A monumental insult to Dr. King
But some critics have asked a pretty basic question: Was there no American sculptor, especially an African-American sculptor, who was capable of sculpting a statue of Dr. King?
Apparently not, at least according to the people who did the selection. What’s more, even though hundreds of thousands of experienced - - and unionized - - American construction workers are currently unemployed, did we really need to bring in workers from China to put the sculpture together?
Yes, Edward Jackson Jr., the executive architect of the project, recently told Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post. “Not only did we need an artist, we needed someone with the means and methods of putting those large stones together,” Jackson said. “We don’t do this in America. We don’t handle stones of this size.”