Viacom Gives $1.5M for King Memorial
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WASHINGTON — Viacom Inc., which owns BET and MTV, announced a donation yesterday valued at $1.5 million to help build a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall.
Viacom pledged $1 million in cash plus promotions for the memorial that will include public-service announcements across the company’s networks and its billboards in New York’s Times Square, Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman said.
In response, the foundation working to build the memorial named Viacom the title sponsor for the musical benefit Dream Concert scheduled for September 18 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
The benefit concert will feature such headliners as Garth Brooks, Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, and Stevie Wonder. Tickets range between $250 and $1,000.
The memorial will be built near the Tidal Basin between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. It will include a sculpture of King and 14 quotations from the civil rights leader and Nobel laureate. The project had been scheduled for completion in late 2008 but likely will be pushed back until 2009 because of delays with the design process, said Harry Johnson, president and CEO of the Martin Luther King National Memorial Project Foundation Inc. The foundation has raised $82 million of the $100 million needed to complete and maintain the memorial, Mr. Johnson said.
The Houston attorney has been fending off criticism recently over the group’s selection of a Chinese sculptor for the statue of King. Some have said a black artist should have been chosen to sculpt the first monument to a black leader on the National Mall.
In February, the memorial foundation announced Lei Yixin, one of nine sculptors considered national treasures in China, would carve King’s likeness in the memorial’s 28-foot granite “Stone of Hope.”
Since then, one group has drafted a petition and started a Web site called “King Is Ours,” calling the selection a “travesty of justice.”
“For us, with an African-American driven project, for us to then say we shouldn’t use somebody because of the color of their skin and not the content of their character … to me that’s a very bigoted thought, which really goes against, in my viewpoint, what Dr. King stood for,” Mr. Johnson said.
