More Heat for MLK Memorial Decisions

Some more news on the controversial Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial soon to be up in DC, this time more locally focused. According to this article from the Times Argus in the Montpelier/Barre, Vermont area, the city’s mayor made a special trip to meet with the architect behind the statue, trying to convince him to get their granite from the US (Vermont in particular). This is relevant because it’s possibly the first step to bringing up part two of the controversy. The first was that Lei Yixin, a sculptor from China, was hired to design the memorial, which got people’s goats. Now this new sticking point is that they’re also looking to get the granite to build it from China too, hence the mayor’s meeting. But it doesn’t sound like it did much good in the end and thus, the factions against this have more to complain about:

A grassroots group has organized to protest the outsourcing of much of the monument’s production, including the use of a Chinese artist to sculpt the civil rights leader and Chinese granite for the project.

[Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon] said [Executive Architect Dr. Ed Jackson Jr.] was aware of the protest, but didn’t know if any decisions would be changed as a result.

“It remains to be seen,” he said.

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