At 1 p.m. today, the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination, Rothko Chapel will play audio of King's "I've been to the mountaintop" speech, the eerily prescient one that he delivered the day before he died.

You'll be able to hear it inside Rothko Chapel. But the best place to listen will be outside, on the plaza, looking at "Broken Obelisk" — the rusty, elegant sculpture in the chapel's reflecting pool that once again stands as a reminder of official Houston's attitude toward King while he was alive: that the man was more a dangerous rabble-rouser than a saint.

In 1969, the year following King's death, Houston art patrons John and Dominique de Menil offered to match a $45,000 federal grant to buy Barnett Newman's "Broken Obelisk" for the city of Houston. In effect, they'd be giving the much-praised sculpture to the city of Houston free of charge. But their offer came with a string attached: The de Menils insisted that the sculpture's base bear a dedication to Martin Luther King.

For Houston, in 1969, that was a radical proposition.

BARNETT NEWMAN, best known as an abstract painter, didn't conceive "Broken Obelisk" as an MLK memorial. In fact, he created it years before King's death. Versions of the sculpture received ecstatic reviews during temporary displays in New York and Washington, D.C.

The de Menils, art patrons and liberal, humanitarian activists, realized that the sculpture worked eerily well as a memorial. The sculpture seems to have started its life as an obelisk, a shape that evokes stately, orderly shows of respect for American history — like, say, the Washington Memorial. But this obelisk was made not of marble, but of rusty steel. The obelisk appears to have been broken off — like King's life. And it looks as though it's been turned upside-down, and is balancing precariously on its point -- which is exactly the way the world felt in 1968.

Through channels, the de Menils were told that city officials would reject a public memorial to King. So the couple offered the city a barbed compromise. They proposed that the sculpture be placed in front of Houston City Hall, opposite the reflecting pool, and that the base instead bear the words "Forgive Them, for They Know Not What They Do."

That quotation of Jesus' prayer on the cross neatly echoed King's preacherly use of the Bible to make revolutionary points. And just as neatly, it echoed Newman's habit of bestowing biblical titles on his abstract paintings.

Houston's power brokers, though, took the quote personally.

And that was what John de Menil intended, DeLoyd Parker told me in 2006. In the '60s, Parker was one of the young black activists whose work the de Menils supported.

"(Mayor) Louie Welch was supposed to take it personally," Parker said. "(Police Chief Herman) Short was supposed to take it personally."

"That was one of the great things about the Menils," said Gertrude Barnstone, a longtime friend of the de Menils. "They told it like it was."

But city council would have none of it. They turned down the de Menils' proposal to put Broken Obelisk outside City Hall, and asked that the couple pick another site. Council members claimed not to see the point of the Bible verse.

"People who come down here don't understand these arty objects," council member Lee McLemore told the Houston Chronicle in 1969. "We would be better off with a nice drinking fountain out there."

A drinking fountain: The very symbol of segregation.

The de Menils stuck to their guns. They reverted to their original intention, asking that the sculpture be plainly designated as a King memorial.

Led by the mayor, City Council rejected their offer. There would be no MLK memorial outside Houston City Hall.

ALL OF which brings us to Rothko Chapel today.

The de Menils bought "Broken Obelisk" for $90,000 and announced that they'd donate it, along with 14 Mark Rothko paintings, to the Institute of Religion and Human Development in the Texas Medical Center.

To house the art, they bankrolled an octagonal chapel and reflecting pool. Over time, the Institute of Religion evolved into the Rothko Chapel, a Houston landmark known for its Zen-like stillness.

But Broken Obelisk stands as a reminder that justice isn't only a matter of prayer and meditation.

"The truth," Parker said, "is noisy."

Lisa Gray founded Gray Matters, and still dabbles in it when she can. She adapted this article from one that she wrote in January 2006, "Broken Obelisk restored, returned to Rothko."

Sign up for Gray Matters' weekly newsletter. For Houston, in 1969, that was a radical proposition.

