A year after unveiling its major sculpture on Boston Common paying tribute to the King family, Embrace Boston announced Friday it was striking out on its own as a self-sustaining nonprofit organization.
Embrace Boston is the group that developed "The Embrace," the 20-ton bronze statue that depicts a famous image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrapping his arms around his wife, Coretta Scott King. The couple had their first date at the historic park, and the King family attended the statue's unveiling on Jan. 13, 2023.
Leadership at Embrace Boston credited the momentum from that event with the ability to quickly scale up their operations.
President and CEO Imari Paris Jeffries pointed to a number of reasons it was important for Embrace Boston to stand on its own.
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"I think the effects of the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the racial reckoning immediately following that, the difficult conversations the country and out city was having around monuments and memorials really demanded we exist beyond the unveiling of the monument to engaging in arts and culture in racial equity," he said.
Launched in 2017 as King Boston, Embrace Boston has also hosted annual conferences and galas, studied inequality in the city and advocated for causes. It was initially under the umbrella of The Boston Foundation, and organizers said Friday that the institutions will continue to be close partners after Embrace Boston takes over fundraising and other responsibilities and moves to its own offices.
Embrace Boston's mission is to build a radically more equitable city by dismantling structural racism through the arts, culture, community, research and policy. The nonprofit plans to build a National Embrace Center in Roxbury meant to serve as a cultural hub for the Black community.
