The 22ft-tall, 19-ton bronze sculpture unveiled last Friday in Boston, The Embrace, depicts two pairs of arms wrapped in a hug: those of Martin Luther King Jr and his wife, Coretta Scott King. It’s a detail pulled from a famous photo of the couple embracing – and to the artist, Hank Willis Thomas, a representation of how their love catalyzed a mass movement that changed the world.
The sculpture was installed near where King led 22,000 people at a 1965 Freedom Rally – on land that was once part of a black neighborhood, now gone, that had been one of the oldest in the country. The significance wasn’t lost on guests at the unveiling, who included participants in the civil rights movement, some nearly 100 years old. Many onlookers were in tears, organizers say. And the piece drew praise from the Kings’ son Martin Luther King III, who told CNN that the “artist did a great job”.
