The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, which, since 2011, is located in the southwest of the National Mall in Washington D.C., was designed and built by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin. It commemorates the civil rights activist that was murdered in 1968, the history of the civil rights movement of Afro-Americans, as well as the issues the movement dealt with and propagated. It was, like many other memorials throughout the USA, also subject to criticism, regarding its design, layout, material, expressiveness, the choice of its creator, and thus also its overall ‘Americanness’.
In this paper, the focus will be on the questions of how this memorial works and why it works in a specific way. A memorial can serve many different purposes, such as to grieve, remember, recognize, celebrate, support, help to forget, heal, confront, equalize, understand, educate, acknowledge, etc. It will be argued that memorials are not only about the physical site, the monument or the venue in general, they are also to a huge extent about a number of external or complementary factors, such as the visitors or spectators of the site in question, and their respective performances with regard to the site of memory. Thus, a memorial never has a fixed meaning or message – to a certain extent, a memorial is always a floating signifier with meanings in constant flux, depending on its current social environment and various power relations.
The visibility and interpretation of such ‘lieux des mémoire’ is of course also heavily dependent on contemporary discourses, as well as individual and national identity. The terms identity, performance, visibility, and the site’s ‘Americanness’, or in other words, what the afore-mentioned topics tell us about American culture in the general sense, and a presumed American ‘culture of memory’, will be at the center of this paper about the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Visibility, Performance, Identity, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site
2.1 Visibility
2.2 Performance
2.3 Identity
2.4 The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site
3. Through the Lens of Visibility, Performance, and Identity
3.1 Visibility at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site
3.2 Performance at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site
3.3 Identity at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site
4. Conclusion
Research Objectives and Themes
This paper investigates the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C. by applying the cultural studies concepts of visibility, performance, and identity to analyze how the site functions, how it defines American national identity, and how it represents or suppresses aspects of the Civil Rights Movement.
- Analysis of the memorial as a "floating signifier" of American culture.
- Examination of the memorial's design and physical components through a visibility lens.
- Interpretation of the visitor experience and official speeches as performative acts.
- Critique of the memorial as a site of contested national identity and civil religion.
Excerpt from the Book
3.1 Visibility at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site
The design of the memorial with the ‘Mount of Despair’ and ‘Stone of Hope’ theme that was taken from one of King’s quotes, indeed shows a link between aesthetics and politics. The iconic words “With this faith we will be able to hew, out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope” and the way King is depicted or rather celebrated by means of the image that was created of him on the memorial site, show the typical symbolism of American civil religion. King, at first sight, is celebrated and depicted as a star, as an American icon in a very American way. On the one hand it is very catchy, on the other hand, it can be argued to be a quite misled way of showing King, due to the context he is imbedded in and the ideals he promoted and represented. He stood for a whole movement, and can of course be considered as its leader, however, he also stood for a sense of community and togetherness. In this case, an approach was chosen that crowns a historical figure and engages in the transformation of this figure as a role model that can encourage US citizens and furthermore represents the US-American exceptionalist spirit, and that thus stays true to the US-American civil religion design typology.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter introduces the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and sets the theoretical foundation for examining it through the lenses of visibility, performance, and identity.
2. Visibility, Performance, Identity, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Site: This chapter establishes the theoretical framework by defining the three core concepts and providing a descriptive overview of the memorial site and its components.
3. Through the Lens of Visibility, Performance, and Identity: This chapter applies the previously defined theoretical lenses to analyze the site, focusing on design, visitor behavior, and the construction of identity.
4. Conclusion: This chapter synthesizes the findings, arguing that the memorial serves as a contested space for American civil religion rather than a neutral representation of the Civil Rights Movement.
Keywords
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Cultural Studies, Visibility, Performance, Identity, American Civil Religion, National Identity, Civil Rights Movement, Memorial Mania, Exceptionalism, Cultural Memory, Symbolic Representation, Public Space, Commemoration, Social Process
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental focus of this research paper?
The paper examines the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., to understand how it functions as a site of cultural memory and how it reflects broader tensions within American national identity.
What are the primary thematic fields used to analyze the memorial?
The study utilizes three main "lenses" from cultural studies: visibility (perception and power), performance (behavioral scripts and identity formation), and identity (construction of collective selfhood).
What is the central research question of the work?
The author asks how the memorial works, why it works in a specific way, and what it reveals about the definition of American national identity and the act of commemoration.
Which scientific methodology is employed in this analysis?
The paper adopts a cultural studies approach, conducting a qualitative analysis that bridges theoretical concepts with physical, visual, and verbal components of the memorial site.
What topics are covered in the main body of the paper?
The main body is divided into a theoretical introduction of the three lenses and an application section where these lenses are used to interpret the memorial's design, official speeches, and public reception.
Which keywords best characterize this publication?
Key terms include American Civil Religion, Visibility, Performance, Identity, National Identity, Civil Rights Movement, and American Exceptionalism.
Why is the color of the marble sculpture considered a point of political contention?
The author argues that the use of white marble, combined with the sculpture's aesthetic, risks stripping King of his "blackness," thereby prioritizing an "Americanized" version of his legacy that aligns with white-dominant national narratives.
How does the memorial use the concept of "performance"?
The memorial functions as a "space of performance" where visitors are guided by scripts—such as the requirement to be "quiet and peaceful"—which institutionalizes the act of remembering and suppresses more critical, complicated narratives about the Civil Rights Movement.
- Quote paper
- Matthias Köbrich (Author), 2016, Visibility, Performance, and the Representation of Identity at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/345294
