Posted on 09/06/2011 6:05:15 AM PDT by flowerplough
The builders of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial at the National Mall had to pay $761,160 for the right to use King's words and images, according to financial documents obtained by the Associated Press. The money went to Intellectual Properties Management Inc. -- a foundation controlled by King's youngest son, Dexter. Another $71,000 was paid out in a "management fee" to the family estate back in 2003.
I hope I'm not the only one who found the opening of this monument soured by what could be considered extortion. In any case, I'm especially ticked off, perhaps because I was an activist and organizer in the Southern freedom movement of the 1960s.
I cannot know this for sure, of course, but I doubt that the family of the murdered John F. Kennedy would charge a fee to a group organizing to place a memorial to him on the National Mall. As historian and King biographer David Garrow told the AP, "I don't think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family [or] any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington."
I agree with Garrow that King himself would be "absolutely scandalized" by this kind of pimping of his life and work. When it comes to King's books or published essays, no one would quarrel with the ownership rights of his descendants. But public speeches? His image? His name?
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
The King name etc. is the King family business.
they need to demand that $800,000 back and throw that garbage statue in the river.
Sarah is right...
It’s OUR money they pass around among themselves so freely...
King didn’t do a damn thing.
White people from Abraham Lincoln to Eisenhower to average Americans prevailed against other White people to change their ways.
Our thanks is 95% of the Black vote going to tear the whole country down.
Was it worth it?
King didn’t do a damn thing.
White people from Abraham Lincoln to Eisenhower to average Americans prevailed against other White people to change their ways.
Our thanks is 95% of the Black vote going to tear the whole country down.
Was it worth it?
“White people from Abraham Lincoln to Eisenhower to average Americans prevailed against other White people to change their ways.
Our thanks is 95% of the Black vote going to tear the whole country down.
“
Agreed. White Republicans people passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Democrats refused, yet, blacks vote Democrat. Proof that the 1920’s Democrat strategy of buying black votes using welfare works, even in the face of Democrat racism.
Martin Luther King Jr. was Jesse Jackson’s brother.
That crappy, made in China chunk of rock is a fitting memorial to a fraud.
I hate what liberal Democrats and race pimps, like King, have done to Negro families.
The farce, Hero of the Black people, MLK, is the creation of bleeding heart liberals, Democrats, and the liberal press. No different than what they are doing for Obama, this day, before our eyes.
The King family, get big bucks, for installing that thing is consistant with their father’s “ideals.”
lol
Enough of the damn kowtowing. All its done is destroy this country.
Fitting monument for such a loser/grifter family.
I suppose the copyright maximalists here at FR who think my calls to return to the terms of the Law of Queen Anne (14 years, extendible by the author or artist, not his estate, not his publisher, for another 14) instead of the current drag on the creation of derivative works (life of author plus 70) are outrageous will all see nothing wrong with this. After all, (according to them) copyright is a “property right” not a government-granted monopoly. King’s words are his heirs’ “property” and they have a right to collect revenues for their use.
Out-f'ing-rageous!
In Atlanta, the King family is known for only one thing: making bank off that Daddy and doing as little actual work as possible to make that happen.
When they found out that the Feds wanted to make a memorial in King’s honor they must have started suing each other wit’ a quickness!
I lived in Atlanta for 11 years (downtown) near the King Center. If you go there nothing is left on display - they sold all of it.
As I recall several years ago the King family was suing some tee shirt makers for using MLK images, in a favorable light, I might add. A greedy bunch hitchhiking on their father’s public work. As someone has said here...”pimping” is probably more correct. I’d say just forget MLK and his extended family.
Just in case any of you out there want to build a giant monument to me: NO CHARGE Be my guest have at it.
Maybe, just maybe, it will get hit by lightning and explode into tiny fragments.
I say this in all honesty: He looks like Mao Tse-tung.
Exactly my feelings as well. King and all the protests and marches, and blacks turn around and vote time and time again to oppress themselves. Here in NYC I see blacks all day long looking through the garbage for cans to redeem, and ones that are not druggies or alcoholics. They are just broke beyond belief. Yes, Democrats and Obama believe in change. Raising unemployment for blacks to 16% so they look through the garbage for change while the millionaires they voted for live it up. Someday they’ll wake up.
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