OPEN LETTER MLK SPONSORS

"IF I COULD HAVE CONVINCED MORE SLAVES THAT THEY WERE SLAVES, I COULD HAVE FREED THOUSANDS MORE" Harriet Tubman

Please copy and email page to MLK Sponsors listed below and your local newspaper, radio station and friends!

King Is Ours
Please help us to Overturn these two Tragic decisions that the MLK foundation has made by selecting the Roma Group as the architectual firm and Lei Yixin the sculptor . Our goal is not to stop the memorial but to reverse those decisions that exclude the Black community from Full participation and the Artistry of the Black community.

Gilbert Young

Major Donors: General Motors, Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation, The Ford Motor Company Fund, Toyota, Procter & Gamble Fannie Mae Foundation, AFLAC, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, Horowitz Family Foundation, Federated Department Stores Foundation, BellSouth, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Delta Airlines Foundation, The Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr

An Open Letter

To Sponsors & Donors for the Monument to
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the greatest men in history said if a man is not willing to die for something he is not fit to live.
I believe that to be true.

In today’s society, standing up for a belief—especially if it seems politically incorrect—can be the same as dying.

I know that to be true.

And still, I’m willing to yell at the top of my lungs my disgust at the decision made by the King Memorial Foundation to choose the artist Lei Yixin to sculpt the image of Martin Luther King Jr., for the first ever national memorial to an African American man.

Obviously there were many who could not see, or chose to ignore, the travesty of justice of having the “national treasure of China,”—that’s Communist China—sculpt the center piece of the most important African American monument, in recognition of the most important African American movement in the history of the United States; a movement that never could have taken place in China.

You best believe, there is not ONE national memorial, not ONE monument to a leader or historical event in China, Russia, France, Italy, India, Germany—go ahead and name them all—that has the name of an African American artist engraved in its base. It’s probably not that they don’t like us or appreciate our abilities. It’s that a commission of such importance is a legacy for a country and its countrymen. Why should the King Monument be any different?

Here was the opportunity for a national monument to a Black man in Washington D.C., to be created, developed, designed, and executed by the best that African America arts and culture and development has to offer, a testament to all our own achievements as Black people who benefited from the Civil Rights Movement.

There won’t be a second chance to make our first impression.
Yet once again our worth is kicked to the curb.

We the people are calling upon you the Sponsors and Donors to withhold your support and donations to the monument until decisions that were made are overturned.

Lei Yixin is politics, and politics was not King’s way. More importantly, politics should not be allowed to sell the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the historic impact of the Civil Rights movement to China.

It is true, Dr. King came to belong to the world—his work, his words, and his stance were international in scope—as were those of Gandhi, his mentor. But all you need to do is watch the films, and look at the photographs that show what was going on in African America that prompted King to become who he became. The images of “White Only” signs on drinking fountains and movie houses; scores of people marching and protesting bigotry, prejudice, Jim Crow, and segregation, those pictures were captured just over 40 years ago! Look again at the black men hanging from trees lit by Klan fires; the bodies pulled from rivers. See the young black men and women and children being hosed in their faces, bitten by dogs and dragged through the streets by police. Watch them carry the bodies of four little girls out of the Church basement.

King’s message became universal because only the truly ignorant would not accept and acknowledge that all men are created equal and deserve to be respected and allowed the right to freedoms promised by the Constitution of these United States.

But King’s message didn’t reach everyone, and everyone was not for King.

He was killed for speaking up for black people.

And at this time, we are fighting for the right to interpret and present our own historic proclamation in this first ever national monument to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We as African Americans have a right to depict the life and legacy of one of our most beloved leaders as WE saw him.

We ask that you support our movement to see African American history and
African American culture and heritage preserved
By African Americans.

Gilbert Young
And many, many more…

www.kingisours.com
gilbertyoung@kingisours.com

Our goal is 1,000,000 signatures - please sign here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/131480161

Once you have signed, you can help even more by asking your friends and family to sign as well.

Thank you!

Gilbert Young
Lea Winfrey Young