MLK statue rises as Confederates fall
Bronze monument will be installed at Georgia Capitol
ATLANTA — The sculpted clay was dry and the bronze would soon be cast, but artist Martin Dawe still found himself waking with a start before dawn, worried that he didn’t get the details of the famous man’s face exactly right.
On Monday, Mr. Dawe will find out if he succeeded when officials unveil his statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on the Georgia state Capitol’s grounds for the 54th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Getting to this point was a three-year struggle over multiple hurdles. Officials had to negotiate with King’s family for the right to use his image. Then an artist was selected for the project, only to be killed in a motorcycle accident. After a lengthy screening, Mr. Dawe was chosen to replace him.
A reflection of epochal changes, the civil rights leader’s statue is going up in his Southern hometown at a time when monuments honoring Civil War Confederates are coming down in many other places across the South.
Less than 2 miles from King’s birthplace, Georgia’s state Capitol has held only one representation of the civil rights icon and Nobel laureate since 1974 — a painting. Black lawmakers lobbied for years to install a statue on the grounds commemorating him.
Then, in late 2013, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal ordered the statue of white supremacist Tom Watson — a Georgia political leader in the late 1800s and early 1900s — removed from the Capitol lawn.
On the 2014 national holiday bearing King’s name, Gov. Deal visited the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church where King preached and promised to “find an appropriate way” to honor him at the Capitol.
Within weeks, an attorney representing King’s family warned the governor’s chief of staff permission for such a statue would be required.
Gov. Deal appointed Rep. Calvin Smyre, a black Democrat from Columbus and longest-serving member of the House, as a liaison to the family. The state and the King estate ultimately came to an agreement for the statue, at no cost.