The effigy of a black man, a son of Southern soil and descendant
of slaves, now stands over the nation’s Mall among its founding
fathers, notorious slave owner in front and the so-called Great
Emancipator to his back. Looking out over the placid Tidal Basin
with a steely-eyed reserve and chiseled determination, the
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, the first monument on
the Mall dedicated to a man of color, has whipped up yet another
tempest of protest. Besides the same types who did not and still
do not commemorate the life of this influential Civil Rights
leader on the third Monday of every January, other dissenters
have noted that the veined, confrontational depiction of the
Brother Preacher by the Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin does not
evoke the round docility associated with the open-armed love of
nonviolence. For them, the image goes against what they see as
King’s true legacy, while others see the statute as an
appropriate stance of well-grounded, stony defiance and pride.
Perhaps the best way to