The review starts out: "He had a dream, so they had a 'Dream Concert'; a three-hour-plus variety show Tuesday night at Radio City Music Hall. The beneficiary was the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation in Washington, which is working to raise $100 million to 'build the dream.' There was a brief 'virtual tour' of the planned memorial, but there was surprisingly little talk about the actual design and construction. Instead the focus was the money: the $18 million needed to reach the target of $100 million." ("A Night of Many Stars, and of Hopes for King Memorial“,
The New York Times, 20 Sep 07, pg. B8
"Considering the man everyone was celebrating, there were strikingly few political statements, aside from the occasional muted antiwar remarks. No one mentioned, for example, that this year is the 40th anniversay of King’s 'Beyond Vietnam' speech, the one in which he said, 'If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.' Would a fiery preacher and advocate even to welcome at a feel-good event like this one?"
"Maybe 'Dream Concert' is a bit strong. But if the goal was merely to sell some expensive tickets, entertain some benefactors and helpers and give newspapers a reason to tell readers that the foundation is online at buildthedream.org – well, consider the night a success."
If the goal is to "build the dream," the question becomes, whose dream is it anyway? I don't recall that Mr. King ever said that his dream was to build a stone memorial to himself. His dream, as I recall, was about changing people's attitudes about race, war and difference. He dreamed of new attitudes and actions. These folks are dreaming of rocks and land.