Two years ago, the unveiling of The Embrace sculpture on Boston Common marked a historic moment in honoring civil rights leaders Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Created by artist Hank Willis Thomas, the towering bronze sculpture celebrates the couple’s love and their pivotal role in the civil rights movement. Surrounding the sculpture is the 1965 Freedom Plaza, which commemorates local civil rights leaders whose contributions have shaped Boston’s history. The plaza is named after the April 1965 event when King led a march for school desegregation from Roxbury to the Common, addressing a crowd of 20,000.
However, the site of The Embrace holds an earlier, overlooked chapter in Boston’s civil rights history that has largely faded from memory.
