MLK Revisited
Okay, my bad for thinking I knew it all. In a previous post about the folks in the black community “having their panties in a bunch” over the soon to be raised Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall being contracted to a Chinaman rather than to one of their own, I wrote:
“I just find it bizarre that those who should most appreciate the wrongness of racism would be so up-in-arms about having a China guy, Lei Yixin, assigned the task of memorializing the legacy of the one man who without question did the most to advance civil rights. No Chinese allowed? Seems rather racist to me.”
But … what if I was hoodwinked? What if the media spinmeisters played a race card that ought not have been in the deck in the first place? Certainly always a fail-safe approach for stirring up a bit of controversy, no doubt, and doesn’t suck for garnering ratings, either.
That might just be the case here. Of course, I know there are two sides to every story, and while I always have my own opinions, I do also indubitably respect the right of others to differ, no matter how misguided they may be.
I’m only human, though, and may have been duped this time into believing that those within the African-American community are all astir because they think that, to quote myself, “only black can do black.” Could I have possibly been mislead? Read on.
I pointed out, too, that the majority of members on the selection committee was black, and that black sculptors and architectural firms were also involved with the project, all of the important details. Details that, as it turns out, seem to have been selectively cherry-picked by the network bigwigs and, of course, duly reported by the talking heads.
Here’s why I have reason to think so. I received a comment in response to my previous article from one Clint Button. Granted, he is himself a long-time granite artisan, and industry liason to the King Is Ours protest organization, so understandably may have a biased opinion about the issue.
But if you read his comment, there seems to be enough credible evidence to suggest that, despite the media’s spin, the hullabaloo really might not be so much about race after all. Abridged excerpts follow, emphasis is mine. You can read the comment in its entirety here if so inclined.
“While the simplistic interpretation of our protest is viewed as race-based, our true protest is based on the process that denied all Americans a fair opportunity to participate in this project. On Nov 8, 2007, the Barre Granite Association sponsored a press conference featuring King Is Ours. In front of a 24′ tall granite statue, Gilbert Young spoke surrounded by a dozen Master Sculptors and Carvers - including the three who actually produced that 24′ statue.
“In June 2005, the MLK Foundation received $10 Million Federal to fund the MLK Memorial. In May 2006, they visited Barre, meeting with one sculptor for 15 minutes and one manufacturer for 10 minutes. Both assured the MLK Memorial Foundation they could handle the project. Neither was ever allowed to bid or even see project specifications. Foundation members even refused to tour the manufacturer’s plant, where several of these Masters were and still are carving.
“Elberton, GA’s granite industry - in size, several times that of Barre - was never contacted at all. Claims by the MLK Memorial Foundation to have ’surveyed several quarries’ at Stone Mountain on a Sunday afternoon in June 2007 fail to expand that all quarrying operations in the Stone Mountain area ceased in the 1970’s. There are also no granite quarries in America that operate on Sundays.
“In June 2006, the MLK Memorial Foundation spontaneously visited St. Paul, discovered Lei napping on the lawn after completing the only carving he admitted to had ever done completely ‘on my own.’ Lei didn’t understand the scope of the project or of Dr. King until after returning to China, all per his interviews in the LA Times and stone industry publications. But he left St Paul with a check for over $140,000.00.
“Due Diligence has not been served. Federal Monies mean an open bidding process. That NEVER Occurred. No US Entity, granite company, artist, artisan or other ever was allowed a viable chance to participate. Equality has been realized. We have all been denied. Color did not matter.
“As a result, Dr. King will be transfigured into stone, quarried and carved under near slave labor conditions. Reportedly, per edict of MLK Memorial Foundation Executive Architect Dr. Ed Jackson, all references to race- including the word ‘Negro’ - are to be expunged from Dr. King’s writings when inscribed on the Memorial. That is a dangerous corruption of history.
“Personally, I was pursued, invited and then uninvited from a CNN broadcast panel discussion in Aug 07, being told verbatim, ‘This is an African American Issue. You will not be needed for tonight’s show.’”
There are some other minor things I’d still dispute, both in Clint’s full comment as well as on the front page of the King Is Ours‘ website. But the additional information has indeed been eye-opening, and well worth perusal. I encourage you to check it out, particularly since I may have botched the abridgement above. I just selected some key points that I thought were particularly worth mentioning. He really does have more to say on the matter.
Mass media’s methods of information propagation aren’t really so surprising, but I must say that I am disappointed in my Dearly Beloved’s coverage of this as well. Et tu, NPR?
martin luther king, king memorial, king is ours, chinese sculptor, national mall memorial, lei yixin, racism, mass media
December 16th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Doug,
As they say in rehab, the first step to knowing you have an addiction is to acknowledge it. I too am in love with NPR. And I have been very disappointed at their coverage of our protest against decisions that were made for the monument to our beloved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you for deciding to take a second look. This is how we change things man. We hear each other out. I heard a saying once–don’t know where it came from, but it goes “Never think that a handful of people can’t change the world–In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
There’s a situation going on with the memorial project that we must address by anyone and everyone who believes that the monument to King should be a fitting memorial to his life and achievements. Of the many interviews I’ve done last week, and the hundreds of emails we’ve answered, there was one article that lingered in my mind and I want to share it with you. It was an article written by an “educator” who wrote a column for a newspaper. He wrote that he asked a student of his if it mattered who created the centerpiece of King’s monument and she “rolled her eyes,” and told him that “Gilbert Young sounded like her grandmother and great grandmother.”
My answer to him and to his student follows. Read it, and post it if you like. Then email or call me. Gilbert Young
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
The article by columnist John Crisp, “Use Granite fit for King” 12/04/2007 was interesting.
His words have proven a point the King Is Ours protest movement has made over and over again since the announcement was made that an artist renowned for glorifying Mao Zedong, and granite quarried using slave labor would be used to create a monument to our beloved Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
John’s dissertation on the history of Mt. Rushmore and the artist who created it was enlightening. I had no idea the sculptor was a supporter of the Klan who spewed anti-semitic sentiments. Seeing that in writing is exactly the same thing that will happen in years to come if Yixin creates the centerpiece for the King monument. Writers will go into the history of Yixin; that he has created more than 150 monuments to leaders of the People’s Republic of China, and that more than a fourth of them honor Mao. Writers will then link early descriptions of Dr. King as a Communist sympathizer and draw abstract conclusions as to why Yixin and Chinese granite were used in the first place. They will compare and contrast the King statue to Yixin’s statues of Mao (which do resemble each other). And eventually, as John said, years will go by, the artist will die, the controversy will sink into obscurity and perhaps no one–especially young, supposedly educated people like John’s student who “rolled her eyes,” will care who created it.
The reason for King Is Ours is to insure that this DOES NOT happen to the King memorial. We want everything about it to be remembered for all time. We intend that this monument to this man goes down in history, not only as the first monument to an African American to stand on the National Mall in what is known as the greatest country on the planet, but the first monument to manifest the goals of the Civil Rights movement presented in Dr. King’s speeches and sermons including “I Have A Dream,” “Where Do We Go from Here,” and “Black Power Defined.” Yes, the King Is Ours protest does remind John’s student of her grandmother and great-grandmother and it is unfortunate that as African American people, our history is not taught with the same loving care and determination that other races have for their own. For John’s student and most others, the “I Have A Dream” speech is just a bunch of words. For KIO–and other elders (of all races), the “I Have A Dream” is made up of memories. When King took that stage in D.C., standing before the Lincoln Memorial, he said he was in Washington for two reasons. He was there “to dramatize a shameful condition” that “America has given the Negro people a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” Secondly, King said he was there to “remind America of the fierce urgency of now.”
As a powerful speaker and preacher, King used a technique to compel his listeners to focus on his meaning. He repeated words and phrases over and over to drive home his purpose. In the “Dream” speech, his focus, his passion, and his pride were found in a word he repeated fourteen times. That word is Negro.
Our youth are so removed from the events that led up to the Civil Rights movement and the creation of leaders like King and Malcolm and Evers that they have no respect or regard for the day-to-day liberties that were won for them by the murders of the men and women who came before them. Our history doesn’t mean anything to them. It does not mean anything to say there are no monuments to ANY leader sitting in the capital city of ANY foreign country with the name of an African American artist carved into its base. It does not mean anything to our youth that in the year 2007, this monument to Dr. King will be the first and last memorial to an African American to be placed on our National Mall in our nation’s capital. It does not occur to them that this is just as wrong as it is right, because we have yet to wrap our minds around the fact that there won’t be another monument to a black person on that Mall, the last bit of land was allocated to King. Our opportunity is here and now to claim it.
King Is Ours intends to see that this monument is a meaningful proclamation on every level; that every young person in this country sees it is a tangible realization of who Dr. King was and what the Civil Rights movement meant to all of us “old folk;” and we intend to see that there is one piece of property in these United States that can be called African America.
John wrote that he was not sure how to “feel about this, or more important, how blacks feel about it…” Well, nearly two thousand people of all races and religious beliefs have signed our petition demanding that African Americans be allowed to interpret our history in this most important moment. CNN’s Lou Dobbs asked “What were you thinking?” to members of the memorial committee when he interviewed them about their decision to use Yixin. It seems there are those who believe, as we do, that a national monument is a testament to a country and its people. King’s monument should be no different.
John incorrectly represented a fact when he wrote “Yixin may have carved a few monuments to Mao Zedong, but I suspect that if you hope to be an artist in China, it’s difficult to avoid such occasional tasks.” Yixin carved more than a few. He has carved more than 50 busts and sculptures of the murderer of 70 million innocent Chinese. Zhu Xunde, chairman of the Hunan Association of Artist, is quoted saying, “Foreigners think we artists in China have no freedom, that we are told what to create. That is not true.” (Washingtonpost.com, Aug. 2007).
This means Yixin shows his loyalty and devotion to the oppressive government of the People’s Republic of China by choice. That’s our tragedy. Would someone famous for his sculptures of Hitler be honored with a commission to sculpt Ann Frank?
Many may not be aware that Yixin was originally hired to the King project as a subcontractor, to take a clay model created by American (that’s African American) sculptor Ed Dwight, and create the granite monument. Ed Dwight was contracted to be artist-of-record. Things fell apart when Dwight critiqued Yixin’s rendition. Many people may not know that $10 million in federal funds was allocated to the King memorial, yet no American granite company was allowed to bid the project. Our press conference in Vermont last month proved these facts when the granite industry, steel workers unions, and master stone carvers from Vermont came out in full force in support of King Is Ours. The California NAACP passed a Resolution in support of us, and in January, a Vermont Congressional delegation will also pass a Resolution.
There is a trap in believing that the only way to see this monument done is to sit back and be quiet. Some would have us believe that it is best not to protest any decisions that are made or there won’t be a monument to King, which is absurd. Dr. King’s monument does not have to be made from stone quarried using slave labor. Dr. King’s likeness need not be carved by someone who is supported and endorsed by a government that has little or no regard for the civil or human rights of its people. These decisions can be changed by the same people that made them in the first place. King Is Ours has decided not to sit back and be quiet We are standing up and shouting.
With all of the African American artistic talent in this country, Dr. King’s monument can become a testament to the best that our culture, our arts, and our history has to offer. That four-acre plot on the National Mall could actually become a propertied legacy that speaks to the successes of the Civil Rights movement, with a centerpiece preserved in American Granite. There would actually be, for the first time in the history of this planet, a monument to an African American hero, created by African Americans, standing in a capital city of a free nation. That truly would be a legacy for our people and our children’s children. That’s the story that would be in the history books. And I’ll bet you no one, including John’s young student and those who come behind her for eons to come, would “roll their eyes” at that.
Lea Winfrey Young
Gilbert Young
Clint Button
Dwayne Hicks
Ann Lau
John Woo