Memorial quote making Martin Luther King 'sound like arrogant twit' to be changed

Washington, Jan 14 (ANI): A misquote carved into a Washington memorial dedicated to Afro-American slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King will be corrected following a public outcry and pressure from his family.

"I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness," the quote reads on the new Washington memorial reads.

But its terse assertiveness comes at the cost of the modesty of King's wordier original statement, "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness."

According to The Telegraph, many critics and America's most famous black poet Maya Angelou, who had worked with King, said that it made him sound like "an arrogant twit."

"He was anything but that. He was far too profound a man for that four-letter word to apply," Angelou, 83, added.

In the wake of the outcry the US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar ordered the National Parks Service to consult with the King Memorial Foundation and his family to devise a replacement within 30 days.

The 30foot-tall statue was surrounded with controversy last year also when Lei Yixin, a Chinese sculptor, was appointed to make the monument.

The move sparked angry demands that he be replaced with an American and that the statue be carved from American granite.

When it finally arrived in the US, some claimed that King's features "looked Chinese" and objected to its Social Realist-style, which critics said was out of sync with American traditions. (ANI)