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This bust of Dr. Sun Yat-sen was presented to the town of Locke, California buy the Zhongshan Municipal People's Government of China in 2011.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Locke was California's largest rural China Town. Many of the Chinese living in the Delta of the Sacramento River came from the Pearl River Delta in China and felt a very strong connection to Sun Yat-sen, who was born there too.
Sun Yat-sen visited the Sacramento River Delta twice in 1909 and 1910. In 1915, the local chapter of his party, the Chinese Nationalist Party, built a meeting hall in Locke. From 1926 to 1985, the building was used as a Chinese School. Today, it is a museum celebrating Chinese heritage in the Sacramento River Delta.
Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) was born in what is now Zhongshan City, China. He is widely considered the the "Father of Modern China." He was crucial in starting the revolution to overthrow the decrepit Qing Dynasty and he was the primary political leader who planned for a modern China with his "Three People’s Principles," nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood, which became the ideological foundation for the Nationalist Party, which he co-founded.
It is only fitting that Locke, the only rural Chinese town left in America, built by the Chinese for the Chinese, commemorates Sun Yat-sen with a bust.
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