What? Black Men Can’t Chisel ? Thoughts on the Dr. MLK Memorial
Guess with all the comings and goings in the world of all things political I missed the controversy of the MLK memorial. I caught snippets of conversation in the media about the monument being dedicated this month but I had no idea of the background….
Made In China? Sometimes you read about a fact so outside your Weltanschauung (world view), that you just shake your head at the silliness of the fellow inmates with whom we happen to share the same planet. On August 28, 2011 the Martin Luther King Memorial will be dedicated in Washington D.C. But today, I was surprised to find out that a noted Chinese communist artist, Master Lei Yixin, sculpted the 30-foot tall Memorial. And even more unbelievably, the 159 pieces of red granite used in the Memorial were quarried and sculpted in China and then shipped to Washington D. C. for the final detailing.
From Lei Yixin Facebook page we read:
He first found work in a publishing company as a draughtsman but was spotted by a local government official, who asked and encouraged him to build monuments.
Lei won top prizes in national competitions three consecutive years, and was recognised as a master sculptor, which came with a lifetime stipend from the Chinese government. He has sculpted some 150 public monuments, including statues of Mao Zedong. Some of his works are in China’s National Art Gallery collection Yixin came to the attention of the American public when he was named artist-of-record and commissioned to sculpt the centerpiece for the proposed monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. According to Agence France-Presse, it was only by chance that memorial organizers found Lei when they visited an international granite-carving festival in the American state of Minnesota. Yixin was “discovered” under a tree, taking a nap after he was pointed out to the King Memorial Project Foundation committee with the words, “you should talk to that guy over there,” pointing to Lei.
It turns out that there were some minor protest about not using American artists, or more specifically, black American artists, but they obviously came to naught.
It is incredibly damning to the dream of Dr. King’s’ America, that this Memorial was crafted outside the United States. What message does this send to young black artists that the most significant American sculpture in the past 75 years, was quarried in China, and carved by a noted Chinese communist artist? By allowing this flawed sculpture, that looks very much like Dr. King was frozen in carbonite before being delivered to Jabba the Hutt, to stand next to Jefferson and Lincoln, we have publicly humiliated ourselves; admitting to the world our national incompetence and vapid artistry. (article)
Personally, I dislike any statue that is carved like this. As the AT author notes it looks like a Star Wars “carbonite” image. It just looks unfinished. But I’m not artsy enough I guess. But sheesh, made in China? C’mon peeps that’s ridiculous. Don’t we have any American artists who could have done this? Visit The Dream website here for a virtual tour.
And while I was visiting the Dream Website to garner some background information I about fell off my chair at this irony:
The United States Congress passed House of Representatives Bill 2361 authorizing the United States Treasury to match 10 million dollars in private contributions for the construction of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project in Washington, D.C.
In addition to the support of the many individual and corporate donors, the $10 million Congressional match was achieved at the February 28, 2006 Los Angeles Dream Dinner with the announcement of The Walt Disney Company Foundation donation. Senators Byrd and Cochran were the driving force behind the Congressional match.
Yup, you read that right. One of the driving forces behind the congressional funds was none other than West Virginia Democrat Senator Robert K Byrd, former KKK leader.
Byrd joined the Klan at the ripe young age of 24 — hardly a young’un by today’s standards, much less those of 1944, when Byrd refused to join the military because he might have to serve alongside “race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds,” according to a letter Byrd wrote to Sen. Theodore Bilbo at the height of World War II.
Senator Byrd had come of age as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and even cast a “no” vote on the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited discrimination against African Americans and others. He later renounced his actions in both cases and called his membership in the KKK ‘the worst mistake of my life. However, he didn’t seem to think it a mistake in a 2001 interview. I won’t tell you what he said…. listen for yourself (at the 1:16 mark)
So given the fact that a noted leader of the KKK came full circle and became the tip of the financial spear for the creation of a Dr. Martin Luther King national monument; Perhaps it is fitting, and oddly synergistic in the irony, for a statue created to forever memorialize a prominent American Civil Rights figure to be made in China with initial funds from a noted KKK leader and civil rights opponent.
