Located in Marsh Plaza on the campus of Boston University, Free at Last is an abstract sculpture made of rust-covered sheets of hammered Cor-Ten steel welded together to form a flock of fifty doves in flight. Each dove represents one of the fifty states. The sculpture is mounted on a square base inscribed with these quotations from Martin Luther King, Jr. :
Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian/dreamer, the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute/necessity for our survival.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that/conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly/accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to/arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice,/is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society/of peace. That will be the day not of the black man,/not of the white man. That will be the day of man/as man.
The fourth side of the base is engraved: “To the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr./1929 – 1968 Nobel Laureate for Peace” The sculptor is Chilean artist Sergio Castillo. King was mentored by Howard Thurman, the then-dean of Marsh Chapel, during his time at Boston University. He graduated with a doctoral degree from the School of Theology in 1955 and was given an honorary degree in 1959.
