So in thinking about that, they felt the best way to have people of color visit was to have a person of color on the Mall. Johnson Sr.: They thought we needed to have more people of color visit the National Mall. But a national monument? How did the fraternity brothers arrive at it? Excerpts:Ĭorey Dade: Plenty of big ideas have come from "kitchen cabinet" pow-wows - or from a dining table, in this case. Johnson Sr., president and CEO of the MLK Project Foundation and a former president of the fraternity. "I suppose we could beat our chests, but this was truly a total family effort from all our brothers and from the Divine Nine - the other black Greek organizations," Mason says.įor more details about the memorial and the role of Alpha Phi Alpha, we spoke with Harry S. They also put aside the age-old rivalries with fellow black fraternities and sororities to raise a total of about $1 million from those groups. When their building permit was held up, they helped secure a $12.5 million letter of credit from Wal-Mart to break ground. And when fundraising was at a trickle in the early 2000s (with only about $2 million collected solely from fraternity members), they devised a strategy that extracted commitments from many of the top U.S. They calmed anger over the selection of Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, against demands that an African-American be given the job. The project was denied its first choice of location, until Alphas in Congress "applied political pressure," he says, to reverse the decision and allow the memorial at the Tidal Basin. Mason said they helped clear a number of obstacles along the way - and there were plenty. Don't see this as an African-American project.
0 kommentar(er)
