Martin Luther King memorial made in China...OOOOPS!

It is perhaps a fitting tribute to racial co-operation. However, the decision to outsource to China the carving of a new national memorial to Martin Luther King has raised eyebrows in the United States.

2:39PM BST 22 Aug 2011

The 30ft-tall statue, which forms the centrepiece of a $120 million (£73 million), four-acre memorial to Dr King, opened to the public on Monday on the National Mall in Washington. It is the only memorial on the Mall that does not honour a president or fallen soldiers.

Standing in the shadow of the Washington Monument, the statue shows Dr King emerging from a mountain of Chinese granite with his arms crossed and is called The Stone of Hope.

However, there has been controversy over the choice of Lei Yixin, a 57-year-old master sculptor from Changsha in Hunan province, to carry out the work. Critics have openly asked why a black, or at least an American, artist was not chosen and even remarked that Dr King appears slightly Asian in Mr Lei's rendering.

Mr Lei, who has in the past carved two statues of Mao Tse-tung, one of which stands in the former garden of Mao Anqing, the Chinese leader's son, carried out almost all of the work in Changsha.

More than 150 granite blocks, weighing some 1,600 tons, were then shipped from Xiamen to the port of Baltimore, and reassembled by a team of 100 workmen, including ten Chinese stone masons brought over specifically for the project.

Dr King's son, Martin Luther King III, has defended the outsourcing.

"I have seen probably 50 sculptures of my dad, and I would say 47 of them are not good reflections," he said, to USA Today."This particular artist: he has done a good job."

However, Ed Dwight, a sculptor in Denver, said Dr King would be "turning over in his grave" if he knew his likeness had been conceived by someone living under a Communist regime.

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

Mr Lei was chosen after the memorial's fund-raisers observed him at work at a stone carver's symposium in Minnesota. Amid the criticism, the architects in charge of the project said that they had visited Mr Lei's studio in Changsha to find he had already carved several versions of the work.

He has also prepared a bronze bust of Barack Obama which he intends to gift to the president.

The new memorial is next to the Lincoln Memorial, on whose steps Dr King delivered his "I have a dream" speech in 1963, a defining moment in the American Civil Rights movement. The statue will be officially dedicated on Sunday, the anniversary of the speech, but the park has opened in advance to visitors. Around 400,000 people are expected in the run-up to Sunday's event.

The statue, meanwhile, will be 11ft taller than the statues in the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. It is unclear how much money was saved by making it in China.

Joe

09/08/2011 01:15 AM

Many people in China are suffering in jails for Civil Rights violation reasons.
The statue is like Chairman Mao with Mr. MLK's head.
Jaycasey

09/03/2011 09:48 AM

Nothing against the artist / sculptor - it's a fine work BUT what idiot decided to outsource a memorial to China? What the hell - are our monuments coming from Wal-Mart now? How would China feel if some fool outsourced a Mao statue to Halliburton?
cawobeth

09/03/2011 12:18 AM

oh my... Is this true ? Where are facts to back this claim up ? If this is so, I admit that I have mixed feelings about this. Shahg makes a good point... I purchase semi-precious stones from China.

My initial reaction was that it's sad to think that the only way it was affordable was to out-source. Yet, this did not have to be. We can thank corporate American greed for this. The $$ that went around came back around. At the same time, this is an awful contradiction and where there's a will, there is a way. I do believe that there are American sculptors that would have been honored to donate their time for this memorial. I would have. Did anyone even ask us ? Were people who donated made aware of "where" their donations for this project were going ? Was this let known up front ? I think not. Wrong.
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checkurfacts

09/02/2011 07:18 PM

At the beginning of 1776, Washington's army had 20,000 men, with two-thirds enlisted in the Continental Army and the other third in the various state militias.About 250,000 men served as regulars or as militiamen for the Revolutionary cause in the eight years of the war, but there were never more than 90,000 men under arms at one time. A man's birth order often influenced his military recruitment, as younger sons went to war and older sons took charge of the farm. Subsistence farming was still the norm at this time and age.
Before you speak yes France helped us General Lafayette was a major asset to the rebels. Historians have estimated that approximately 40 to 45 percent of the colonists supported the rebellion, while 15 to 20 percent remained loyal to the Crown. The rest attempted to remain neutral and kept a low profile. So still yes 40%-35% were neutral or didnt support the cause in combat. Thats like saying the British civilans and american civilans in world war 2 sat on their hands while they made the arms/ the food needed to supply the colonies they were under a trade blockade for the most part.Also the British army was only around 35-36,000 in 1775. Before you count slaves; loyalists; and runaway slaves that got promised freedom after the war. The british even though they lost kept their promise to bring 20,000 slaves/families to many other colonies as freemen.Get your facts right before you spew worthless "facts" you are as bad as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann
John R.

09/01/2011 10:24 AM

Ironic. As he neared his death, Dr. King focused on the economic plight of blacks in America. Chief among his concerns was their unemployment rate. And now, instead of having Americans build the statue, the work was outsourced to another country. Pathetic. Incredibly sad.
AWoLsco

08/28/2011 09:26 PM

Prior to its departure to the USA, the memorial to the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King was viewed by their Majesties the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh while on a private visit to China.
Her Majesty was reported as being 'unamused' whilst the Duke remained silent, until asked of his opinion, when he said, with a laugh,
"I didn't want to say anything, but since you insist, I think he looks like King Kong with slitty eyes."
The Chinese entourage found this to be highly amusing, but prior to the broadcast of the day's press release, it was felt to be expedient to omit this, even though it improved Anglo-Chinese relations immeasurably.
Jaycasey

09/03/2011 09:51 AM

I find this account hard to believe. In fact, I don't believe it. Surely the Duke wouldn't say something like that and surely the Chinese wouldn't find it amusing.
AWoLsco

09/03/2011 10:05 AM

I can't vouch for its accuracy. I heard of it from a friend's uncle's cousin's granny's nephew's friend of a friend.
It may have got distorted in the tellings.

"surely the Chinese wouldn't find it amusing."

.....but the person that first told the story was Chinese. He owns the local takeaway.
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W Dan Chance

08/28/2011 04:44 PM

Not MLK Jr.
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Jonny

08/28/2011 03:27 PM

Makes me sick, just like treating MLK as some kind of hero.
brinniewales

08/28/2011 12:14 AM

Absolutely nuts! Even at a savings of $8 million, why in the world would Chinese stone be chosen over American stone for a monument in our nation's capital? Apparently, the good old boys at the college fraternity and the fundraisers were not quite vocal enough about their endeavor because there are millions of Americans who would have donated a dollar or two to offset the difference between using Chinese material and "grown in the USA" material for the carving of Dr. King's memorial. Even school students across American could have raised the difference. We see collection boxes in supermarkets and drug stores asking for our donations for a variety of causes. We could raise more money by children for simple causes than was raised to honor a man who changed the scope and ideals of America. What an embarrassment for the United States. Who was asleep at the wheel? Where were those donation boxes? Sad sit