Security issue reworks King statue event

Washington —- Pioneers of the civil rights movement are set to gather next week for what was supposed to be a two-day celebration of the groundbreaking on the National Mall for the memorial for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

But there’s a hitch.

When former close aides and associates of King are given a tour next Tuesday of the site of the future memorial, there will be no construction equipment on hand because the National Park Service has not yet issued a building permit.

So the event honoring the veterans of so many marches decades ago is now taking on the appearance of yet one more demonstration.

It’s a protest “of a different sort,” said Ed Jackson Jr., executive architect for the private foundation that has raised more than $100 million for the memorial.

Jackson said in an interview he hoped the gathering of “soldiers” from the civil rights movement will “bring a great deal of attention” and turn up the pressure for resolving a dispute over perimeter security that is holding up the start of construction.

The National Park Service has informed the foundation that it will not grant the building permit until two oversight boards —- the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts —- agree to add physical security barriers. So far, both of those boards, which must approve all building projects for the Mall, have rejected the concept of installing a row of reinforced posts across the pathway leading to the memorial.

Jackson said the disagreement has left the project in limbo. He urged the Park Service to grant a building permit now so work can get started and continue trying to resolve the perimeter security issue.

“We have our finances in order,” he said. “We have our construction documents complete and we have our contractor already under contract” for the memorial, the centerpiece of which is a 28-foot granite likeness of Dr. King.

Peter May, spokesman for the Park Service, said, “We’re still working with the foundation to resolve things.”

May said of the differences over security structures, “I wouldn’t characterize it as a dispute.” He also said the Park Service would work with the foundation on a new security design satisfactory to all.

At the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the Park Service, spokesman Chris Paolino said the department was “aware of the situation.”

“We share the same goal as they do, and that’s to see a quick completion of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial,” Paolino said, but he added he knew of no specific progress toward resolving the issue.

At the MLK National Memorial Project Foundation events next week, participants expected to attend a dinner, a briefing and the site tour include Xernona Clayton of Atlanta, who was a special assistant to Dr. King; the Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a key aide; and the Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles, who invited King to Memphis to support the sanitation strike in 1968.

Others expected include the Rev. William Lawson, who helped organize student sit-ins in Houston, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Jesse Hill, former president and CEO of the Atlanta Life Insurance Co.