The first inscription reads:
"To the Memory of
Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929 - 1968
Distinguished Alumnus
Nobel Laureate for Peace"
This website (
visit link) informs us about the sculpture:
"Free at Last
ARTIST:
Sergio Castillo
LOCATION:
Boston University, Marsh Plaza map it
NEIGHBORHOOD:
Fenway/Kenmore
TYPE:
Sculpture
YEAR:
1975
MEDIUM:
Cor-ten steel and granite
COLLECTION:
Boston University
FUNDERS:
DESCRIPTION:
This work by sculptor Sergio Castillo commemorates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), the preacher who became the great civil rights leader in the 1960s. King completed a doctorate at Boston University in 1955 and is one of the school’s most distinguished graduates. This sculpture, twenty feet high, consists of a mass of wing-flapping birds cut from cor-ten steel. Close-up, one sees individual birds, each striving to be airborne, but from afar one sees a flock of birds, formed into the shape of a single bird headed for the sky. The sculpture was dedicated in 1975. Since then, it has served as a focal point on the BU campus. Upon visiting the sculpture, you may find it surrounded by flowers or candles: members of the BU community often gather at this site to mark a joyful event, such as Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, or to commemorate the passing of a friend or colleague."
and Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us about the man:
"Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968), was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.
King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia (the Albany Movement), and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.
On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In the final years of his life, King expanded his focus to include poverty and speak against the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting.
King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011."