April 19, 2009

Business Yummy For The ML King Fam

And that business is Daddy. He's been an excellent provider -- fork tender for decades and they've yet to get to that marrow!

The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has charged the foundation building a monument to the civil rights leader on the National Mall about $800,000 for the use of his words and image — an arrangement one leading scholar says King would have found offensive.

The memorial — including a 28-foot sculpture depicting King emerging from a chunk of granite — is being paid for almost entirely with private money in a fundraising campaign led by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. The monument will be turned over to the National Park Service once it is complete.

The foundation has been paying the King family for the use of his words and image in its fundraising materials. The family has not charged for the use of King's likeness in the monument itself.

"I don't think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family ... I don't think any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington," said Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of King. "One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny."

King would have been "absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children," Garrow said.

I know if anybody wanted to build a public memorial to my father, I certainly wouldn't charge them a licensing fee for the use of his words. They could inscribe "Shut the goddamn door" right on the base of the statue and I wouldn't charge them a cent.

Posted by floridacracker at April 19, 2009 04:33 PM

   


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Comments

I agree, Dr. King would not have been happy with the way his kids have been acting. Not just this stupid licensing of his image and words, but the way they fell out over how to manage the King Center, and againwhen their mother was sick. They have just really let him down. Here he worked for harmony among people and his own kids don't even speak to each other.

Posted by: Starla Darling at April 19, 2009 05:48 PM

Well ..for all the wonderfulness Martin (Michael) L. King was about, it befuddles me as to why he is glorified so.. Sure, he said some great things but
not everyone who has done so has been lauded to this point..
There is no holiday for Kennedy or Lincoln..

Hell, the FBI has a file on him that has been sealed.. Wonder how much the family would PAY to keep it that way.

And for what it's worth, 800k is cheapo city for use like this..and THAT I think is the hilarious part.

Didn't the Rolling Stones charge Bill Gates like 2 mill for the use of three notes ..and then never used them..?


Posted by: csason at April 20, 2009 09:10 AM

Why do we have one for Christopher Columbus at all? He never set foot on US soil, he stayed down int eh Caribbean and South America, though he thought he was in India. At least MLK really did say the things he's remembered for saying.
But you and me are forgetting the true purpose of creating federal holidays...to wring a three-day weekend out of them!
And we do have President's Day, to honor both Lincoln and Washington. It was just their bad luck to ahve their birthdays too close together so they have to share the honor.

Posted by: Starla Darling at April 20, 2009 09:54 AM

The times Dad told me to "Kiss his ass" is priceless.

Posted by: nancy at April 20, 2009 05:20 PM

He told me once to go fuck myself. Can't wait to put that in the eulogy.

Posted by: Donnah at April 20, 2009 05:49 PM

My stepfather once told me he didn't see how I managed to walk around loose without killing myself or starting a war or burning down half the town.
He said that after we had been working on the roof and I managed to nail his pants cuff along with a shingle. I guess I didn't help things by laughing like a hyena.
He also said he was going to start calling me Sunny, because I was "so all-fired got-damn bright!"
And this froma man who in better circumstances never has an unkind word for anybody.

Posted by: Starla Darling at April 20, 2009 06:24 PM

[Statue of my Dad's hand glancing off the back of my head] "You Simpleton."

Great line, in that he wasn't putting me down, but rather telling me I'm too smart for what I just did.

It's always awkward when the family of a public figure is trying to signal to us that 'he's just a guy' and we won't listen.

Posted by: CJ at April 21, 2009 02:19 PM