Speaking Of The Man

For years, King's family has been accused of profiting off his name. This won't help:

 Nothing is too small for the family to ignore. Isaac Newton Farris, King's nephew and chief executive officer of the King Center in Atlanta, demanded payments for images showing President Obama and King on the same T-shirts. "We're not trying to stop anybody from legitimately supporting themselves," Farris said. "But we cannot allow our brand to be abused." It is hard to imagine King himself demanding payment from someone who wanted to put his image alongside that of the nation's first African American president.

In the latest monumental shakedown, the King family's Intellectual Properties Management Inc. was paid $761,160 by the nonprofit foundation raising money for the Washington memorial. This was on top of a "management" fee of $71,700 paid in 2003. The Kings have defended the payments by noting that donations to the foundation have been down because people were giving to the monument fund instead. The other possibility is that fewer people want to give to a foundation run by the King family.

Few people familiar with the family are shocked by their demands. What is shocking is the failure of the memorial foundation to call their bluff and simply stop work on the memorial. Foundation officials should have publicly announced the payment so that donors could think seriously about whether they want to contribute to such an outrageous arrangement. Instead, officials waited for the Associated Press to force the disclosure. Donors have complained that they were never told of the arrangement.