Dana King (born March 7, 1960)
is an American
broadcast journalist and
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
. She served as an anchor for the CBS owned-and-operated station
KPIX-TV
KPIX-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's CBS network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
. In 2012, King left KPIX to pursue her passion in sculpting and art. Her outdoor sculpture commemorating the
Montgomery bus boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States ...
is displayed at the
National Memorial for Peace and Justice in
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County, Alabama, Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, coas ...
. King uses historically generalized and racist ideas that requires indepth researches, to provide information on the normative misrepresentation of Black peoples' emotional and physical sacrifices.
Journalism career
King won her second of five
local Emmy Awards for her reporting in Honduras in 1998 and 2000, reporting on the consequences of
Hurricane Mitch
Hurricane Mitch is the second-deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, causing over 11,000 fatalities in Central America in 1998, including approximately 7,000 in Honduras and 3,800 in Nicaragua due to cataclysmic flooding from the slow motion ...
.
[ King also won an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award in March 2005 for her reporting on the tenth anniversary of the ]Rwandan genocide
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu ...
. She won another Murrow Award in 2009 for a series called "Assignment Africa."[ She is also known for her coverage of the conflict in Afghanistan, and the ]September 11 Attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
.
In 1993, King co-anchored the debut of ABC's ''Good Morning America Sunday'', before moving to CBS's ''CBS Morning News
The ''CBS Morning News'' is an American early-morning news broadcast presented weekdays on the CBS television network. The program features late-breaking news stories, national weather forecasts and sports highlights. Since 2013, it has been anc ...
'' (1994–95) and other CBS News programs.
Art career
King announced her departure as a news anchor for CBS San Francisco on December 7, 2012. Although this departure allowed King more free time to pursue her art career, she initially began her career while simultaneously working as a news anchor for KPIX-TV (CBS 5). In the time following her departure, King planned to pursue her passion for art and sculpting. King regarded sculpting to be her "third career," explaining art and sculpture to be her passion and true calling. King's art includes the mediums of sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
, charcoal drawing, and oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...
. Furthermore, King explains her departure from journalism, saying, "I'm still a journalist, but now my medium is clay."
Throughout her art career, King is known for her sculptures and community projects that revolve around the goal of portraying a political message. One of King's best known sculptures is her outdoor sculpture dedicated to the memory of the women who led and sustained the Montgomery bus boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States ...
. This sculpture is on display at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that opened in 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County, Alabama, Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, coas ...
. This sculpture depicts a teacher, grandma, and pregnant woman who are standing in a triangular formation. Furthermore, King utilized her knowledge gained through journalism to portray these women as if they were from 1950s Alabama. This sculpture of women, according to King, was meant to portray how the women involved were "quiet activists" who were silently making a difference although faced with discrimination. She was recognized as one of "10 Emerging Black Female Artists To Collect" by ''Black Art in America.'' King is also an entrepreneur and the owner of a thriving artists’ enclave located in Oakland, California.
King prefers sculptures because they inhabit space and according to her space is power. She believes sculpture provides an opportunity to shape culturally significant memories that determine how African descendants are publicly regarded and remembered. She believes that the African descendants deserve public monuments of truth that radiate their powerful, resilient, and undying endurance created from a Black aesthetic point of view.
On October 13, 2018 in Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...
, California, members of the Oakland community began the painting of a mural near a local homeless encampment with the theme "Oakland for all of us." This mural project was made possible by King who donated the space from the building she owns at East 12th Street and 13th Avenue. King donated the wall with the hope to bring the community together as well as bring awareness to political change. King explained, "Oakland is in the midst of an economic renaissance, but so many are being left behind."
In 2016, King created a sculpture, entitled ''A Man for the People'', dedicated to William Byron Rumford
William Byron Rumford (February 2, 1908 – June 12, 1986) was an American pharmacist and politician. He was the first African American elected to a state public office in Northern California.
Family background
Rumford was born in Courtland ...
, the first African American member of the California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento.
The ...
elected from Northern California, in 1948. The art piece was the first in Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...
to honor an African American.
A year after the statue
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
of Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who wrote the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Key observed the British bombardment ...
in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the developm ...
was toppled by protesters on June 19, 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...
, King unveiled '' Monumental Reckoning'', which now encircles the plinth of the empty monument. These 350 scuptures, each four feet (1.2 meters), represent the first Africans kidnapped from their homeland in Angola
, national_anthem = "Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordinat ...
and sold into chattel slavery in Virginia in 1619.
Works
* Chrysalis
* ''A Man for the People,'' Berkeley, California, a sculpture of Byron Rumford
* ''Archangel of the Forest,'' Thelma Harris Art Gallery, Oakland
* ''Waiting on the Wind,'' Thelma Harris Art Gallery, Oakland
* ''Monumental Reckoning,'' Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Dana
American television journalists
American women television journalists
Ferris State University alumni
Living people
1960 births
California Democrats
ABC News people
CBS News people
American sculptors
21st-century American women