Posted on 08/27/2011 5:06:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
It is one of the enduring mysteries of American history — so near-providential as to give the most hardened atheist pause — that it should have produced, at every hinge point, great men who matched the moment.
A roiling, revolutionary 18th-century British colony gives birth to the greatest cohort of political thinkers ever: Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Jay. The crisis of the 19th century brings forth Lincoln; the 20th, FDR.
Equally miraculous is Martin Luther King Jr. Black America's righteous revolt against a century of post-emancipation oppression could have gone in many bitter and destructive directions. It did not.
This was largely the work of one man's leadership, moral imagination and strategic genius. He turned his own deeply Christian belief that "unearned suffering is redemptive" into a creed of nonviolence that he carved into America's political consciousness. The result was not just racial liberation but national redemption.
Such an achievement, such a life, deserves a monument alongside the other miracles of our history — Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR — which is precisely where stands the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial: adjacent to Roosevelt's seven acres, directly across from Jefferson's temple and bisecting the invisible cartographic line connecting the memorials for Jefferson and Lincoln, authors of America's first two births of freedom, whose promises awaited fulfillment by King.
The new King memorial has its flaws, most notably its much-debated central element, the massive 30-foot stone carving of a standing, arms crossed, somewhat stern King. The criticism has centered on origins: The statue was made in China by a Chinese artist.
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“Equally miraculous is Martin Luther King Jr. Black America’s righteous revolt against a century of post-emancipation oppression could have gone in many bitter and destructive directions. It did not.”
Some would disagree with this assessment.
When will it end?
It’s all too fitting that a Chinese man made his statue.
so they built the monument of chinese granate in China, by Chinese!
how appropriate for a Marxist
Oh, but _this_ monument embodies everything he opposed.
So you're sayin he was a Marxist Republican.
Once everyone’s moved and empowered (or powerized), can people do something useful like learn to read, get married, and get jobs? If we put up a memorial to a rejected ideal, does it make a noise?
The statue depicts him angry and holding a rolled up newspaper. It is missing a companion piece - that of his dog crapping on the carpet.
Too bad his modern young people of flash mob mentality don’t possess his character. Then again neither do the majority politicians in DC posess the values of the founders either. Therefore its not about race but content of character as MLK stated. To call the TEA Party racists is a lie from hell since content of character issues apply across the spectrum in DC.
It's an eyesore, a huge statue that well reflects its communist origins, and is entirely out-of-place with the other memorials on the National Mall.
Charles Krauthammer: now a major art critic. Gee whiz, is there anything this guy doesn’t know?
Even the New York Times yesterday gave the memorial a pan.
It is a gigantic horror - much, much taller than the Jefferson memorial with an angry-looking, autocratic figure at its center. I didn’t even recognize MLK when I first saw it.
The original artist hates it; I believe a Chinese national completed it.
right now we have socialist Republicans all over the place like Mitt Romney who was the architect of zer0bama care with his Massachusetts health care .....(I love the term Obamneycare)
soooo, whats yer point?
It looks like a statue of some Communist dictator in style.
Since MLK is represented as an autocratic figure in the memorial, maybe the Chinese guy was channeling Mao.
Could have? As opposed to what we have now? WTH are you talking about. Take a look around. Current America is a multicultural disaster and is only going to get worse.
Seems like every city I’ve gone to and see a street called MLK Blvd, it’s always the most trashed, graffiti filled, stores with windows with bars, no shopping, housing developements. Why is this?
It’s ugly and mean looking and inspires meanness in those that idolize him.
More Flash Mobs, rioting and self destruction to follow.
Better to have a statue of Rodney King with his ‘get along’ quote.
Next thing you know, we’ll have a statue of Jeremiah Wright alongside this monstrosity.
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