Martin Luther King’s Boston, with Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries (episode 320)

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Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the Hub of the Universe.

Introduction to Martin Luther King’s Boston

Jake:
[0:14] This is Episode 320, Martin Luther King’s Boston, with Dr. Amari Paris Jeffries. Hi, I’m Jake. In just a few moments, I’m going to be joined by Dr. Amari Paris Jeffries, the President and CEO of Embrace Boston. I asked him to join us this week to talk about the years when Martin Luther King Jr. lived in Boston. As you’ll hear him say in just a few minutes, Dr. King’s a figure that most of us only imagine as a grainy newsreel image, or a voice crackling on an old recording with the cadences of the Baptist minister that he was. But it can be hard to imagine Dr. King as flesh and blood. It’s the same problem that I’ve always had with George Washington. When I grew up, I learned a lot of patriotic myths instead of actual history. Stuff like, Washington chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but he was unable to tell a lie, so he confessed. Or like, when he was a little kid, he skipped a silver dollar across the Potomac. Even though the river was a mile wide at his house and silver dollars wouldn’t exist for decades.

Jake:
[1:25] I guess that’s what our country’s going to go back to now that President Trump has ordered schools to undergo a conversion to patriotic education rather than, you know, accurate education. But George Washington’s such a remarkable figure that he doesn’t need the myths. So hearing about how he held the Continental Army together and probably stopped a coup by simply putting on his glasses in front of his officers and pointing out that he’d grown old in the service of his country helps to make a remarkable man also a human being. That’s what I hope to bring out by focusing on Reverend King’s years in Boston, where he studied, where he fell in love with Coretta Scott, and where he would return over a decade later when he’d already become a legend in his own time.

Boston’s Connection to MLK

Jake:
[2:11] But before we talk about Martin Luther King’s experience of Boston, I just want to pause and say a big thank you to everyone who supports Hub History on Patreon.

Jake:
[2:22] I love having the chance to interview smart people like Dr. Paris Jeffries. I’d never have opportunities like that without the podcast, and I wouldn’t be able to make the podcast without a little help from my sponsors. This group of loyal listeners chips in to take care of the show’s expenses. Everything from hosting fees, to transcription, to replacing the occasional XLR cable or pop filter. They commit to supporting Hub History for as little as $2, or as much as $20, or even $50 a month, in exchange for not much more than stickers, and my heartfelt thanks. Their support means that I can focus on researching, writing, and recording an episode of Hub History every fortnight without worrying about the cost of things like our new multi-track video conferencing platform that I use to record this interview. To everyone who’s already supporting the show, thank you. If you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy. Just go to patreon.com slash hubhistory, or visit hubhistory.com and click on the Support Us link. And thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

Discovering Atlanta’s Historic Sites

Jake:
[3:37] A few years back, when I was still in a past job, I took a couple of work trips to Atlanta. I’ve mentioned this trip before, in the episode about the Gettysburg Cyclorama, and the one about Joseph Lee’s Newton Hotel and Patton Bread Machines at the very least, if not in others.

Jake:
[3:55] When I went back to Atlanta for the second time, I worked things out so I could stay over the weekend on my own dime. Aside from the tornado warning that made me take cover in the gift shop of the world of Coca-Cola, it was a great trip, where I got to pack a lot of historic sites into just a couple of days. On Saturday morning, I rented an electric scooter and zipped over to the Apex Museum, which was kind of a weird spot, but their Hall of Black Inventors is where I first got the idea for the episode about Joseph Lee and his bread machines. From there, I was off to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, where I got a deeper understanding of one of our most fundamentally decent chief executives. Then the Ponce City Market for lunch and shopping. In the afternoon, I went to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which is, conveniently, right across a plaza from the world of Coke, where I think I nearly died. Their rotating exhibit at that time was Martin Luther King’s copy of his I Have a Dream speech, with his own handwritten notes and corrections. I was amazed to see that most of the famous closing passage of the speech doesn’t appear in the notes, because he delivered it off the top of his head.

Jake:
[5:08] It just so happened that my visit aligned with the Martin Luther King holiday. So I ended up going through a jog through the neighborhood called Sweet Auburn on a Sunday morning while the Secret Service was trying to set up their security perimeter for President Biden’s address at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. I got to see the original Ebenezer, and I went by the outside of the modern church that’s taken its place. I wound through the streets of Dr. King’s neighborhood, which was a mix of working-class shotgun houses and solidly middle-class two- and three-story homes. And then past the King’s Center, where the sun was coming up over the horizon, behind the crypt where Dr. And Coretta Scott King lie side-by-side for eternity. Then, a few hours later, after I scoured the Atlanta History Center for every connection to Boston I could find and marveled at their cyclorama, I had to race the presidential motorcade to the airport, so I didn’t get stuck behind him and miss my flight. Because of the holiday weekend, I was warned that it would probably be impossible to see the home where Dr. King was born in 1929. I got up early that Saturday morning and made sure that I was one of the first people in line at the visitor’s center, and I managed to get a spot on the first tour of the morning.

Jake:
[6:24] Martin Luther King Jr.’s mother, Christine, inherited the home where Dr. King was born from her parents. It’s a handsome two-story Victorian that wouldn’t look out of place on Julia Child’s block in Cambridge. It has wooden siding painted in a bright yellow, with ornate trim and details that are finished in dark paint. I lucked out, and several members of my tour group were National Park Service rangers who were visiting from other parks. so the ranger who led our tour group was really on his game. He told us two things that changed the way I look at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The first came when he showed us the cellar stairs, which were off-limits because of safety concerns, but he had us crane our necks to see the coal bin just around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Our guide said that hauling coal to the kitchen stove was one of young MLK’s chores, and he hated it. Now, when I was a kid, we had a coal furnace, and every fall we’d have four or five tons of coal delivered to our driveway, where my dad and I would have to shovel it into the shed for storage. Then every day I had to fill the coal buckets and bring them into the house for my mom to keep the fire going. You know what? I didn’t like it either.

Jake:
[7:44] The other thing that our guide told us was a story that he’d learned from King family members. When they were kids, Martin and his older brother, A.D., used to tear the heads off their sister Christine’s dolls and use them for baseballs.

Jake:
[8:00] The whole experience made me come home with a different mental image of Dr. King, seeing him, at least in his younger life, as a whole person, not just a modern-day saint.

Revisiting Dr. King’s Early Years

Jake:
[8:11] That made me want to explore Dr. King’s time in Boston through the same lens. When he came here to work on his Ph.D. at Boston University in 1951, he wasn’t the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize or the hero of the Civil Rights Movement or a national martyr. He was a 22-year-old grad student living in a modest brownstone, not unlike thousands who come to Boston every fall to further their studies. I invited Dr. Amari Paris-Jeffries to join us this week to talk about the Boston that would have been experienced by Martin Luther King and by Coretta Scott, who Martin was introduced to right here in the Hub. Dr. Paris-Jeffries is the president and CEO of Embrace Boston, which is probably best known through the Embrace Monument on Boston Common, but also operates the Embrace Center and is very active in community organizing. He’s been an activist and non-profit executive in the causes of social justice, education reform, and racial equity through organizations such as Parenting Journey, Jumpstart, Boston Rising, and the Italian Home for Children.

Jake:
[9:20] He was named one of the most influential Bostonians by Boston Magazine and one of the Boston Business Journal’s Power 50. Dr. Amari Paris-Jeffries, welcome to the show.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[9:33] Excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jake:
[9:36] So just to get us started, can you introduce yourself to the listener and tell our listeners a little bit about the organization Embrace Boston?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[9:45] My name is Amari Paris-Jeffries. I’m the president and CEO of Embrace Boston. And, you know, many people know Embrace Boston as the organization that created the Embrace Monument, the monument in Boston Common, America’s oldest public park that celebrates the life of Martin and Coretta Scott King. Both of them were students here in the 50s. They met, fell in love. One of the first dates was in that area. And so the organization created that monument. But we are much more than that. We are a justice organization that engages art and culture, research and policy, and narrative work to do transformative change, to create belonging, to think about all of the things that hold people from reaching their full potential based here in Boston. And so excited to have this city as our home base.

Jake:
[10:33] Well, you mentioned that Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott were both students here in Boston in the 50s. And that’s really where I want to start the conversation because it’s hard sometimes to think about a legend as a human being. John Adams wrote something along the lines of when they tell the story of a revolution, they’ll say that Ben Franklin struck the ground with his electric rod and out sprang George Washington fully formed astride his horse. And that’s all anybody will remember. So, I want to try to have our listeners remember Dr. King before he was Dr. King. When he came to Boston to begin his studies at BU, where was Martin Luther King in his career at that point?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[11:13] He had come from a pretty prominent middle-class Black family in Atlanta. His father was also a pastor, and they were well-connected. Coming to Boston University to get his PhD was something that was in the cards for him. He was going to most likely be in the faith tradition as an occupation. It was a family tradition for them. His brother was also a pastor. And so coming to Boston in the 50s, he had a car. And so for any college student, coming to town with a car was incredible. Him coming as a young PhD student in his early 20s was even more incredible. And so he was connected to 12th Baptist Church because his father had friends and they wanted to make sure that young Martin coming to town would be taken care of. That like any father, you want your son to be in a place where if you knew some people and you knew a place for them to get grounding, especially in 1950s America, that was important.

Martin and Coretta: A Meeting of Paths

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[12:18] So he was here as a student, but he had connections and he had a vehicle. And so he had a different experience in Boston.

Jake:
[12:26] Today, Martin Luther King is so strongly associated with Morehouse College in particular. He went to a seminary in Pennsylvania after Morehouse, and I think he applied for other doctoral programs. Do we know what brought him to BU in the first place?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[12:44] The Howard Thurman Center at Boston University, Howard Thurman was a friend of Dr. King’s father and became one of MLK’s mentors. And Howard Thurman, who was the dean of March Chapel at the time, mentored Dr. King and his friends. So that was a part of the clue. And Thurman became one of King’s spiritual advisors throughout his career. In the same way that many of us who have the privilege to go into higher ed, we stay in touch with our college mentors. We stay in touch with our faculty advisors. And he was one for Dr. King. King Sr. And Thurman went to Morehouse together. It speaks to the connections that Dr. King had to Boston before he got here. Coretta, on the other hand, a student at New England Conservatory, working her way through college, started off in Beacon Hill, ultimately in the South End, and they met through a mutual friend.

Jake:
[13:49] Tell us a little bit about both how they met, maybe even backing up from that, what Martin Luther King’s life was like. Where was he living when he first came to Boston? What sort of neighborhoods would have been his day-to-day experience of Boston back then?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[14:02] He lived in the South End, Lower Roxbury. And so, that was always a predominantly black neighborhood. It was always, it looks like it has always looked. And so, that was his experience. She, on the other hand, lived in Beacon Hill. she was renting a room. They had different experiences in Boston. He was integrated into the community. She was coming here to study at New England Conservatory and really making her way. They both had a faith tradition. They both met through a mutual friend who attended 12th Baptist Church, but different walks of life, different experiences.

Jake:
[14:42] And it sounds like very different backgrounds because Coretta Scott was from a much more rural background. I’ve been to Sweet Auburn where Martin Luther King grew up, and it’s right in the heart of Atlanta. It’s a very urban neighborhood, not that dissimilar to the South End. But I guess Coretta Scott is from a very rural part of Alabama and had gone to Antioch College. Do you know how her life brought her here?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[15:04] She was known to be a phenomenal, phenomenal singer. And so, her singing career, her aspirations to be a musician and artist brought her to New England the conservatory. You think about the types of people who go to conservatory, they are at the top of their game. And so very different tracks. She was a career-minded person who wanted to make a living with her music, her art. And of course, getting married roughly 18, 16 to 18 months after they met changed both of their trajectories. And they were a partnership. They were a team, a duo.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[15:43] And so her taking on the role as a preacher’s wife, they made commitments to each other. And so when we think about Martin and Coretta, we oftentimes think about Martin

Coretta’s Role in the Movement

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[15:52] because he was the face of the civil rights movement and the many speeches and his oratory. But we all know that there would be no Martin without Coretta. She was the spiritual heart of the civil rights movement. And it was known that she would often start rallies in song, in powerful music. And so recently, what I loved, I just saw the, you know, thinking about Domingo Coleman, who has been nominated twice for an Academy Award. Last year, he was nominated for Rustin, where he played Bayard Rustin. And there’s a scene where he goes to see Martin Coretta, and Coretta starts singing. What I loved about that scene is that they show a little bit of who she was as a person. Oftentimes when we watch depictions of the Kings, and again, it’s always Dr. King-centric. And I love that part about that movie.

Jake:
[16:46] I think that’s streaming now. I have to go back and check that out. I haven’t actually seen that yet. So thinking about Coretta Scott as a New England conservatory student and getting introduced to a stranger, my impression is that a mutual friend shared her phone number with Martin. Do you know what their first impressions of each other were like?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[17:05] You know, according to her book, she was not impressed because, for one, he was not a tall guy. and um.

Jake:
[17:14] Dating not that much different in 1952 or whatever it was than it is now.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[17:18] Right and what i love about it he picks her up in in in his car but you know she wasn’t impressed with those type of material things and that you know on their first date he said that he saw themselves as being married that he was going to marry her and so it was the 50s it was a simpler time i guess and so i i don’t know if you’d get a second date if you could best uh that you were smitten on the first state, but he did, and it worked, and they were married, and the rest was history. And, you know, there would be no legacy of Martin Luther King without the dedication of Coretta Scott King.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[17:54] She carried the torch, right? Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. Many of us who weren’t born before 1968, our vision of Dr. King’s are always grainy films or speeches that we heard, things or quotes. But for most of us also who were around, who are around our age, we saw Coretta, right? We’ve seen Coretta on TV. We understood that she carried his legacy. In 83, Ronald Reagan made Dr. King’s Day a federal holiday, and it wasn’t until 2000 where all 50 states celebrated the holiday. And so it hasn’t been that long. Yesterday, I attended the MLK breakfast we have in Boston, 55 years. These events are longer than states have been celebrating the King holiday. And if it wasn’t for Coretta’s dedication to ensuring that the legacy of Martin Luther King.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[18:49] Was what it is, that in his death, he could be a symbol for justice, it might not be, solidified in the way that we imagine it today. And so thank God for her advocacy, her continuation of that fight.

Legacy of Coretta Scott King

Jake:
[19:08] There are still states that celebrate the Martin Luther King holiday as a dual holiday with Robert E. Lee’s birthday, which in 2025 is a little shocking to the senses.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[19:20] We’re in this interesting time where there is this direct assault on justice. But simultaneously, there’s always been these things working in the background to convince us of zero-sum thinking, to convince us of white supremacy. There’s over 700 Confederate monuments. There are three Confederate leaders, four as fact, Confederate leaders that are the top 50 most memorialized monuments in the country. Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Nathan Bedford Forrest, right? And so these symbols work in the background to convince us of values, to convince us of not including people, to convince us of hate. And so commemorations and holidays like the king holiday are important for the opposite.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[20:09] We think of them as just these simple holidays. But think about all the amazing traditions and life experiences many of us have had during Christmas or Valentine’s Day or Fourth of July or all these other holidays. These commemorations are so important to our psychological sense of self. The King holiday is one of those holidays that is important to this psychological sense of self. There is no other holiday that’s centered around service, that’s centered around justice, that’s centered around Black love, because this is really about Martin and Coretta. This holiday, their love story started in Boston. We are a city of firsts. We are the city of revolutions. And on the eve of our country’s 250th birthday next year in 2026, we should lift them up as symbols of the next 250 years. And we’re in this shaky time right now where we need symbols of hope, love, justice, peace, togetherness, belonging. I’m so fortunate that they are a part of our city’s history.

Jake:
[21:13] You mentioned that most of us have this mental image of Dr. King as, you know, a grainy newsreel footage or sort of the crackling voice in the I Have a Dream speech. But that’s so often today taken – the words of Dr. King are made into platitudes that mean almost nothing. But while he was a very forceful Christian minister, that doesn’t mean that everything was kumbaya all the time. And I think about the Kings now as a married couple moving out of Boston at the beginning of their career in the civil rights movement. When did the Kings come back to Boston and how – I know that they hadn’t launched the Poor People’s Campaign by 1965, but where was the focus of Dr.

Dr. King’s Return to Boston

Jake:
[21:55] King’s advocacy going by the time he comes back to Boston? Tell us the circumstances of his return.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[22:00] His work had really expanded and he understood that justice and civil rights worked in a context of other systems that perpetuated injustice, that perpetuated racism. And so his work had expanded to anti-war. His work had expanded to anti-capitalism and thinking about the effects of poverty on immigrants and people of color. His perspective had expanded to understand how racism and colorism had affected all of us in this country, but globally. And so in 1965, with the help of leaders here like Ruth Batson, Alan Gartner, Reverend Virgil Wood, who recently passed away in December, they organized the largest civil rights rally in New England for four primary reasons. And I would say, arguably, we would say that these are still challenges we have in Boston or any major city, right? They were housing. We would say that now. Education.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[23:10] Education for a city that has so many colleges and universities, we said we’re really good for a large urban public school. Education was a challenge. You’ve got to remember this was before 1974, Judge Garrity, the busing crisis. And, you know, we’re now facing a shrinking school district and an evolving way in which people are thinking about education and the future of work. And so education was another issue that was pressing back then.

Jake:
[23:40] I didn’t realize it until I started prepping for this interview, but Dr. King had asked to meet with Louise Day Hicks during his visit here in 1965. And I had to go back and look at her Wikipedia entry to remind myself that she was already so central to Boston politics by that time. But, you know, so he’s attempting to meet with one of the big segregationists here in Boston.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[24:01] That was his style, right? That he was a bridge builder. And I think that’s one of the things that our organization takes on today. If racism is endemic, and people are socialized into racism, then folks who are engaged in racist behavior are as victims as anyone else, just in a different way. And so our role is to help people walk in the door that’s closest to them. And that was much of how Dr. King thought about his work, that there were people and there are people that do inherently evil things and there are people that do things that are contrary to justice. But the root of that behavior is centered around zero-sum thinking, and it’s centered around fear and scarcity. And if we could start there, it might help us get some empathy, although it’s hard. It’s very hard these days to do that. But we try as well. So education was central back then.

Jake:
[25:02] Sorry, I keep derailing you.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[25:04] No, we’re having a good conversation, man. We just rifted. I loved it.

Key Issues of the 1965 Rally

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[25:07] Housing, education, racism, and poverty were the four issues of the day. And to think about the amount of poverty and the urban blight, because this was around urban renewal. And so in Boston, we’re seeing neighborhoods being raised under the guises of urban renewal, thinking about where City Hall is, thinking about the West End.

Jake:
[25:33] And, you know, it’s right around the time when Mel King and others are leading protests in the South End against urban renewal in the South End.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[25:43] That’s right. Tent City. Tent City, the orange, the new orange line. Right. And so like the new orange line that was houses, lower Roxbury. Right. And so from all the way from Cambridge to to Roxbury, they were going to put a 12 lane expressway. Right. And so this all this stuff was happening for people who were disempowered because of their economic status. And so those were the four issues that they marched for in 1965 from Carter Playground, where Northeastern is located, near Ruggles, all the way to Boston Common. 20,000 people marched in April of 1965.

Jake:
[26:20] I was curious. So, I went and looked. I assume it’s in the same place it always was, but Carter Playground was almost right behind one of Dr. King’s homes in the South End. He lived right at Mass Ave, what’s now right across from the Mass Ave T-Station. But of course, that was before the Orange Line moved off of Washington Street. So, it was curious to me that it was really close to home.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[26:40] People know where 12 Baptist Church is now near Warren Street, right in Nubia Square. But it was near the field right off of Washington Street where that mural of Martin and Coretta was. That was where the original 12th Baptist Church. So it has moved three times. And so many of those historic churches like Charles Street and 12th Baptist Church were in Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill, the backside of Beacon Hill, was the first significant black neighborhood in Boston. And so we’ve seen this push. Again, you and I talked about housing, right? We’ve seen this push to the outskirts for many, many communities as urban renewal happened, as central city becomes more desirable,

The Role of Roxbury in Black History

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[27:24] communities of color continue to be working class people continue to be pushed to the outskirts. And so, Roxbury became a place where many Black folks moved, and it became the center for Black Boston and arguably still is to this day.

Jake:
[27:42] Because you mentioned it. I don’t remember the episode number off the top of my head, but I have a great past interview that I will put in the show notes this week about the North Slope of Beacon Hill essentially as the first concentrated center of political black power in the country where you have some of the first black elected officials and where there’s just enough of a center of gravity to have that political power in a real way in sort of the second half of the 19th century. So, I will drop that in the show notes as soon as I find that interview and figure out the link to it for our listeners.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[28:11] And, you know, that’s why it was important for us to put the embrace in Boston Common. One, because it is the center of the city, but we also –.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[28:20] Thought it important to put a shingle back into into this neighborhood to memorialize this neighborhood that used to be the center of black life it was important for us to honor that perspective and so we we tried to put as many symbols within you know there’s a lot of easter eggs and the embrace you know one of the top views of the embrace looks like two irish love nuts. And so it’s an homage to Boston’s Irish community. The ground of the embrace looks like a quilt. And the names that are honoring the other civil rights leaders from Boston are in a labyrinth. And so the idea that these quilts were one of the few things that enslaved people could own, but they were also maps to the Underground Railroad. And so Boston and Beacon Hill and that neighborhood was stops in the Underground Railroad. And so we wanted to pay homage to the ingenuity of Black community, the ingenuity of Beacon Hillers, who provided safe haven for folks who were escaping slavery. And it was important for us for that place to be illuminated and honored for all the reasons why Boston Common is Boston’s front yard and backyard and side yard, right? It’s Boston’s neighborhood green space.

Jake:
[29:49] And because it’s at the foot of the statehouse, it’s such an obvious place to call political attention to a cause that might not otherwise get attention. I see the May 2020 march following George Floyd’s murder. It walked from Nubian Square to the Common because that’s how you bring the issues of Roxbury and other sort of underserved, underseen neighborhoods to the attention of Beacon Hill as you put it on their doorstep. I feel like that’s a message that Martin Luther King definitely knew and put forward for the rest of us.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[30:21] When he was here, I think to the point when he was here, he spoke to a joint session of our Senate and our House of Representatives.

Jake:
[30:30] Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. I know he had a private meeting with the governor and he addressed a joint session of the legislature. Do you know what the focus of those conversations was?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[30:38] I think it was a further illumination of those four issues. It was to really talk about how Boston and Massachusetts is, as we’ve become, in 2025, we’ve become the epicenter of justice, and we continue to play a role, right? We are a town, a commonwealth of contradictions, and that’s what makes us unique, right? There’s all these things around our ecosystem socializing us to behave in a way that seems normal, that oppresses, but something about our commonwealth allows us to resist. We were, unfortunately, the first colony to legalize slavery, but this first state to make owning enslaved people illegal, right? This place of contradictions. We are the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, right? So many firsts here.

Jake:
[31:33] It’s always one step forward and two steps back because the whole separate but equal doctrine was founded by the mass SJC in a Boston school desegregation case in the 1840s. So we just can’t get out of our own way in some ways. But when we look back –, A lot of white Bostonians weren’t necessarily thrilled about Dr. King’s visit here in 1965. I think white Boston had told itself a story about what it meant to be in Boston or in New England that didn’t exactly match up with the lived experience of black Bostonians. What do you think that sort of mismatch in expectations was like then and how does it stack up to today’s society?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[32:21] I don’t eat meat. Hear me out. with the story. I don’t eat meat. But I think about many people in our country, as soon as children, babies get solid teeth, they get solid food, first thing we give them is meat. Otherwise, they’re drinking formula or mother’s milk or pureed vegetables, if that. But more likely than not, they’re not eating meat. And then as we grow up, many of our traditions are centered around meat eating. On 4th of July, you go to a barbecue and you eat hot dogs. So on Thanksgiving, You eat a turkey on Christmas, you might eat a Christmas ham, right? There’s all these traditions where meat eating is involved. And so our meat eating is codified through rituals and traditions. You go to a buffet and there’s mostly meat and people ask, what do you want for your coffee? Do you want milk or you want cream, right? And so like there’s these traditions and behaviors that have us consuming animal products. We know intellectually, right? Like intellectually, we know we don’t need our protein to come from meat. We know intellectually that factory farms harm the environment. We know intellectually that mammals don’t produce milk and eggs without us doing something to help them do that. It’s just not a natural process intellectually. But despite that, it’s very hard to get away from meat eating. It’s so ingrained in our society. You had no choice. You started that way.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[33:49] That’s the way that racism also happens. No one wakes up, babies don’t wake up and say they’re going to be racism. There are things that occur in our lives, traditions and rituals and stories and behaviors and segregation through neighborhoods and poverty and zero-sum

Understanding Racism’s Roots

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[34:04] thinking that socialize people into racism despite how we were all brought here. It’s an unconscious process.

Jake:
[34:13] We don’t have a Jim Crow and a Bull Connor, but we do, especially in the 60s and to some degree, at least now, we do have a de facto system of segregation here.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[34:24] Through the neighborhoods, we have monuments and street names that illuminate who should be ritualed and honored. We have holidays, Thanksgiving, where this unknown indigenous tribe had a block party for a group of travelers and said, hey, take this land. And then they disappeared from our history books, right? This is like a story of manifest destiny designed as a holiday that has taught us about American exceptionalism. and we’ve unconsciously engaged in it, right? And so we’re celebrating in Massachusetts in November and outside barbecue where this unknown indigenous tribe.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[35:04] Roasted a turkey and then got out of the way and then the rest was history we just we went from east coast to west coast right and so it’s a narrative about manifest destiny right the story about christmas addicts you know the brave black person who shot for the american revolution the other part of the story is john adams was the.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[35:22] Attorney for the police force who were the british guards and as part of their defense he talked about addicts who was six foot two six foot which average american male at the time was between five eight five six he was large stout mulatto male that could only be subdued through lethal force right and so this narrative that black people’s bodies could only be subdued through lethal force these these narratives that are so ingrained in our psyche and those are two massachusetts stories and so these traditions these stories are a part of our culture and so no wonder fast forward to 1970s what’s going on up north like boston so racist and i think we’re still paying for that story because it allowed people to see the effects of racism and turn bostonians white bostonians into bad guys and that became the boston narrative don’t go to boston they’re going to treat you a certain way don’t be black but we’re not perfect but that isn’t the narrative it conflicts with this narrative of dr king coming here and louise de hicks right it’s so many contributions but that is not who Bostonians are. That is not the only narrative of who we are.

The Embrace Monument Design

Jake:
[36:35] I wanted to talk a little bit more about the design of the Embrace Monument. You talked a little bit about how it looks like a knot or a series of knots from above and that the plaza looks like a quilt, but we didn’t actually talk much about the Embracing Arms. Just tell us how that design came to be, if you don’t mind.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[36:55] We talked earlier about Boston being a place that is so historic and, But it is quite difficult to put a statue of Martin Luther King in Massachusetts. Even Mayor Menino, who is one of this city’s greatest mayors, couldn’t do it, right? It was hard to get the support to build this monument for Dr. and Mrs. King. And, you know, in 19, 2016, 2017, Paul English, Reverend Liz Walker, DeMond, and Dr. Kia Martin, and Reverend Jeffrey Brown had an idea. Paul had the original idea. And the first thing he knew was that he needed help in support of a group of folks. And Paul English, people know him. He’s known for being the founder of Kayak, a local guy, West Roxbury guy.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[37:48] He’s been a part of so many incredible things in the city. And while he’s created technology and prosperity, he’s also given back just as generously. And he grew a group of people to start this process of building a monument for Dr. King. And soon this initiative to build a monument for Dr. King evolved to understand Coretta’s importance. And so there was a national call for submissions, 126 submissions, and there were five finalists. Two of them had Coretta embedded within the monument.

Jake:
[38:26] These sort of finalists that included Coretta, what did those look like?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[38:31] They were all different. None of the monuments were king, you know, standing at the mountaintop or Martin and Coretta standing together back to back, right? Like a buddy cop film. They were all contemporary pieces. There was a water feature. There was one that was called the pulpit, which was a large obelisk. There was one that was a bridge that looked over the park. Most of the monuments were in proximity to the pulpit. to the Shaw 54th Monument. And then there was the Embrace, which was different. They were all different. They were all contemporary pieces. We had voting stations in faith-based places and libraries, City Hall. And the piece, the Embrace by Hank Willis Thomas and Mass Design Group was chosen as the winner. And the rest is history. And so Hank’s inspiration, Hank is a photographer, a contemporary artist. And so he was inspired by this photograph of Dr. King with Coretta learning of winning the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[39:41] And like many of us who have partners after winning something prestigious or anything, right, like I might win a stuffed animal at a fair. You’re going to hug or kiss your partner, your wife, your husband. And so that’s what Martin did. And I think in this photo, he’s kind of the top hug. You know, usually someone’s at the bottom and someone’s at the top. He’s the top hug. And, you know, Hank talks about in that picture, their face is so joyful and full of glee. But one of the things that he noticed was Martin’s weight resting on Coretta and her eyes closed, just embracing him and the warmth in that photo. And that she was holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, like we know that many Black women do, like we know that many women do in this society. They hold the weight of the world on their shoulders. They are the glue of many families. And focusing in on that was important.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[40:42] The modern monument movement is getting away from this idol worship, where it’s a great person sitting on a horse, holding a sword, right? We’re moving away from that. There’s this abstraction. Those could be your and my arms. They could be brother and sister’s arms. They could be any couple, any of us. And I think in the midst of the pandemic where we were socially isolated and we missed funerals and weddings and birthdays, many of us wanted to be with people we loved and was important to us. And so the embrace became a symbol of people we lost, became a symbol of not forgetting what it was like to not be with people. And it became Boston’s promissory ring of the values of Martin and Coretta. And so that was why those arms and that circle was so important.

Jake:
[41:36] I know that sometimes listeners discover our show because they’re planning a visit to Boston. So if we have somebody who’s going to visit for the first time or somebody who hasn’t really gone out and seen the embrace, if you’re telling somebody what the best way to sort of approach or engage with the monument is for the first time, how do you want somebody to go into that space and see it for the first time?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[41:57] The pictures don’t do the monument justice. You really need to see it for yourself. And one of the things that was important to us is that we tried to create an inclusive monument. As you walk up to the embrace, there’s three markers. And those markers describe the embrace. There is a model on the markers describing the embrace for folks who are blind or hard of seeing. It is in Braille. There is an app, which is not an app you need to download, but it is a web-based app. And so if you have your headphones, you can get a 4D experience of seeing the embrace. We want you to touch the embrace. We want you to listen to the stories of folks narrating the civil rights movement as you walk around and you look at the names. You know, we want you to smell the monument as the brawn changes in its texture and its appearance and its smells from winter to summer.

Experiencing the Embrace Monument

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[42:57] We want you to stand in the center of the embrace. It is if you are standing in the center of a hug. And we want it to be an embodied experience for people that all of their senses are engaged in this experience of being with this monument to be the outdoor sanctuary that we intended it to be.

Jake:
[43:17] I like the visual of being at the center of the embrace or standing in the center of an embrace and that it can be anybody’s embrace as well as the king’s, which is pretty sweet. I can’t help but notice, as I check my calendar, this interview is going to air in February 2025, and then April 2025 is going to mark a round number anniversary. It’s going to be the 60th anniversary of the King’s return to Boston, the march in 1965.

Commemorating 60 Years of Advocacy

Jake:
[43:46] Are there plans that you can share for a commemoration coming up this year?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[43:49] Yeah, we invite all of the listeners to join us on Saturday.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[43:55] The 26th of April for commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Rally at the Embrace. While we won’t do an entire march, we will be gathering at the site of the 65 March to reaffirm our commitment to justice. It is one of the signature events of the 250th, the semi-quincentennial. When we think about what it means to celebrate 250 years of this country, of course, we want to commemorate the events leading up to 1776. We want to commemorate with triangle hats and big long white socks and the battle of Bunker Hill and Paul Revere’s ride and the battle of Dorchester Heights and Lexington and Concord. And those are important milestones that we want to celebrate. But we also want to celebrate all 250 years. I turned 50 a couple of years ago. I did not want to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my first birthday party. Right. It would be much different. I want to celebrate in the way that a 50-year-old would celebrate and with my 50-year-old friends and colleagues and my children. And so I think we should do the same. America is the city of so many firsts, so many founding stories here, so many forgotten narratives that we want to illuminate all 250 years plus matter and count. And people should celebrate.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[45:20] In any way that is meaningful for them. America is an idea. It’s an idea of democracy. It’s not perfect. It’s hard being the largest multicultural democracy in the world. It’s messy. There’s no other place that has so many nationalities. What’s American food? It could be Mexican. It could be a hot dog from Germany. It’s definitely soul food from Black folks. Pizza, is that an American dish? It’s like so many things about our culture, which is integrated from so many other people’s cultures. It’s hard being this place. And it’s messy. We don’t do it right. People get scared. They think they’re losing themselves. They want to assert themselves. This is an experiment, and we’re trying. We should celebrate. What does it mean to be a democracy for the next 250 years? How do we make it as inclusive as possible? How do we use joy as the fuel, right? Let’s get away from fossil fuels and get to joyful fuel, get to love instead of fear. It’s scarcity. That’s what powers us.

Engaging with Embrace Boston

Jake:
[46:24] If people want to learn more about the organization Embrace Boston or the Embrace Monument itself, or if they want to get involved or attend the commemoration that’s coming up in April, where should I send people to look for that information?

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[46:37] Yeah, they should check us out at EmbraceBoston.org. They should follow us on Instagram. There’s two sites, the Embrace Monument, which is just visuals of the Embrace or Embrace Boss that’s a little bit more updates and action-oriented. And so, follow us on those three channels. We’d love for people to come out and be a part of the commemoration of the 1965 Freedom Rally, which is coming up on April 26th. So, excited to have everyone show what a beloved community looks like.

Conclusion and Farewell

Jake:
[47:08] Well, Dr. Amari Paris Jeffries, I just want to say thank you very much for joining us today.

Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries:
[47:13] Thank you for having me. This has been phenomenal, wonderful, and I appreciate the time we got to spend.

Jake:
[47:20] That about wraps it up for this week. To learn more about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, and their time in Boston, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 320.

Jake:
[47:34] We’ll have links to more information about Embrace Boston, the Embrace Monument, and the upcoming 60th anniversary of Dr. King’s 1965 Freedom Rally on Boston Common. I’ll also throw in a few photos from my historic weekend in Atlanta, including the birth home of Dr. King, as well as a National Park Service site where you can take a virtual tour of the home yourself. I’ll make sure to link to the text of Dr. King’s address to the Massachusetts legislature in 1965 as well. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. I have profiles for Hub History on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but lately I’ve been most active on Blue Sky. You can find me there by searching for hubhistory.com. I’m a little less active on Mastodon, but if that’s your social media of choice, you can find me as at hubhistoryatbetter.boston. Or for simplicity’s sake, you can just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. While you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link, and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop me a line, and I’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation.

Jake:
[48:56] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.