A memorial to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King planned for the Boston Common has received unanimous approval from the Boston Landmarks Commission.
Imari Paris Jeffries, executive director of King Boston told GBH News that it was especially fitting for approval of the sculpture called The Embrace — the first new construction on the Common in 30 years he says — to take place Tuesday night, one year after the murder of George Floyd.
“There's been this emergence of momentum around what it means to be an inclusive city,” Paris Jeffries said. “And I think The Embrace is a part of that momentum. I think we've been experiencing this since 2013 slowly. And I think the death of Mr. Floyd amplified and illuminated that there was no more time to waste and that we all needed to act.”
Paris Jeffries said his privately-funded organization called the foundry in Washington state that will fabricate the 20-foot-high, multi-ton bronze sculpture on Wednesday to tell them to start work.
The Embrace will be one of the country’s largest memorials dedicated to racial equity when installation is complete in October 2022, according to King Boston.
Paris Jeffries said after a 17-month fabrication period, it will take four to six semi trucks to drive the huge sculpture in pieces some 3000 miles.
“There'll be a crane, and special riveters and design welders will be on site to put it together,” said Paris Jeffries. “And so we're partnering with the city around the construction of the plaza [where sculpture will be installed]. Most of that will be done, and then these trucks will come in and carefully place The Embrace and put it together like a big puzzle piece.”
The civil rights leader and first met his future wife in Boston in the early 1950s, when he was a doctoral student in theology at Boston University and she was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music.
The $9.5 million sculpture, consisting of four intertwined arms, was inspired by a photo of the Kings embracing when MLK learned he had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
It will be installed on the Boston Common not far from where King led a rally and march in 1965.
Because the Common is considered a landmark, the project needed the approval of the commission.
The sculpture was designed by Hank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group and was selected out of 126 proposals. It will be made offsite and brought to Boston next year.
The organization is also raising money to build what it describes as an economic justice center in the city's historically Black neighborhood where MLK preached.
“I don't think by itself The Embrace has the power to change anything," said Paris Jeffries. “I think it is a force of affirmation; and I think it's a force of re-energizing this momentum that's already in place.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
