Last September, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation applied for a building permit from the National Park Service to construct a memorial in honor of the slain civil rights leader.
In a mass e-mail Wednesday Harry E. Johnson, president and CEO of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, asked supporters to write letters, calling for action by President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.
Johnson urged people to “let our government officials know that we will not back down until we are rightfully given the National Park Service’s permission to begin construction of the memorial.”
“It is imperative that we let these three key players know about the situation and urge them do everything within their power to secure our building permit,” Johnson said in the e-mail, which indicated a Sept. 21 deadline for the letter writing.
In August, Johnson wrote a letter to Salazar.
“I am hopeful, as I have been, that the secretary of the interior will take a look at this and say, ‘There’s no reason not to give you a building permit,’” Johnson told the Washington Post. “I’ve done everything the Park Service asked me to do. I don’t know what else I could do.”
“I don’t have an argument with the Park Service or anybody else,” he said. “I just want to build a memorial.”
