From the Publisher's Desk

By Curmilus Dancy II

May 25, 2007 8:57 PM | Link to this

Here we go again.

Well, the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is back on its pedestal so the park bearing his name is complete.

Complete? Complete in whose eyes? Those like you who do not and probably will not ever use the park.

I’m satisfied that the council made the right decision.

But it is not you who should be satisfied. The satisfaction should come from within the majority of those interested who are concerned about the park and the statue.

The sculpture was bought and paid for; it certainly did no good gathering dust in a warehouse.

WE agree however when the statue came down it was of the opinion of most folks that the same statue would never be re-erected. If you check the record (minutes), you will find out what the process was suppose to be after the statue had been removed.

It would have been a waste of money to replace it.

There have been change orders done by the city to correct errors or dislikes that have cost more than the $55,000 statue. If black folks had been involved with his appearance and not just his dress attire and his stance, I feel the problem would never have occurred.

For people who don’t like the statue because they think it doesn’t look like King, get over it. We know it does not look like him and, we will not just get over it. We will live with it and also deal with it.

I never met Dr. King so my image of him is based on the black and white film clip of his famous speech and one or two different photos in the Associated Press file that accompany stories about him.

The image of him should have been taken from a picture and not of how you, Blome or anyone else sees him unless that is what had been agreed upon. We were not waiting for a statue to be erected in the park that was based on someone’s creative image and we don’t think anyone was looking forward to a creative image of him but a true image from a picture.

It might be correct to say that the statue doesn’t look exactly like those pictures but it’s wrong to say that it doesn’t look like the man himself.

I never met George Washington either so I don’t know that his visage on the dollar bill is exact, I just accept it.

And that is your opinion however, what a bad example because who cares who is on money as long as it is real. We dare you to compare an image of a man on a dollar bill to a statue in a black park.

Rocky Mount should do the same with our statue of King.

Here we go again a white male telling us what we should accept. It is sad that white folks like you try to choose our living black leaders and now you want to choose how our black leaders should look when they die.

The artist, Erik Blome, is nationally known and has beautifully sculpted another African-American of great stature, Rosa Parks.

He spends time in Ethiopia helping orphaned children. His heart is in the right place.

Sir that is fine however some of us spend time in Rocky Mount and across North Carolina helping children. We feel our heart is in the right place also but still that has nothing to do with the statue.

This problem is solved. Let�s get on to something else.

No sir the problem is not solved and we will deal with the issue that arouse on Monday May 14. Sir the statue is just a small part of the issue at hand because the real issue is how the statue was re-erected. You see sir, our problem as citizens of Edgecombe County along with Councilmen Reuben Blackwell and Andre Knight is the process.

Sir you see a black female, Mae Parker, approached the City Council during the public comments and stated she had a petition and no council members viewed the document which ended up being a flyer about an event that took place on Saturday, May 26 in the Dr. King Park. The problem, sir, is that this is the first time that the council has responded to a citizen during public comments by taking an action (voting) on the spot instead of referring it to staff and/or without the whole community being able to respond.

Sir, it is so funny how Councilman Lamont Wiggins was responsible for removing the statue and now he is responsible for re-erecting it and his comments after the meeting had adjourned on Monday, May 14 that I have documented on audio do not justify his stand in our opinion. What it does justify is that maybe the motive is he wants to be mayor since he has announced that he is interested in becoming the mayor of Rocky Mount.

Curmilus Dancy II Dancy Communications Network http://www.thepoliticalagitator.com

By ken pledger

June 1, 2007 6:03 AM | Link to this

Okay, Rip, one of your comments re: the Martin Luther King statue points to exactly some of the complaints from the black community. I agree—use the statue as a symbol for the park and move on (unless others can fund, find, or get a more suitable replacement)— and let the ‘issue’ go away. Perhaps now the city can move on and work on ‘real’ issues.

Back to your comment?? Most of us have never accepted that any symbol is okay even if it does not look anything like the person it is intended to portray. My first thought back then… and even now— is: that statue looks nothing at all like Martin Luther King. And yes, Rip, there should have been some similarity. That statue could be any black man out there; in fact, it looks to me like it could be any white man out there with a little bit of dark color added.

While you are correct that we need to move on, you are wrong that the statue is in any way similar to Dr. King. The sculptor did a disservice to Dr. King and to our city by portraying King in the image of his own mind rather than trying to get closer to Dr. King’s likeness. Although it will be a good symbol for the Park and represent Dr. King’s works—-no, the statue looks nothing like Dr. King. And although you could care less about having accurate history—there are many who do in fact care for making history correct.

PS: blog about issues of the day. Since you decided to silence the community and your readers using the online forum—- it might be a great idea if you started using your ‘blog’ as blogs are intended — to have more topics put up for discussion on a more frequent basis than once every two months…

By Jack Schittt

June 1, 2007 9:06 PM | Link to this

Your blog and comments are as bland as cardboard. Since you silenced Rocky Mount with closing of the forum I don’t think you could post anything on here that would be worthwhile.

By Jack Schittt

June 7, 2007 11:03 PM | Link to this

This whole page is a joke. The forum was closed because it addressed issues unlike the weak minded Telegram.

Editor’s note: No it wasn’t. It was taken down because some participants enjoyed trading personal insults rather than limiting their comments to issues. Trash talk is just that—worthless.