A Great Leader: Honoring a Great American

King grew up in the southern part of the United States. At that time, laws treated African American people differently from white people. African Americans were forced to sit in the back of buses. They also had to use separate bathrooms and water fountains. When King was older, he worked to change those laws. As a result, equal rights laws were passed. Those laws provide the same rights to all Americans.

A memorial is a statue or a place that honors a person or an event. The King Memorial is built on the National Mall. That is a park in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. Memorials for some U.S. presidents are also on the Mall. The King Memorial opened in August of 2011. It has a 30-foot statue of King. Sentences from some of his speeches are carved into a stone wall. The cost of the memorial was $100 million. A concert was held in September 2010 in New York City to raise some of the money. Many famous singers performed. The singers included Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Garth Brooks.