On Friday, it was unveiled at an invitation-only ceremony in the same place King led 20,000 people on a freedom march more than 50 years ago.
Kin of MLK, Coretta Scott King, hates the new $10 million sculpture just dedicated to her and her iconic civil-rights-leader husband in Boston — with a cousin claiming it “looks like a penis.”
The massive bronze piece, titled “The Embrace,” features two sets of arms holding each other, an artistic interpretation of the classic photo of Coretta and hubby Martin Luther King Jr. hugging after he won the Nobel Peace Price in 1964.
“The mainstream media … was reporting on it like it was all beautiful, ’cause they were told they had to say that,” Seneca Scott, Coretta’s cousin, told The Post by phone Sunday, referring to the new artwork in The Boston Commons.
“But then when it came out, a little boy pointed out — ‘That’s a penis!’ and everyone was like, ‘Yo, that’s a big old dong, man,” said the 43-year-old Oakland, Calif., resident.
“If you had showed that statute to anyone in the ’hood, they’d have been like, ‘No, absolutely not.’ “
Alveda King recalls uncle’s legacy on MLK Jr. Day: ‘It should be a day of service’
The piece, of course, was both commissioned and sculpted with good intentions. The city released a call to artists in 2017 to create a memorial to the Kings, who met in Boston, eventually choosing Thomas, a renowned Brooklyn-based artist.
Mayor Michelle Wu said the sculpture might help the public live up to King’s vision, “to open our eyes to the injustice of racism and bring more people into the movement for equity,” according to the Boston Globe.
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was t anyone be n the family consulted before this offensive sculpture was commissioned?