Decisions on MLK memorial raise debate
Last Modified: Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 1:06 a.m.
Work progresses on a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., while a Boiling Springs granite sculptor and supporters continue pushing for more American artists and sculptors to be involved.
Clint Button and Georgia artist Gilbert Young hope to persuade members of the National Memorial Project Foundation to get rid of the King sculpture made by an artist in China. They also want all of the granite for the $120 million monument to come from America instead of having pieces shipped from China.
Spartanburg African-American leaders are interested in the campaign because they have a bond with the slain civil rights leader. King preached one of his first sermons at the local Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in the late 1940s, and his uncle, the Rev. Joel L. King, was the pastor of that church.
“There are so many African-American artists who could have done the statue,” said City Councilwoman Linda Dogan. “I think it is absolutely justified to get American artists. When an artist does a work, they have to have an intimate knowledge of the subject. If they don’t, you will see it in the work.”
Dogan, an art major in college, said a good candidate for the project is South Carolina’s Mac Arthur Goodwin, who was instrumental in building the African-American History Monument on the grounds at the Statehouse in Columbia.
“I don’t understand where they (foundation members) are coming from,” Dogan said.
Rep. Harold Mitchell, D-Spartanburg, said the memorial is a worthwhile project, but doesn’t like the idea of sending work outside of the country when thousands of people are looking for work and the national unemployment rate is 9.7 percent.