NASSAU, The Bahamas – A Bust of the late American civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr., is to be erected on the island of Bimini, the place where he found solace and inspiration for his noted speeches.
Plans were announced during a press conference in the House of Assembly Committee Room on Wednesday, August 8, 2012. Present were members of the Martin Luther King Jr. Bimini Memorial Plaque committee.
Activities surrounding the unveiling ceremony are scheduled for October 5-7, 2012; the plaque will be placed in the mangroves where Dr King is said to have spent peaceful moments with boat maker and bone fisherman Captain Ansil Sanders in 1964 and 1968. The bust, in the image of Dr King will be designed a sculpted by renowned sculptor Erik Blome.
The activities will also incorporate the launching of a scholarship award programme for deserving Bahamian students to attend the historic Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida.
The project is being touted as an effort to bring attention and awareness to the connection Dr King had with The Bahamas, particularly Bimini. The Martin Luther King Jr. Bimini Memorial Plaque committee plans to unveil a bust at the site in the mangroves in Bimini.
Prime Minister Perry Christie, whose own education was stunted when he was expelled from school at a young age, thanked the committee, especially for the scholarship programme.
The Prime Minister also mentioned the “incredible journey” of committee member Nathaniel Glover Jr., a man once involved in crime, who became a sheriff and now President of Edward Waters College, his alma mater.
He noted that the event is happening when The Bahamas is in its 40th year of Independence. Hence, he has appointed a steering committee co-chaired by cultural activists Charles Carter and Dr Nicolette Bethel.
Bimini, about 40 miles east of Miami, Florida, was also a retreat for noted American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway, and American Politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
It was in Bimini that Dr King wrote his part of his acceptance speech he delivered while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and the one he delivered to the sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee before he was assassinated in 1968.
Members of the Martin Luther King Jr. Bimini Plaque Project Committee, present at the press conference are: Joyce Danford, Executive Director, MLK Jr. Bimini, Bahamas Plaque Project; Esmin Shakespeare Master, Edward Waters College Scholarship Coordinator (who has Bahamian roots); US Congresswoman Corrine Brown, Co-chair, MLK Jr. Bimini, Bahamas Plaque Project; and Nat Glover.
