Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
By John Coleman, Community Photographer
Monuments honoring and celebrating the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. his life, works and words continue to be conceived and constructed in concrete, bronze and steel; of water, wax and spray paint and sited in hallowed places, such as among England’s most revered figures in Westminster Abbey in London (30 feet tall); hewed from America’s “Stone of Hope” on the National Mall in D.C. (20 feet); Artfully presented as a flock of birds flying as one, “Free at Last”, at Boston University where Dr. King earned his PhD; or (9 feet) A universal figure, Dr. King here is an African Benin Chief, holding a Coptic Cross in one hand and an Indian Prayer Wheel in the other, in MLK Plaza, Chicago, IL; Or in Sweden; in Jerusalem; in Havana, Cuba; in Harlem or in San Bernardino. Recognition and appreciation of/for Dr. King broadens and deepens, still, 50 years after his martyrdom.
Here in San Bernardino, the MLK Monument/Statue is located at 300 N D Street facing East in a small park that rises to the San Bernardino City Hall entrance. The park includes a fountain as water quietly flows over a bed of smooth river rock and the area around the statue where annual celebrations have been held since its beginning.
San Bernardino’s two-part 2018 Celebration of the life, works and words of Dr. King began hours earlier with a Community Awards Breakfast on the CSUSB campus which allowed time for travel several miles to Downtown before opening the celebration at the statue.
