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Shedd Aquarium

Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial

6743 S. Kedzie Ave., Chicago, IL 60629

Historic Sites

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial was dedicated on August 5, 2016 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. King’s historic march through Marquette Park.

The march was sponsored by the Chicago Freedom Movement, a campaign launched by dozens of organizations devoted to reforming the unfair housing practices that forced many African-Americans to live in the city’s overcrowded slums in the 1960s. 

Artists Sonja Henderson and John Pittman Weber produced the artwork.  It is composed of an oval-shaped plaza with three carved brick rectangular obelisks and a low seating wall.  The carved brick material relates to the bungalows and other historic brick buildings of the area. With this material, the artists were able to create detailed sculptural reliefs depicting Dr. King and many prominent community members who marched with him that day. 

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