[1] Lei first found work in a publishing company as a draughtsman, but was spotted by a local government official, who asked and encouraged him to build monuments.

Lei won top prizes in national competitions three consecutive years, and was recognized as a master sculptor, which came with a lifetime stipend from the Chinese government.

According to Agence France-Presse, it was only by chance that memorial organizers found Lei when they visited an international granite-carving festival in the American state of Minnesota.

[7] Ed Jackson, the executive architect at the MLK Foundation, was immediately impressed by Lei's sculpture Contemplation[8] at the "Minnesota Rocks!

Symposium" in June 2006,[9] and in 2007 Lei was named head sculptor for the Stone of Hope at the Martin Luther King Jr.

Later criticism by poet Maya Angelou, The Washington Post, and others caused a reassessment of that decision, and the entire quote was removed in August 2013.

Some reviewers criticized the King statue on the basis of Lei's earlier work making representations of Mao Zedong, of which they disapproved.