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As tourists queue up for their first shots with the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. at the new memorial to the slain civil rights leader, many are asking why a Chinese sculptor was hired to do the statue instead of an American. (Getty Images)

King Would 'Turn Over in Grave' at Made-in-China Statue
Tuesday, 23 Aug 2011 12:10 PM

By Jim Meyers

The Martin Luther King Memorial was opened to the public on Monday to much fanfare, but one fact was largely overlooked amid the hoopla: The 30-foot statue of King was made in China.

The statue forms the centerpiece of a $120 million, four-acre memorial to the slain civil rights leader on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The statue, which will be dedicated Sunday, shows King emerging from a mountain of Chinese granite with his arms crossed.

Lei Yixin, a master sculptor from Changsha, China, was commissioned 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,” The Telegraph reported.

Lei, who has carved two statues of Mao Tse-tung, carried out almost all the work in Changsha. Then more than 150 granite blocks were shipped to Baltimore and reassembled by a team of 100 workers, including 10 Chinese stone masons brought over for the project.

Ed Dwight, a sculptor in Denver, told The Telegraph that King would be “turning over in his grave” if he knew his statue had been sculpted by an artist living under a communist regime.

Lei also has prepared a bronze bust of Barack Obama that he intends to give the president as a gift.

(08-24-2011, 10:28 AM)Albert Hidel Wrote: James Earl Ray may have beaten them to it.

Quote:For their annual Martin Luther King Day celebration in 2002, the people of Lauderhill, Florida, invited deep-voiced actor James Earl Jones to be their featured speaker. Wanting to provide their guest with a special gift, members of the city’s Martin Luther King task force turned to local promotions company AdPro Specialties, who in turn contracted with Merit Industries of Georgetown, Texas, to produce a plaque with an inscription thanking Jones set amidst a display of several USPS "Black Heritage" postage stamps depicting prominent African-Americans, headed by one of King himself. Merit faxed AdPro a list of 15 African-American stamps to choose from and a rough sketch of what the finished product would look like; all AdPro had to do was choose which stamps they wanted displayed on the plaque. Or so they thought.

Four days before the celebration, Lauderhill officials received their plaque and were horrified to discover that it bore an inscription thanking James Earl Ray for "keeping the dream alive"--not James Earl Jones, but James Earl Ray, the man who pleaded guilty to assassinating the renowned civil rights leader at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. ...