Aug. 28 (UPI) -- As statues honoring Confederate leaders come down across the United States, a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will be unveiled Monday in downtown Atlanta.
The 8-foot-tall bronze statue will be situated at the state Capitol,
grounds dominated by figures from Georgia's Confederate and
segregationist history. Gov. Nathan Deal
will be joined by members of the King family, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed,
state Rep. Calvin Smyre, Capitol Arts Standards Commission members and
other dignitaries at the unveiling.
The sculpture
will be visible for up to two blocks down the street named for the
civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968. The unveiling comes
on the 54th anniversary of King's celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech in
Washington, regarded historically as a galvanizing moment in the civil
rights movement; the date was chosen prior to recent violence in
Charlottesville, Va., and the move to take down Confederate monuments.
"He's gazing slightly toward MLK Boulevard," sculptor Martin Dawe told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution of the statue. "You make people smile not by the mouth but by the eyes, so I have a slight glimmer that I hope comes through."
The statue of King will also be looking in the direction of his
boyhood home, the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his father served as
pastor, and his burial site.
Atlanta's new statue comes at a time of declining popularity for
Confederate statues in the United States. However, a new Confederate
monument has gone up in Alabama.
Saturday, a statue dedicated
to unknown Confederate war dead was unveiled in Crenshaw County, Ala.
The small stone monument is part of a park on private land featuring
other memorial markers, replica cannons and flagpoles flying the
Confederate battle flag and other emblems.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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