Unified Civic Monuments Project (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr)

This is a community-led social justice art commission. Two neighboring towns in Michigan, Benton Harbor and Saint Joseph, will each get an installation featuring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that will inform visitors about King’s work and its relevance in today’s world.

The designs shown here were created in concert with the Unified Civic Monuments Project, a community group made up of peoplefrom both towns. We partnered with fellow artist Harold Woodridge and the landscape architecture firm RootBound, which provided these renderings. More to come as things progress!

Benton Harbor: This is titled ‘A Seat at the Table’ and features Dr. King’s insistence that people get involved in their local politics, and vote so that they have a voice in laws that will effect them and their families. Having a respected voice in political matters is distilled down into the visual idea of having ‘A Seat at the Table.’

Dr. King is shown early in his career as a civil rights activist, speaking to a crowd, pointing with his left hand to someone in the audience, making it clear that he is speaking to each individual out there. His right hand is gesturing towards anempty seat at the round table he stands behind, urging people to take a seat and help create the change that society needs. The table is round, because everyone who sits at it is seen as an equal (there is no ‘head of the table’).

There are a few seats around the table, and a two seats away from the table. The two distant seats represent the work yet to be done in obtaining civil rights. One of those seats is being pushed towards the table by a young boy, who represents the next generation, taking on the important work that Dr. King helped begin