• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
MENUMENU
MENUMENU
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • FlaglerLive Board of Directors
    • Comment Policy
    • Mission Statement
    • Our Values
  • Live Calendar
  • Submit Obituary
  • Submit an Event
  • Support FlaglerLive
  • Advertise on FlaglerLive (386) 503-3808
  • Search Results

FlaglerLive

No Bull, no Fluff, No Smudges

MENUMENU
  • Flagler
    • Flagler County Commission
    • Beverly Beach
    • Economic Development Council
    • Flagler History
    • Mondex/Daytona North
    • The Hammock
    • Tourist Development Council
  • Palm Coast
    • Palm Coast City Council
    • Palm Coast Crime
  • Bunnell
    • Bunnell City Commission
    • Bunnell Crime
  • Flagler Beach
    • Flagler Beach City Commission
    • Flagler Beach Crime
  • Cops/Courts
    • Circuit & County Court
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • Federal Courts
    • Flagler 911
    • Fire House
    • Flagler County Sheriff
    • Flagler Jail Bookings
    • Traffic Accidents
  • Rights & Liberties
    • Fourth Amendment
    • First Amendment
    • Privacy
    • Second Amendment
    • Seventh Amendment
    • Sixth Amendment
    • Sunshine Law
    • Third Amendment
    • Religion & Beliefs
    • Human Rights
    • Immigration
    • Labor Rights
    • 14th Amendment
    • Civil Rights
  • Schools
    • Adult Education
    • Belle Terre Elementary
    • Buddy Taylor Middle
    • Bunnell Elementary
    • Charter Schools
    • Daytona State College
    • Flagler County School Board
    • Flagler Palm Coast High School
    • Higher Education
    • Imagine School
    • Indian Trails Middle
    • Matanzas High School
    • Old Kings Elementary
    • Rymfire Elementary
    • Stetson University
    • Wadsworth Elementary
    • University of Florida/Florida State
  • Economy
    • Jobs & Unemployment
    • Business & Economy
    • Development & Sprawl
    • Leisure & Tourism
    • Local Business
    • Local Media
    • Real Estate & Development
    • Taxes
  • Commentary
    • The Conversation
    • Pierre Tristam
    • Diane Roberts
    • Guest Columns
    • Byblos
    • Editor's Blog
  • Culture
    • African American Cultural Society
    • Arts in Palm Coast & Flagler
    • Books
    • City Repertory Theatre
    • Flagler Auditorium
    • Flagler Playhouse
    • Flagler Youth Orchestra
    • Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra
    • Palm Coast Arts Foundation
    • Special Events
  • Elections 2022
    • Amendments and Referendums
    • Presidential Election
    • Campaign Finance
    • City Elections
    • Congressional
    • Constitutionals
    • Courts
    • Governor
    • Polls
    • Voting Rights
  • Florida
    • Federal Politics
    • Florida History
    • Florida Legislature
    • Florida Legislature
    • Ron DeSantis
  • Health & Society
    • Flagler County Health Department
    • Ask the Doctor Column
    • Health Care
    • Health Care Business
    • Covid-19
    • Children and Families
    • Medicaid and Medicare
    • Mental Health
    • Poverty
    • Violence
  • All Else
    • Daily Briefing
    • Americana
    • Obituaries
    • News Briefs
    • Weather and Climate
    • Wildlife

Why the Bitter Reaction to the Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr. Sculpture?

March 24, 2023 | FlaglerLive | 6 Comments

The Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr. memorial sculpture at Boston Common is called ‘The Embrace.’
The Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr. memorial sculpture at Boston Common is called ‘The Embrace.’ (Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

By Kristin Ann Hass

  • grand living realty

As an acclaimed photographer and conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas has grown accustomed to criticisms of his unconventional art and concepts of identity.




But even Thomas had never experienced anything like the reaction to his latest sculpture, designed to commemorate the lives of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr., two of the most revered civil rights leaders in modern American history.

Unveiled in January 2023, the two sets of 20-foot-tall bronze arms appear floating in air and are embracing. Those who visit the statue in Boston can also walk underneath it into the space between the Kings’ arms.

It was in Boston after all, that the two met and fell in love.

Despite the intended show of mutual affection between the Kings, many of the tweets shared on national news feeds after the unveiling were crude and misinterpreted arms for other body parts.

Tweeters decried: “Disrespectful,” “Obscene,” “Phallic,” “Gross” and “Insulting.”

In the online magazine Compact, Seneca Scott, a labor union activist and cousin of Coretta Scott King, depicted the sculpture, titled “The Embrace,” as a “masturbatory metal homage to my legendary family members” and an insult to Black people everywhere.

As a scholar of visual culture, public memorials and race, I know these reactions to a new monument are not uncommon.




In fact, outrage is the common response.

Shattering the idea of a conventional memorial

“The Embrace” is unusual and was unveiled at a time of intense national debate about the public memorials of white men and the dismal histories of representing Black people and women.

Across the U.S., Confederate monuments and statues of Christopher Columbus and Teddy Roosevelt have been passionately defended – and have come tumbling down over the past 10 years.

This sculpture is both abstract and carefully detailed – the buttons on his coat and her jewelry are clearly articulated in bronze.

A Black man is embracing a Black woman as both of them are smiling.
Martin Luther King Jr. hugs his wife, Coretta, after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Bettmann/GettyImages

Many of the critics complained that enormous floating arms of beloved civil rights leaders did a terrible disservice to the Kings.

One tweeter asked Thomas: “Why did you make it so complicated and confusing?”

Most memorials do their work with a few very familiar conventions – soldiers on horses, scantily clad buxom figures of liberty, and dignified men caught midstride, forever frozen in time.

“The Embrace” shattered those conventions – which partly explains the outrage.

In the past, the most respectful, most dignified way to represent a revered person was as fully dressed and standing tall.

“The Embrace” steps outside of memorial conventions, which is a particularly complicated thing to do when representing Black people and women.




Depicting Coretta Scott King without a whole body and without a face runs the risk of seeming to be part of a long practice of denying women the power and dignity of their male counterparts.

A Black man dressed in a dark suit is sitting on stairs made of stone.
Hank Willis Thomas, the artist who created ‘The Embrace,’ in Boston on June 14, 2022.
Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Most women found in public memorials are symbols of liberty, peace, justice – and at least partially naked.

They are beautiful and aspirational, and, most notably, not powerful actual people in the world.

According to Monument Lab, a public art and history nonprofit group, there are 11 times more monuments to mermaids than congresswomen in the United States.

The history of representing Black men in the United States is equally disturbing.

Figures of them are all too rare, and when they do appear, they are generic soldiers or, more often, barechested and kneeling, nameless or enslaved.

The artistic choice to depict Martin Luther King Jr. without a face, without an intact body, without the dignity of a straight back, runs the risk of robbing him of the power he risked to carve out nonviolent protests in a racially hostile country.

An artist of Thomas’ caliber and experience knows he is taking those risks, and does so intentionally.

Initial reactions change over time

Some of the most beloved public art has been met with calls for a wrecking ball.

Lots of folks, for example, were very upset when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled in 1982. One critic called the monument a “black gash of shame.”

“It is an unfortunate choice of memorial,” the New Republic wrote at the time. “Memorials are built to give context and, possibly, meaning to suffering that is otherwise incomprehensible. … To treat the Vietnam dead like the victims of some monstrous traffic accident is more than a disservice to history; it is a disservice to the memory of the 57,000.”

Designed by Maya Lin, the memorial has now become one of the most cherished pieces of public art in the U.S.




Even the Eiffel Tower was considered an eyesore by high-minded Paris art critics, some of whom described it as no more than a railroad bridge turned on its side when it was finished in 1889.

Willis is no stranger to criticisms. In fact, he embraces it.

“My belief,” he told Time magazine in a January 2023 interview “is artists learn through critique. There’s things that we love that over time we get tired of, and there’s things that we’re not quite sure about at the beginning, but over time, we love.”

Such was the case in Philadelphia in 2017, when he unveiled his 8-foot-tall, 800-pound sculpture of an Afro pick topped with a clenched-fist, Black Power salute.

Officially called “All Power to All People,” the statue rests near Philadelphia City Hall on Thomas Paine Plaza and received initial rebukes but eventual praise.

Public art that has something to say

But one crucial idea is missing from most of the criticisms of “The Embrace.”

In my view, memorials and monuments are not actually made to mark a shared history or to maintain the status quo, as some have argued. It’s my belief that the people who build and design them have a point they want to make in the world.

A statue of arms and hands has a space underneath where visitors can walk.
Another view of ‘The Embrace’ shows the space underneath the statue.
Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

The United Daughters of the Confederacy had a vision in 1890 when it unveiled the sculpture of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee riding atop his horse Traveller in Richmond, Virginia.

And Thomas had his vision for “The Embrace.”

The magic of memorials and monuments is that they seem natural and eternal in our landscape but they are neither.

What Thomas does in “The Embrace” is ask us to see the Kings, simply yet powerfully, in a new light.

Kristin Ann Hass is Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan.


The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.

Previous Conversations:

  • Understanding the Heat Dome: Why America Is Baking
  • Endorsements Aren’t As Influential as You Think
  • Wiccan Celebrations and the Permanence of Change
  • Privacy Isn’t In the Constitution. But It’s Everywhere in Constitutional Law.
  • Anti-Trans Legislation and Lawsuits Are Pushing back Against Chosen Pronouns
  • How Mike Pence’s Unremarkable Actions on Jan. 6 Saved the Nation
  • Blaspheming Human Rights: The Hypocrisy at the Core of Authoritarian Muslim Nations
  • There Is No One ‘Religious View’ on Abortion
  • Inflation Is Spiking. Can the Fed Raise Interest Rates Without Spiking Unemployment, Too?
  • Blaming ‘Evil’ Is Not Enough
  • Did the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban Diminish Mass Shootings? Yes.
  • Crowded Primaries Are Good for Extremists, Bad for Voters
  • To Get Safe Schools, Mental Health Resources Are Critical
  • Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier Is Losing Its Grip
  • The Legal Age to Buy Assault Weapons Doesn’t Make Sense

See the Full Conversation Archives
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
You and your neighbors collectively read our articles about 25,000 times each day (that's not a typo) with up to 65,000 daily reads during emergencies like hurricanes. Flagler County residents rely on FlaglerLive for essential, bold and analytical journalism that cannot be found anywhere else. But we depend on your support. Please join our December fund drive! If you donate the cost of a scoop of ice cream, you will be helping us continue to provide comprehensive local news and honest, serious journalism for our community. If you can donate more or become a monthly donor, even better. Donations are tax deductible since FlaglerLive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit news organization. Donate by clicking anywhere in this box. Think of it as buying a scoop, in every sense of the term!  
All donors' identities are kept confidential and anonymous.
   

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. jake says

    March 25, 2023 at 8:56 am

    “Art is always in the eyes of the beholder. Only posterity has the right to point out our mistakes.” Len Wein

    Reply
  2. Jimbo99 says

    March 25, 2023 at 10:12 am

    Thanks for the photos, saved a disappointing trip to Boston. MA. Doesn’t look like anyone else goes to see it from the lack of audience. Maybe because it’s only been there since January 2023 ? Perhaps too cold for the locals to even make the trip over to stand around and look at it ? Reminds me, I still have to go hunt down & visit the parks with the sea turtle sculptures, the one’s the kids vandalize periodically.

    Reply
  3. Laurel says

    March 25, 2023 at 12:16 pm

    I don’t necessarily agree with the critical comments, and I have the most respect for the Kings and for art.
    Why the backlash? It’s just goofy looking.

    Reply
  4. Algernon says

    March 25, 2023 at 3:02 pm

    Love and respect for each other, and for their family, and their church, and their people are represented eloquently. Thanks Flagler Live for sharing, for I had not seen it.

    Reply
  5. Timothy Patrick Welch says

    March 25, 2023 at 8:48 pm

    Beautiful…

    Wonderful depiction of a loving embrace. Hopefully, it will be an enduring and lasting focal point.

    Reply
  6. JimBob says

    March 26, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    Bear in mind we live in a state that by fiat declares Michelangelo’s “David” obscene and pornographic.

    Reply
  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Advertisers

  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Recent Comments

  • The dude on The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 6, 2023
  • Charles on DeSantis Lawyers Tell Court That Bill Targeting Drag Shows Doesn’t Target Drag Shows
  • MITCH on Gas Prices Sink as Oil Prices Near Late 2021 Levels
  • Ray W. on The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 6, 2023
  • Pierre Tristam on Take Pride
  • The dude on Drunk Driver Allegedly Goes Nuts on Deputy After Crashing Into Hydrant
  • Florida Girl on Flagler Beach Man Charged with Home Invasion Armed Robbery Against Ex
  • Willy Boy on Take Pride
  • YankeeExPat on Drag Queen Story Hour Is Not What You Think
  • Rev Paul james on Christmas Eve Shooting Update: Victim, With Long Rap Sheet, Had Just Posted Bond
  • TR on Gas Prices Sink as Oil Prices Near Late 2021 Levels
  • Patrick on Where DeSantis Goes and Who He Sees Is None of Your Business: Lawmakers Approve Secrecy
  • Pogo on DeSantis Lawyers Tell Court That Bill Targeting Drag Shows Doesn’t Target Drag Shows
  • Duncan on DeSantis Lawyers Tell Court That Bill Targeting Drag Shows Doesn’t Target Drag Shows
  • Pogo on To Survive Poverty, Prayer Helped. But So Did Government.
  • Sherry on Take Pride

Log in