The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has long been criticized for treating King’s legacy as a private cash machine. The family members have been routinely seen in court fighting over money and suing others to give them a cut of any use of his name or likeness. Now, in a positively outrageous act, the King family is demanding $800,000 for the right of a foundation to use King’s image and words for a monument on the National mall. The solution is simple: stop the monument. If any money is paid to the King family, it would be a public outrage.
It takes remarkable temerity and audacity to charge the public for honoring your father. Many have criticized the destruction of the open spaces on the mall by Congress, which is filling it with monuments of every kind. This money grab only adds to the controversy.
The memorial — including a 28-foot sculpture will carve King image out of a chunk of granite and is being paid for with money raised from public donations and is raised by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. T
What is particularly outrageous is that the foundation has already paid $761,160 in 2007 to Intellectual Properties Management Inc., an entity run by King’s family. That includes a “management” fee of $71,700 was paid to the family estate in 2003. The fact that the foundation has paid such money to IPM is an utter outrage. Even if it goes to the King Center, it is still pilfering donations and padding a public project.
I have always found the claims of the King family to own the images and words of MLK to be highly questionable.
It appears that donations to the King Center have been falling and the King family is trying to use this monument to make up the difference.
For the full story, click here.
Hello Dear, are you in fact visiting this web site daily, if so after that you will definitely take pleasant knowledge.
Its such as you read my mind! You appear to understand a lot about this, such as you wrote the guide in it or something. I think that you can do with some % to drive the message home a bit, but instead of that, that is magnificent blog. An excellent read. I will definitely be back.
“I have always found the claims of the King family to own the images and words of MLK to be highly questionable”
These peeps ain’t nothin’. You should get wise to the calims of the degenerate clot of psychopathic filth known loosely as the “Kennedy clan.”
This is an example of a good man leaving bad seed. He risked his life, which was taken from him. He was nonviolent but those that follow him are not. They are racist, in-your-face rude, money-grubbers and diahonor the memory of MLK.
Were he here today, he would be honored to be recognized and ashamed of the degradation in his blod line. 8/28 will see the delay of the memorial for him. I believe that, if there is a god, the hurricane was sent as a warning to the vultures.
Looks like the MLK family are all MONEY GUBBING DIRTBAGS. Fuck them!
Personally I dont have a problem with them requesting money for use of MLK’s likeness. If they own his papers and his image it is up to them how thye see fit to use them.
If it is legal then why not, they are his relatives and quite frankly if I was MLK I would certainly want my children and wife taken care of financialy. I believe we as a country owe a debt of gratitude to MLK and other blacks of his generation. They were treated terribly by whites of the day and the fact that it did not escalate into an all out race war is a reflection on Dr. Kings character and restraint.