Some exciting news for New England today as we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “The Embrace”, a monumental sculpture, will go up in October 2022 on Boston Common as a symbol of racial equality in the city where MLK Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King met.
Artnet reports: “Designed by artist Hank Willis Thomas with a team of architects from the MASS Design Group, the sculpture, destined for Boston Common, depicts two disembodied pairs of arms in a tender embrace—a gesture based on a photograph of the couple hugging (below) after Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The Kings, Thomas said in a statement when his design was chosen, are a ‘monumental [example] of the capacity of love to shape society.’ Led by King Boston, a private nonprofit committed to furthering the legacy of the couple, the project has been in the works since 2016.”
WCVB reports: “Dr. King served as an assistant minister at the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood from 1951 to 1954 while he was pursuing his Ph.D at Boston University’s School of Theology. Coretta Scott King was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music when she met her future husband on a blind date in 1951. The pair quickly fell in love and were married in 1953. … In 1954, the Kings moved to Montgomery, Alabama, but Clennon King says their time in Boston was monumental to the launch of the civil rights movement.”
