MLK Jr. Memorial Statue Completed Using Unpaid Chinese Laborers

[Omaha Steve]

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/26/305092/mlk-jr-memorial-statue-completed-using-unpaid-chinese-laborers/

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Aug 26, 2011 at 11:30 am


Chinese sculpter Lei Yixin working on the MLK Memorial

The opening ceremony for the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial has been postponed as Hurricane Irene closes in on the East Coast, but when it does open, the monument will do so under a different cloud as some point out that the way it was constructed violates some of the core principles for which King fought and died. While often overshadowed by his civil rights legacy, King was an outspoken defender of labor rights and was supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee when he was assassinated. But his memorial was built, in part, using free labor imported from China.

The foundation behind the memorial, which deserves tremendous praise for successfully pulling off the monumental project, controversially selected Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin — known for his bust of Mao Zedong — to be the lead sculptor on the project. Couldn’t the foundation have “chosen a black American, let alone an American,” critics ask?

More egregiously, despite promises from the organization to use local unionized labor for the project, the sculpture was completed using workers imported from China working for nothing but “national pride.” Last September, the foundation promised in a statement:

“ will employ skilled craft workers from the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) to work with Master Lei Yixin, Sculptor of Record, to complete the assembly and installation,”

FULL story at link.

[hlthe2b]

1. Why the pink granite, I'd like to ask....

Glad to see the Memorial done, but not really what I would have selected. As someone said before, a monument that featured him speaking to children of all "shades" of skin color would have been more global to his message IMO...

Unpaid Chinese labor--hmmm.

[-..__...]

4. I posted this in a previous thread...

could be a snow job/bull shit or a legitimate concern.

You decide...

Sculptor and stone choice


It was announced in January 2007 that Lei Yixin, an artist from the People's Republic of China, would sculpt the centerpiece of the memorial, including the statue of King<52> and the "Stone of Hope". The commission was criticized by human rights activist Harry Wu on the grounds that Lei had sculpted Mao Zedong. It also stirred accusations that it was based on financial considerations, because the Chinese government would make a $25 million donation to help meet the projected shortfall in donations. The president of the memorial's foundation, Harry E. Johnson, who first met Lei in a sculpting workshop in Saint Paul, Minnesota, stated that the final selection was done by a mostly African American design team and was based solely on artistic ability.<53>

Gilbert Young, an African American artist known for a work of art entitled He Ain't Heavy, led a protest against the decision to hire Lei by launching the website King Is Ours, which demanded that an African American artist be used for the monument.<54> Human-rights activist and arts advocate Ann Lau and American stone-carver Clint Button joined Young and national talk-show host Joe Madison in advancing the protest when the use of Chinese granite was discovered.<55> Lau decried the human rights record of the Chinese government and asserted that the granite would be mined by workers forced to toil in unsafe and unfair conditions.<56> Button argued that the $10 million in federal money that has been authorized for the King project required it to be subject to an open bidding process.<57>

The memorial's design team visited China in October 2006 to inspect potential granite to be used.<58> The project's foundation has argued that the quality of the Chinese granite exceeds that which can be found in the United States.<59>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._National_Memorial#Sculptor_and_stone_choice

There was another piece (which I can't find right now... might have been on CNN), that claimed one of the reasons that particular granite was chosen

was that under certain light conditions, it had a brown hue to it.

[EFerrari]

2. So gross.n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Is NOTHING exempt from corruption?

:puke:

[Bluenorthwest]

5. It looks like it too. It reminds me of a giant Soviet era Lenin

I saw in East Berlin. The materials, the way it was completed, the whole thing leaves me cold.
I like the memorial to King at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco much better.
http://www.yerbabuenagardens.com/features/gardens.html#2

[Poll_Blind]

6. What?! Are you effing kidding me? Is this for real?

:wtf:

PB

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. MLK must be rollin' i grave

a sign of the future to be honest, unless we finally have had it and raise fists and take to them streets.

[AnnieBW]

8. We've even outsourced our national monuments!

Shit! More jobs should have gone to Americans - specifically African-Americans - got sent to China!