Martin Luther King Jr. memorial opens in DC

[RoryN]

WASHINGTON — Tourists and Washingtonians were about to get their first up-close look Monday at the memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The site was set to open without fanfare about 11 a.m. ET to kick off a week of celebrations ahead of the official dedication of the $120 million memorial on Sunday.

The towering 30-foot statue has drawn critics who object that it was sculpted by Chinese artist Lei Yixin.

"Dr. King would be turning over in his grave if he knew" the sculptor was from a communist country, Denver-based artist Ed Dwight, who was on an early planning team for the memorial, told USA Today.

"He would rise up from his grave and walk into their offices and go, 'How dare you?'" Dwight said.

Dr. King's expression and demeanor has also been debated, with some people arguing that his face looks Asian and that he looks confrontational with his arms folded.

But the civil rights leader's children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, disagree. Executive architect Ed Jackson showed them Lei's model of the head, as well as three others he had created. They chose the first one.

"I informed them that this was the one that had generated all that controversy about their father looking confrontational," Jackson told USA Today. "Martin said, 'Well if my father was not confrontational, given what he was facing at the time, what else could he be?'"

King's namesake son told the newspaper that he'd seen countless statues of his father and few of them were good reflections. "This particular artist — he's done a good job," he said.

Pamela M. Cross, 53, a cybersecurity professional from Washington, said she usually passes by the memorial on her morning walk around the National Mall and was excited to be able to see it up close.

Cross said her father, a postal worker, attended the march on Washington in 1963. She said King's message continues to resonate.

"The way the country is right now, it's good to remember his principles," Cross said. "We are in need of jobs, we're in need of equality, we're in need of an economic vision that's inclusive."

The memorial, which has been in the making for more than 25 years, sits on the National Mall near the Tidal Basin, between memorials honoring Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. It includes a 30-foot-tall sculpture of King and a 450-foot-long granite wall inscribed with 14 quotations from the civil rights leader.

The sheer size of the sculpture of King sets it apart from nearby statues of Jefferson and Lincoln, which are both about 20 feet tall, though inside larger monuments.

A panel of scholars chose the engraved quotations from speeches by King in Atlanta, New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Montgomery, Ala., as well as from King's books and his letter from a Birmingham, Ala., jail.

One of the stone engravings reads: "We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

The sculptor, Lei Yixin, said he wanted the memorial to be a visual representation of the ideals King spoke of in his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"His dream is very universal. It's a dream of equality," Lei said through his son, who translated from Mandarin. "He went to jail. He had been beaten, and he sacrificed his life for his dream. And now his dream comes true."

The 30-foot sculpture depicts King with a stern expression, wearing a jacket and tie, his arms folded and clutching papers in his left hand. Lei said through his son that "you can see the hope" in King's face, but that his serious demeanor also indicates that "he's thinking."

The statue depicts King emerging from a stone. The concept for the memorial was taken from a line in the "I Have a Dream" speech, which is carved into the stone: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." Visitors to the memorial pass through a sculpture of the mountain of despair and come upon the stone of hope.

The National Mall site will be surrounded with cherry trees that will blossom in pink and white in the spring.

Sunday's dedication ceremony will mark the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington and King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the dedication.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44228158/ns/us_news-life/

 

[Wok]

Awesome.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110822-mlk-hmed-6a.grid-8x2.jpg

I'm loving this.

 

[Cade Is Here]

Looks up ^^^

Wow three racists in a row....


Funny how they show up in a thread like this.

 

[RoryN]

I'm loving this.

I really like the concept, but I understand some of the criticism.

I could easily see Mao's head on that torso!

EDIT: Gee, look who took the bait? (CIH)

 

[IrezumiKiss]

^^^

That didn't take too long. Monday bait works.

 

[Cade Is Here]

^^^

That didn't take too long. Monday bait works.

Go kills those whitey like you say it... Right IZ..?

Should we add on to your melanoma thread?

 

[IrezumiKiss]

I really like the concept, but I understand some of the criticism.

I could easily see Mao's head on that torso!

EDIT: Gee, look who took the bait? (CIH)

Eh. The concept and design is sweet but as usual, goes over the heads of the hoi polloi. I love that this lets 'em think for a bit instead of being stupid simple.

Oh yeah. Homeboy was probably waiting for me to chime in before farting. Your post was up for a while.

Go kills those whitey like you say it... Right IZ..?

Should we add on to your melanoma thread?

You mean the fake one that you keep on pretending to allude to? Yeah, that one.

How's AntiBacterial doing? Shouldn't you be using him for this thread?

 

[RoryN]

How's AntiBacterial doing? Shouldn't you be using him for this thread?

I think he finds pictures of black guys for AV pictures and then jerks off to them before saving them to his alt profiles.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

I think he finds pictures of black guys for AV pictures and then jerks off to them before saving them to his alt profiles.

I still remember when that one was "white." Then he re-engineered it to be "black" once his Tyrone Biggs quarterback broke its leg. Did a piss-poor job of it, too, the slacker.

Ahhh, the glory days of yore...it's been a year since the start of his team's wipeout, I reckon.

 

[Wok]

Uhhhh, how is a memorial to MLK racist?

 

[RoryN]

Uhhhh, how is a memorial to MLK racist?

"Racist" is the word CIH uses when he's worried people will remember his association with Stormfront.org. But his problem is that they've never forgotten.

 

[I_LIKE_PEAS]

I love Martin Luther Coon

He died to give us government employees a day off

God bless him

 

[Killswitch]

Uhhhh, how is a memorial to MLK racist?

It's not.

The real question is why is lit full of jobless retards.

I'm serious. You don't even need an IQ to read this place anymore.

 

[badbabysitter]

Looks up ^^^

Wow three racists in a row....


Funny how they show up in a thread like this.

you find a memorial to Martin Luther King racist?

care to explain?

 

[NeverEndingMe]

It's not.

The real question is why is lit full of jobless retards.

I'm serious. You don't even need an IQ to read this place anymore.

see, here is the thing. people like you, Merc, Sean, BadBabbySitter,Richard, and the many other wing nuts are welfare carpetbaggers who don't have real jobs.

people like me, we are wealthy and work when we want to.

again, people like you - suck down welfare.

welfare only makes you a slave to government.

wake up!

yes you can, make your own life better

 

[badbabysitter]

see, here is the thing. people like you, Merc, Sean, BadBabbySitter,Richard, and the many other wing nuts are welfare carpetbaggers who don't have real jobs.

people like me, we are wealthy and work when we want to.

again, people like you - suck down welfare.

welfare only makes you a slave to government.

wake up!

yes you can, make your own life better

I'm guessing you're opposed to the MLK memorial

why is that?

 

[renard_ruse]

The guy was never elected to any public office, wasn't a military hero, nothing.

Why not a more generalize Civil Rights monument with statues of various figures from that era or whatever?

Personally, I resent how this one guy got shoved down our throats all the time in school. Its insulting to all the other people involved in the Civil Rights movement to make this one guy into some God or something.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

The guy was never elected to any public office, wasn't a military hero, nothing.

Why not a more generalize Civil Rights monument with statues of various figures from that era or whatever?

Personally, I resent how this one guy got shoved down our throats all the time in school. Its insulting to all the other people involved in the Civil Rights movement to make this one guy into some God or something.

It's all good, Renny. Nobody is expecting you to like, understand or do anything, anyway.

 

[Obama_2012]

The guy was never elected to any public office, wasn't a military hero, nothing.

Why not a more generalize Civil Rights monument with statues of various figures from that era or whatever?

Personally, I resent how this one guy got shoved down our throats all the time in school. Its insulting to all the other people involved in the Civil Rights movement to make this one guy into some God or something.

~shakes head~

http://www.homelandag.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/mlk-day.jpg

 

[RoryN]

~shakes head~

Hi CIH.

 

[Obama_2012]

http://www.csun.edu/~dar04956/history/black/martinlutherking/images/images/mlutherking_johnson_jpg.jpg

 

[badbabysitter]

The guy was never elected to any public office, wasn't a military hero, nothing.

Why not a more generalize Civil Rights monument with statues of various figures from that era or whatever?

Personally, I resent how this one guy got shoved down our throats all the time in school. Its insulting to all the other people involved in the Civil Rights movement to make this one guy into some God or something.

facepalm

you just dont fucking get it, do you

 

[Obama_Sucks]

I like how the article quotes obviously ridiculous lies. Yea, you know, before MLK you couldn't be black are own a company? Now, exactly where was that written in law?

Why do they need to lie about things which have no truth in history? There were plenty of black business owners before MLK and black facist organizations demanded more privileges for their companies, long before the government enforced racism through quotas and Affirmative action (which deny whites from equally having the same business and career oppertunities as blacks).

 

[Shagly]

It's propoganda.

American style.