Photo by Scott Ableman

We noted a few weeks ago that a mangled quote at the foot of Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial would be corrected, and today, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis announced the plan to fix the error. But it’ll take a while, considering the process involves removing and replacing several granite blocks.

The “Drum Major quote,” as the quotation is known, is lifted from a 1968 sermon King delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The monument, which was unveiled late last year, reads: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

This line is actually paraphrased from several sentences. The full passage, which will now be chiseled on the monument’s base, reads: “Yes, 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. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

In an Interior Department press release, Salazar and Jarvis said NPS expects to have the correction completed by the next commemoration of King’s birthday in January 2013. But before any stone is replaced or refinished, they need to figure out a payment plan. It probably won’t be cheap. As the City Paper’s Lydia DePillis suggested, perhaps Carlyle Group founder and philanthropist David Rubenstein, could pay for it. After all, he’s already patching up the Washington Monument.