Controversy About Martin Luther King Jr Statue In Boston
- A memorial for Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King was unveiled in Boston and it has received mixed responses.
- The statue is called “The Embrace” and is 20 feet tall and 40 feet wide.
- Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah criticized the statue dedicated to the Kings and said it “reduced” them to “body parts”.
The Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King monument was in Boston
On Friday, the city of Boston unveiled a brand-new sculpture to serve as a tribute to Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. The 22-foot statue has received a rather varied response, ranging from applause to downright jeers.
‘The Embrace’ is the name of the monument by artist Hank Willis Thomas, and it honors the bond between the Kings. It was notably influenced by a 1964 photo of the pair cuddling up after King was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The artist stressed that a physical embrace also provided a sense of spiritual and emotional security when his art revealed as a finalist in 2018. A total of almost 600 pieces came together to create the 19-ton bronze sculpture. A diamond-shaped stone border surrounds the plaza below the statue, evoking the African American quilting tradition.
Boston was a place that both Kings were quite familiar with since it was where they first met and started dating. With hopes of becoming an opera singer, Coretta Scott King began her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1951. That same year, the reverend also started her doctoral studies at nearby Boston University.
The response to the monument on social media
It is safe to say that many people hated the monument which reportedly cost around $10 million to complete. The Boston Herald columnist Rasheed N. Walters wrote on Twitter:
“Given that I am not White, I am safe from ANY charges of racism for saying the MLK embrace statue is aesthetically unpleasant. The famous photo should have been a FULL statue of the couple and their embrace. What a huge swing and miss in honoring the Dr & Mrs King. SAD!”
The Daily Wire columnist Michael Knowles tweeted:
“And it’s grotesque in precisely the way that so much of modernity is grotesque: it forgets that men are supposed to have heads and chests.”
Former Republican state lawmaker Vernon Jones posted his thoughts:
“This is what liberal whites think of ML King & Coretta King and the Black community with this statue. Its disgusting. What an insult to everyone who believes in Dr King’s Dream.”
Read more: Martin Luther King’s perception 50 years on. Know his beliefs, last days and assassination
What did Martin Luther King’s family think about the statue?
Coretta King’s cousin Seneca Scott wrote an essay for the online journal Compact Mag criticizing the sculpture. According to her, it “looks more like a pair of hands hugging a beefy penis than a special moment shared by the iconic couple”.
Scott wrote:
“Ten million dollars were wasted to create a masturbatory metal homage to my legendary family members — one of the all-time greatest American families.”
He added:
“How could anyone fail to see that this was a major d**k move (pun intended) that brings very few, if any, tangible benefits to struggling black families?”
He continued:
“So now Boston has a big bronze penis statue that’s supposed to represent black love at its purest and most devotional. This is no accident. The woke algorithm is racist and classist.”
However, Martin Luther King’s son defended the monument. Regarding the sculpture, he said:
“I think that’s a huge representation of bringing people together. I think the artist did a great job. I’m satisfied.”
Moreover, he also told CNN even though it didn’t have his parents’ images, it represented something that brings people together. He said:
“And in this time, day and age, when there’s so much division, we need symbols that talk about bringing us together.”
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