look to artists such as Rodin and Michelangelo, who sculpted figures emerging from stone.

Rica Orszag, spokeswoman for the memorial foundation, declined to discuss the submission and whether additional changes were contemplated. "Because this is an ongoing dialogue, we will wait to hear from the commission," she said.

The panel is scheduled to take up the proposed changes at a public meeting June 19. That is the same date that the memorial foundation has scheduled a major fund-raising dinner in Atlanta as it seeks to raise the final $7 million for the $100 million project, which has been in the planning stages for more than two decades.

A full-scale clay model of the statue, which is the main element of the memorial, is already being made in China under the direction of an artist there. The decision to have the work done in China has prompted protests from critics who have challenged the appropriateness of having the statue of the civil rights leader made in a country with a poor human rights record.