- Associated Press - Tuesday, June 9, 2015

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - In the basement of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. hangs in the office where he worked from 1954 to 1960.

The picture shows King, wearing a black pulpit gown, shaking hands with parishioners as they leave the church on a bright Sunday morning, the Capitol in the background. Years later, the same image is the blueprint for a statue of King the church is raising money for to put in front of the Dexter King Memorial Legacy Center.

“Clearly, throughout the statues in most places, they always have him in a suit, but they have forgotten that he was the pastor of a church,” Dexter Avenue Pastor Cromwell Handy said.

The church was King’s first full-time pastorate, and it propelled him to national prominence as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott against racial segregation.

Although the church just recently announced its campaign to erect a life-size statue of King, the initial plans started years before. In 2008, Evelyn Lowery, wife of Southern Christian Leadership Conference founder Joseph Lowery, began working with the church to raise funds for a King statue. However, Lowery’s death in 2013 delayed planning.

Mr. Handy said that before she died, Lowery had asked him to hold off on any plans for the statue until after the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

“Having talked to Ms. Lowery and had several conversations with her and the plans we were trying to make, I cannot let it die,” he said.

Ronald Scott McDowell, the lead artist for the project, said one interesting aspect of the statue was its interactive qualities and how people could touch the statue and shake its hand, commemorating the photo it’s based on.

“Hopefully, we can bring the essence of Dr. King here, because he was called by God to lead his ministry,” said Mr. McDowell, who also worked with pop singer Michael Jackson as an art teacher.

However, Mr. Handy said the statue is meant to give meaning not just to King’s religious role in the city, but also to the role of the community during the civil rights movement. In addition, other artists will also work with Mr. McDowell on the project, such as John Feagin, who attended King’s church as a boy in Montgomery.

“One thing I’ve heard about Dexter Avenue as a church is that Dexter Avenue does not just belong to Dexter Avenue, it’s the community’s church,” he said. “With the role that it played, I think it’s appropriate that we should lead the charge in that this is the only church Dr. King every pastored.”

Mr. Handy said it would cost the church $250,000 to pay for the final renderings of the statue, as well as the costs to build and erect it. The tentative plan is to have it erected in time for the 60th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

On June 2, the Montgomery City Council unanimously passed a resolution approving the church’s campaign to raise a statue of King. The resolution did not grant any funds to the project, but Mr. Handy said he requested it to show that the city was in favor of it.

“Even though it’s a statue, it’s a monument to Montgomery and the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement,” Mr. Handy said.

Mayor Todd Strange said that because the church does not have 501(c)(3) status as a tax-exempt nonprofit group, the city could not give funds toward the project. He also said there are discussions about how the city can help the church with the project, such as holding a fundraiser.

The mayor said that projects like that are normally commissioned by private entities with the city giving approval to them.

“In this particular incident, it is very appropriate that the church is the vehicle that would get this accomplished,” he said.

Clayborne Carson, a Stanford University professor selected by Coretta Scott King to edit her late husband’s papers, said statues are one of many ways leaders are memorialized, and having a King statue in Montgomery was very fitting.

“This was a very important place in his life,” Mr. Carson said. “I always think of it as the place where the classic civil rights movement started and where it ended.”

Regarding the lengthy time between King’s death and the time the church wants to erect the statue, Mr. Carson said that after decades, people in the South have a better understanding on what King’s legacy is.

“I think that sometimes, the closer you are to something, the less perspective you have in terms of understanding its larger significance,” he said. “That movement inspired a whole generation of people because it was a really successful effort to bring down the Jim Crow system and that was important not just for the United States, but a worldwide struggle.”

Fred Gray, an attorney who represented King during the bus boycott and the Selma-to-Montgomery march, said it was as good a time as ever to commemorate King’s impact in the city.

“I think any time is a good time, and for some people, 60 years is a long time,” Gray said. “I’m very happy his church has taken the effort to do this.”

Steve Klein, communications director at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, said there were more than 30 U.S. cities that had statues of King, but that it was very fitting for Montgomery to have one as well.

“It’s entirely appropriate that Montgomery, the city where Dr. King’s leadership in the civil rights movement really took off and began, to have this,” Mr. Klein said.

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