But a memorial to Martin Luther King? If you want to put up a statue to memorialize Martin Luther King - on the National Mall, no less, you have to pay, too - to the family of MLK, $800,000, to use his likeness!
According to Wikipedia, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (of which King had been a member) had been trying since 1968 to get a memorial to King put on the Mall. But they had to raise a boatload of money to do so - and they got help from Bill and Melinda Gates, Walt Disney Company, National Association of Realtors, and filmmaker George Lucas. In addition, $10 million in *matching funds* was given by the US Congress (i.e. the Congress giving our money to the foundation to make this happen.)
One set of folks who did not give were the people of the MLK foundation. They did not pay anything to help bring the memorial to fruition. Instead, they received $800,000 as a licensing fee to use MLKs likeness and his words!
In 2001, the foundation's efforts to build the memorial were stalled because Intellectual Properties Management Inc., an organization operated by King's family, wanted the foundation to pay licensing fees to use his name and likeness in marketing campaigns. The memorial's foundation, beset by delays and a languid pace of donations, stated that "the last thing it needs is to pay an onerous fee to the King family."
Joseph Lowery, past president of the King-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference stated in the The Washington Post, "If nobody's going to make money off of it, why should anyone get a fee?"
Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of King, said of King's family's behavior, "One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny." He added that King would have been "absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children." The family pledged that any money derived would go back to the King Center's charitable efforts.
The foundation has paid various fees to the King family's Intellectual Properties Management Inc., including a management fee of $71,700 in 2003. In 2009, the Associated Press revealed that the King family had negotiated an $800,000 licensing deal with the foundation for the use of King's words and image in fundraising materials for the memorial.
Talk abut greedy! (I would like to see if any of this money went to the King Center's "charitable efforts." Somehow I doubt it.)
But then, at the grand opening today, various members of the King Family got up and supported not only Obama - which is perhaps to be expected - but also the Occupy Wall Streeters - those folks who are upset at what they perceive as Wall Street Gougers. I'm thinking these King family members are hypocrites - let them give back the $800,000 they gouged out of the MLK statue folks!
(I just took a look at the The King Center website. http://www.thekingcenter.org/ There's a tab on the right hand side...Make a Donation. You'd think after getting $800,000 from the MLK memorial foundation, that they wouldn't need to ask for any more money....)
(And I just took a look at the website for the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx. No "Donate here" tab anywhere to be found. They make money - and then give their own money to charities.
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