CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/20/2025

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Two months before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, he gave a sermon on the Drum-Major Instinct that ominously presaged his death and defined how he wanted to be remembered—not for his Nobel Peace Prize, nor his hundreds of awards, but for his dedication to serving others,” Michele Cohen writes in forthcoming staff favorite John Wilson: Witnessing Humanity. “He intoned, ‘Yes, if you want to say I was a drum major, say I was a drum major for justice, I was a drum major for peace, I was a drum major for righteousness …’ Sixteen years later, during the planning of the Martin Luther King memorial for the U.S. Capitol, Coretta Scott King told Architect of the Capitol George White that the bust ‘should be a good likeness’ and show her late husband as the ‘paster and clergy-man— serious minded, concerned, compassionate, and with humility.’ And she invoked the ‘Drum Major Instinct’ sermon, saying it ‘tells how he wants to be remembered.’ Artist John Wilson embodied this vision in his bronze likeness of King, unveiled in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 16, 1986. … The memorial is the first statue or bust honoring an African-American person to be displayed in the United States Capitol and the first Congressional sculptural commission awarded to an African American artist.” Pictured here from the catalog, a1973 black pastel and ink study for the bust.