Artist Behind MLK Sculpture Responds To Critics

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And next, to the heated debate surrounding a new monument commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King. It was unveiled in Boston earlier this month. “The Embrace” sparked backlash and even mockery. Now, the artist, Hank Willis Thomas, is speaking out, alongside the reverend, Liz Walker, of Embrace Boston, that’s the organization that funded the project. And here they are with Michel Martin.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Reverend Liz Walker, Hank Willis Thomas, thank you both so much for joining us.

LIZ WALKER, CO-FOUNDER, EMBRACE BOSTON: Pleasure.

HANK WILLIS THOMAS, ARTIST, “THE EMBRACE”: It’s great to be here.

MARTIN: I wanted to, kind of, go back to the beginning. And Reverend Liz, if you don’t mind, I will start with you. How did the idea for a — some, sort of, a public art experience installation project honoring the Kings get started in Boston?

WALKER: Well, this idea has always been percolating in Boston, and political leaders and community leaders have always tried, or at least put some parts of it together. Of course, the Kings both went to school in Boston.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

WALKER: Dr. Martin Luther King went to Boston University and Coretta Scott King went to the New England Conservatory. They met there and fell in love. What a story. And so, this idea has always been there. I got involved in 2017. I was invited in by a young man named Paul English, a tech entrepreneur who saw this as his own vision as a child who had grown grew up in Boston a new about the Kings. He wanted to do it. He asked me to help him. And it was an honor and a transformative honor for me to be a part of this.

MARTIN: So, Hank, will you just tell us why did you want to participate in this project? Why did you want to make a submission?

THOMAS: Well, I was invited by MASS Design Group, architecture firm that worked with on The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which is Bryan Stevenson’s incredible contribution to American memorial and monumental landscape. And the fact that I didn’t know that the Kings met in Boston really forced me to reimagine American history. And I wanted to make a piece that would highlight a portion of their relationship that would really, kind of, inspire us. And this seemed like an amazing opportunity. Not like — it wasn’t likely that we would get it, but we thought that we’d throw our hats in the ring.

MARTIN: So, Liz — Reverend Liz, talk — go then — talk a little bit more about the process of selection. I mean, you went all over the city, interviewed people all over the city, people all over the city had the opportunity to, kind of, weigh in. What was that like?

WALKER: Well people all over the city, first of, talked about their thoughts of the Kings. So, that was the first part of the work that we were doing. And it was surprising for me to meet people who remembered the Kings, people who went to church with Martin Luther King. That part was just a whole nice, rich, oral history that I didn’t know about. And as we progressed in talking to communities, we asked them where they thought the memorial would be. What kind of memorial. And then we selected a group of artists to form this, kind of, commission, and they weren’t all artist — to — a committee to select the work, and that was an international search. And, of course, Hank’s was the top-of-the-line. It was very different, it was abstract, it was visionary. At least in my eyes. So, the idea of embrace came through Hank’s work.

MARTIN: So, Mr. Thomas talk about how you gained inspiration for this particular design. It’s drawn, as I think many people now know, from a — what is — a fairly famous picture. I mean, if you’re — you know, students of Martin Luther King and his life’s work of when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And he and Coretta Scott King, his wife, are literally embracing. It’s a very beautiful, happy moment.

THOMAS: I’m a photographer, originally trained. My mother, Deborah Willis, is a photo historian. So, I’ve looked at a lot of photographs just through archives for my whole life. And one of the things that stood out to me about Dr. and Mrs. King that isn’t really spoken about is the intimacy they had. And so, oftentimes, you’ll see pictures of them and there are expressions of love. And I felt like that was a side of them that was really important to highlight because most of the way that we picture them and talk about them is in this kind of austere, somewhat stiff and cold ways. And I wanted to really talk about how — what was really driving their work was a desire to have love flourish throughout society, which is inspired by the love that they had with — in their relationship.

MARTIN: And one of the things that’s interesting for lot of people is that you can walk under it and around it. You can, in a way, have kind of an intimate experience with it. Like, I know — like, for example, the Martin Luther King Memorial on — in Washington D.C. on the National Mall, you know, people have opinions about it. But it is very monumental, you know, in the way that D.C. memorials are. You know, he’s really big, and you can walk around it, but you can’t really be in it, if that makes sense. And I was just curious, if you remember, like how you got the idea of something that would be — something you could literally be, in a way, entwined with?

THOMAS: Yes. Well, so many of the monuments to Dr. King and to our heroes are these giants who are looking down on us. And I don’t believe that that actually serves history and serves their legacy in the best way. I wanted to actually invite myself and viewers to think about what embodying them felt like. And what it felt like to get a little bit closer to the spirit of their work. And so, with “The Embrace”, I was aware of all the criticism of, like, the representational monument in D.C., and thought that this might be an opportunity to represent them through spirit. And through spirit is the spirit of love. And when I saw that image of Dr. and Mrs. King embracing on the day that he won the Nobel Prize, I just was, kind of, overwhelmed with, like, joy and pride because I knew it wasn’t just his success, it was her success, but also, the success of tens and thousands who — and millions, actually, who got behind them and supported their mission. And so, this moment being crystallized, where I focused on the arms — of their arms wrapped around each other was something that I felt was an opportunity to make a space for me to — and viewers to stand in the heart of their love.

MARTIN: Reverend Liz, what about that? I mean, did you and others on the group who put this forward have if — the idea of something that would be walkable, something that would feel — make you feel a certain way or was that just, kind of, an open slate?

WALKER: I, personally, cannot say I did. I wanted something to be proud of. I think Hank brought to us all of this possibility, all of this potential. There’s just so many things you can say once you see this piece. It touches so many parts of you. And like you said, when was the last time we could have public discourse about love? Not just love as romance, not love as sentimental something, but love as a creative force for change. And that’s what the Kings love was all about.

MARTIN: All right. So, here’s where we get to the pain part, like, the reaction. Wow. It’s just been remarkable to me, the level of intensity of feeling that the work seems to have evoked on both sides, I have to say. And I’m just curious if you expected that, or how you react to that? Maybe, Hank, do you want to start?

THOMAS: Sure. Well, we had the fortune of being there on the unveiling day. There were thousands of people, and there was a level of joy and civic pride and enthusiasm. That was the experience, from my perspective, by everyone. That is — it was unparallel. You know, I’ve been to a lot of openings and unveilings. And this was unique, you know. And this was just an awesome experience, really. And —

MARTIN: Unique in what way?

THOMAS: Just the joy, you know, the way in which people were connecting with the work, connecting with each other. And so happy that we had done something historical and really revolutionary. When we think about the way that monuments have functioned in the past and also, of course, around monuments that’s happened over the past five years. So, this piece was — it is — it’s a new moment in time. And for that reason, you can’t expect it to actually do something that is totally unique and revolutionary and have everyone actually uniformly be on board, and you wouldn’t want that. You want to have discourse. You want to have engagement. What’s been surprising to me is how an online response of — that was primarily lewd. That somehow —

MARTIN: Lewd.

THOMAS: Yes, I mean —

MARTIN: Yes.

THOMAS: — they’re saying they see certain body parts that aren’t there and all those stuff that — you know. People say that about the Washington monument, of course, and Empire State Building. So, it felt like, somehow, in many ways, trivial and juvenile conversations eclipsed what could be, you know, critique about the work that is more thoughtful. And that how people feel and experience it on the ground, where you see people, like, hugging it, you see people hugging the strangers. Can — kind of, be equated with like what — at moments seemed to be trolls. And so, I was really just surprised that, like, you know, in our society, we can — we have a negativity bias as human beings. So, if we — 1,000 people say that something is great and 10 people say something is bad, we feel like we have to balance that, because OK. Those 10 people, what didn’t you like about it? And I don’t feel like discrediting anyone else’s perspective serves the work and feel —

MARTIN: Hank, I do want to say, it seems in a way — I kind of feel like you may have anticipated a little bit. That there might be some negativity. I’m just thinking about a conversation you had with another journalist, where you said that maybe the hands, just, you know, focusing on the hands and the arms might not sit well with some people.

THOMAS: Well, I knew that representing them in a creative way, in a non- traditional representational way could actually be a challenge for some people. And I’ve definitely had concerns when I submitted the proposal. I thought that would be why we didn’t get it, you know. And actually, our actual monument was the most representational of the finalists. And actually it — it’s been — I — the fact that there has been this discourse, which is so necessary art gets better through critique, you know, is amazing because I — we got a lot of good press ahead of this. A lot of great press. But actually, having this online response and other responses actually brought a lot more eyes to the conversation, a lot more people to the conversation. That means a lot more people will be going to “The Embrace”.

MARTIN: Clearly, some are, just want to get attention. But I mean, there are some people who were considered serious people who have had critiques. I mean, I think there’s a columnist for “The Washington Post”, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, by the way, Karen Attiah, saying that the — that you reduced the Kings, her words, to body parts. She says that, Boston’s Embrace statue perfectly represents how white America loves to butcher MLK. Cherry-picking quotes about love and violence. While ignoring his radicalism, anti-capitalism, his fierce critiques of white moderates. MLK in his fullness is still too much for them. There’s a family member, I’m not quite — a cousin, who is also an activist of Coretta Scott Kings’ who wrote some fairly harsh critique. But basically, saying that it exposes the insidiousness of astroturfed Woke movements that have come to dominate black America. All of these are not on serious trolls.

THOMAS: Well, I think this work is very much like a Rorschach test, you know. What you see says as much about you and how you see the world, as it does say about the work. And so, I gave — those insights are welcome. They’re really important that people share those insights. I may disagree with them. I think that actually love is the most radical form of civic engagement possible. You know, the fact that Dr. and Mrs. King were willing to work with people who despise them, who actually were committed to actually destroy them and everything about their livelihoods and their families. They actually chose through a lot of sacrifice to go above and beyond, using love as a form of creative civic action, non-violence, and actually inviting us to see our higher selves. And there’s nothing more radical than that.

MARTIN: Reverend Liz, what’s your reaction to the reaction? You, in your prior life before you became a minister and have engaged in this kind of activity, you had many years as a very distinguished an accomplished journalist. So, you’ve had a lot of experience in kind of with receiving public opinion.

WALKER: I think I’ve lived long enough that very little surprises me about this country. I think we’re in a time of great pain, and I say that cosmically and universally that this is a time of great pain and great rage. And so, I think you kind of get — and you put that together with social media, you are going to get. I think that, as Hank has said so eloquently, that’s what public art does. Public art provokes and evokes. And so, you would expect that reaction, that’s what it’s supposed to do. But the lowness of some of the responses, I really believe that is out of pain. But this sculpture, this memorial stands on the names of about 66, 65 Bostonians, a black, white, Chinese from all over, who also were a part of the movement. And so, you really have to see it, you have to be there and see it, and see those names that you may or may not recognize who were a part of this. It speaks to much more than what you read on social media. And this is a moment in time of great pain, and I believe that this memorial is going to outlive that, and that gives me great hope. And can I just say, publicly, thank you, Hank. Because I don’t know if we’ve heard that in the public discourse. But I say that, from the depths of my heart. And I know I speak for thousands of Bostonians who worked on this. You did us proud. And so, thank you.

MARTIN: Do you think that Bostonians who participated in this process, do you think that they’re having a different reaction to the people who receiving the work in person are having a different reaction than people outside of the city?

WALKER: I think you have to be there. I think —

MARTIN: Overall. Overall, yes.

WALKER: Overall, I think there might be all kinds of reactions to this. But I think that once you get into the space, you will have a very special, a very intimate reaction to it. Because it does mark where we are and where we’ve been and maybe where we’re going in history.

MARTIN: So, Hank, I do wonder if there’s any way in which you take comfort from the experience of Maya Lin in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial because it was so reviled at the beginning. I mean, so many people absolutely hated it. But now it is one of the most visited monuments in Washington. And I just wondered to the degree that you’ve engaged with criticism, do you take any heart from that that perhaps in time —

THOMAS: Yes.

MARTIN: — people will — people who have hated it, or you know — or will — or just don’t like it will come to connect with it in ways that they perhaps have not in the moment.

THOMAS: Well, I do think it’s important to highlight the people that you mentioned, had not seen a person — piece in person.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

THOMAS: And therefore, we’re actually going off of a photograph. And if you’ve even seen a photograph of an apartment online and then suddenly you realize you would have a very different reaction. I also think it’s — not everyone is meant to like everything. You know, that’s not — I don’t think we can work as a society if everyone is expected to have and feel the same way about everything, you know. Actually, I think it’s important that a new — the next monument is different, and it will be critiqued and challenged for different reasons. This critique, though, has made discourse about the Kings much bigger. I think a lot of people are learning more and doing more and this conversation will go on. What I do think about when I think about the Statue of Liberty, and the Vietnam War Memorial, it’s just crazy that I was a part of something that is even in conversation with those things. You know, I — pretty sure, I’m the only descendant of a slave who has done something this monumental in this society. I also am — I think it’s also important for me to continue to highlight that I was a just part of a team. You know, I had a vision. A lot of people had visions and ideas. But really, it was a huge collective effort that made this possible. And that’s also why I think a lot of us are so happy that it happened because so many people came together to make this possible.

MARTIN: Reverend Liz Walker, Hank Willis Thomas, thank you both so much for talking with us today.

WALKER: Thank you.

THOMAS: Thank you.