On this day in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of thirty-five for his non-violent resistance to racial prejudice in America. King Jr. was the youngest person to receive the award until that point. When he was notified of the selection, he announced he would donate the $54,123 in prize money to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. In the years 1957 through 1968, King traveled over six million miles speaking over twenty-five hundred times wherever there was injustice. In addition, he wrote five books, several articles, led a massive protest in Birmingham, was arrested over twenty times and gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C.
Since the Civil Rights Movement has ended, numerous exhibitions and museums have opened detailing the fight and the struggle for equal rights. 1220 was honored to work on the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The stories exhibited captivated and entranced us from personal accounts of protests to an actual Freedom Rides bus with audio recollections. In every exhibition you fabricate, you learn something new and this one was extra special throughout the whole process.
Our President, Matt, and receptionist, Joyce, got to assist in fabrication with Matt sitting for his face to be molded and Joyce has a cast figure of herself in the museum. On one day of her vacation, she took a trip to the museum and the staff immediately recognized her. She said they treated her like a queen!
The National Civil Rights Museum is a great place to visit and immerse yourself in the movement (and I’m not just saying that because we did it). The staff is wonderful, their stories and interactive material even better and everyone is thrilled with the result. Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud his legacy is living on and through others and his ideals echo still with the notion of equal rights for everyone regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender.
To see how our Scenic department creates cast figures with lifelike facial features, click below to watch Matt being casted.
