A community activist in Western New York wants to remove a "shameful" statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
WIVB-TV reports Samuel Herbert has gathered more than 6,000 signatures to replace an eight-foot bust of MLK in Buffalo's Martin Luther King Jr. Park. He says the statue, unveiled in 1983, doesn't look like the civil rights leader.
"We have allowed this distorted image to sit here for 35 years," he told the Buffalo TV station. "Our beef has never been with the sculptor, but the committee that approved this shameful image of a great American."
According to the Associated Press, the original artist said the bust was supposed to be a representation of MLK -- not a likeness.
"It wasn't like he attempted to create a likeness and then failed at that. He knew he was making a lightly abstracted work that would convey the dignity, strength and power of Martin Luther King, and the whole civil rights movement," Edmund Cardoni, executive director of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, told the Buffalo News earlier this year. "I loved it from the start. I still love it."
"Enough of the symbolism, we want realism," Herbert told WIVB on Monday.
Herbert, chairman of the Coalition To Save MLK Park, says he wants to get 10,000 signatures in person and on Change.org to start fundraising for a replacement statue by 2020. He says he's prepared to take the issue to court if necessary.
A potential replacement design has not been revealed. Lee Speight, a sculptor in North Carolina, has offered his own statue of MLK but Herbert told WIVB he wants Chinese artist Master Lei Yixin, who carved the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is unveiled at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, Monday, Aug. 22, 2011.
This isn't the first time a statue has raised controversy in Western New York.
A new likeness of Lucille Ball was unveiled in the "I Love Lucy" actress' hometown of Celoron in 2016 after years of online campaigns against the original, dubbed "Scary Lucy." Scary Lucy ended up getting moved to the National Comedy Center in nearby Jamestown.
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https://www.syracuse.com/state/2018/10/buffalo_martin_luther_king_jr_statue.html
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