President Obama Flies Over MLK Meml During Media Tour. GM, Ford, McDonald’s Help Finance

Just as Harry E. Johnson, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Project Foundation Inc. began his first outdoor interview, President Obama’s Marine helicopter flew over the 28-foot statue of MLK en route to an unknown location. Obama is seen by most as the heir apparent to King’s undying “Dream.”

Johnson chose Dec. 1 as the date to facilitate the advanced media tour, which took place exactly 55 years after seamstress Rosa Parks ignited the legendary Montgomery Bus Boycott when she sat down in the front area of a city bus in Alabama. It marked the official start of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Without Parks’ act of defiance, Martin Luther King may have never been known worldwide.

The MLK Memorial, which remains under construction and is said to be approximately halfway complete, is situated near the spot where King gave his venerated “I Have a Dream” speech. Johnson said the memorial is scheduled to be completed and hold its official grand opening on Aug. 28, 2011, the day King delivered the unforgettable address that climaxed the March on Washington. Johnson also expressed his hope that Obama will be in attendance on this historic occasion as MLK will be the first non-president and African American to be immortalized on the National Mall.

Johnson is the former president of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the oldest black Greek-letter intercollegiate organization that King was a member of (Andrew Young, a confidante of King and first African American U.S. Ambassador, is also a member and has been instrumental in the MLK project oversight). The Alphas received permission to begin construction of the MLK Memorial after President Clinton signed a Joint Congressional Resolution authorizing it on July 16, 1998.

The granite sculpture of the slain civil rights leader is located near the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. It shows King with arms crossed, wearing the pensive expression he was famous for. The statue and other monuments that are part of the memorial are still wrapped in scaffolding as construction continues.

The MLK Memorial has raised $108 of the $120 million needed to finish the project. John T. Monford, General Motors Foundation chairman and the co-chairman of the Memorial Foundation’s Executive Leadership Cabinet, was in attendance. GM has contributed $10 million towards the project. Tommy Hilfiger, who has hosted a fundraising gala in Beverly Hills towards the memorial, bestowed $5 million, while corporations like Ford, McDonald’s, Delta and the NFL Players Association donated $1 million each.

Johnson told the media the public will be marveled by the memorial.

“When you go out and see the memorial itself and see Dr. King standing there, a tear may form up in your eye — your heart may flutter a little bit,” said Harry Johnson, who has put in over 20 years of work to build the memorial. “You’re going to be proud of what you see, and you’re going to be taken aback.”

–terry shropshire