'This City Really Needs This': MLK Memorial Planned In Boston
BOSTON (CBS) - You could say they have a dream. Paul English and Rev. Liz Walker shared some of their thoughts about it on this chilly MLK Day by the Boston Common bandstand where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to some of the city's first freedom marchers.
"We should do something on a world scale here in the city," said English, a tech entrepreneur who founded Kayak.com. He's pledged one million dollars toward an MLK memorial in Boston, where King attended Boston University and met his wife Coretta Scott King.
"This city really needs this," said Walker. "The most progressive city in the country, but still almost exploded, or it did explode over busing, I mean we have this conflicted way of being."
They haven't settled on where it would be or what it would look like, but Walker and English are getting feedback at public meetings being held across Boston. The City's Arts and Culture office has put out a call for artists to submit designs through next month.
Mayor Marty Walsh talked about it at an MLK celebration Monday at BU. "Everything is on the table, and I know that people with Twelfth Baptist, and I see them here today, are saying it should be at Twelfth Baptist. Other people say it belongs in Boston Common. Wherever it goes it will be spectacular."
"It is interesting timing," said English, who believes it's the type of monument that should go up as some others are torn down in the South. "Dr. King was a prophet," added Walker. "A prophet speaks to a time not his own. He speaks into the future, and so we're still wrestling with the issues. It's time for this monument to go up."
