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Artist Lei Yixin and the sculpture he crafted.
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National MLK Image May Be Revised To Gain Approval
By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
The Martin Luther King, Jr National Memorial Project Foundation, over the past five years, has overcome a number of hurdles to build a monument to honor the civil rights leader in the nation’s capital.
Organizers of the project have fought battles to secure land for the site, raise money to build it and have defended their decision to hire a Communist Chinese artist to construct it.
The latest fight is over the proposed image of Dr. King on the statue which will be the centerpiece of the $100 million memorial to be built on the national mall.
The Secretary of the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, one of three federal agencies which must approve every aspect of the MLK Memorial Project before construction begins, wrote a letter to the organizers of the memorial saying he was displeased with the image projected by the statue of Dr. King which is part of the memorial.
Commission Secretary Thomas Luebke said the sculpture which was initially revealed months ago, had Dr. King with a “stiffly frontal image, stoic in poise and confrontational in character.”
Artist Lei Yixin, who crafted the sculpture, developed the artwork depicting Dr. King, with his hands folded, emerging from a huge rock formation.
Luebke suggested the memorial statue be redesigned to project a less confrontational image of Dr. King.
In an interview with the New Journal and Guide on May 22, Harry E. Johnson, Sr, President and CEO of the Memorial Foundation, said the changes have been made that he hoped would please the Commission.
He said that the changes will be submitted to the full commission for its consideration on June 15th.
“There were some subtle changes which included not projecting Dr. King so far out of the granite wall and there will be a softer look on the contour on his face,” said Johnson, from his office in the nation’s capital. “We think that the changes we have ordered will be acceptable and we can move on. I think we are finally about to realize the dream of a monument honoring Dr. King in our nation’s capital.”
Johnson said although there are seven members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, only one of them complained about how the proposed 28-foot statue of Dr. King was designed and depicted him.
The Commissioner’s complaint spurred considerable controversy in the media which has since died down. But there were Civil Rights activists, and artists who said they had no qualms about the way Dr. King was portrayed in the initial artwork.
Johnson sent the New Journal and Guide a copy of the picture used by the Memorial Foundation to define the idea of the sculpture of Dr. King. Dr. King, in the photo, is standing in his office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, (SCLC) in Atlanta. |
Posted May 28, 2008
The picture was taken in 1966 by photographer Bob Fitch. Dr. King is standing behind his desk with his arms folded in a pose that looks neither defiant or contentious.
“Contentious, defiant, defensive—it is all in the eyes of the beholder,” said Johnson. “Different people will see different things. But Dr. King was contentious and defiant as he led the Civil Rights Movement.”
In an article in the New York Times, Isaac Newton Farris Jr., Dr. King’s nephew and the director of the King Center in Atlanta, said he hoped the Commission had a sufficient understanding of Dr. King’s mission. “They’re saying it looks too confrontational,” he said. “I’m saying, what do you think he was doing?”
A number of Dr. King’s contemporaries who seek to carry on and protect his legacy, such as Dr. Milton A. Reid of Norfolk, say “they are trying to make him more acceptable and threatening for future readers who do not know him. It is all a part of the continued commercialization of Dr. King and not looking at who he truly was as a person and leader.”
Johnson said he regrets the controversy which erupted over the Commission’s sentiments about the proposed statue. He said this is not isolated.
“The three agencies we have to respond to and will approve the memorial have to look at every aspect of what we are doing before they approve,” he said. “They did this for the Franklin Roosevelt memorial and all the others. They will look not only at the statue, but the trees, the color of the granite used...everything. We are not the only ones who have endured the scrutiny.”
Johnson said the King Memorial Foundation has raised $93 million of the $100 million needed to construct the King Memorial at the Tidal Basin. He said the construction of the memorial, if the Commission approves the “makeover” of the memorial statue, should begin later this year.
Johnson said that 9-11, the Katrina Hurricane disaster and the Tsunami Relief effort overseas, all created a donation fatigue, which slowed the King’s Memorial collection of the funds it needed.
“But we had generous donations not only from corporate America, but contributions from individuals who have $5 and $10,” said Johnson. “I am surprised at the speed in which we raised the money over the six yeas we have been doing this. We look forward to beginning the construction of the King Monument because so many people have given donations large and small to make it happen.”
For more information about the King Memorial go to http://www.mlkmemorial.org
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