“The park features Robert Kelly’s 30-foot-tall sculpture inspired by King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, which was gifted to the city by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Committee in 1991″ (Image: Another Believer/Wikipedia)
While the public process around a planned art installation honoring the Black LIves Matter movement at Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park has gone quiet, an effort to create a new memorial garden in MLK Way’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park is busy.
This summer, the MLK Memorial Garden Development Project is beginning with an effort to create a garden and “enhanced park space” that promotes “healing, solidarity, and sustainable living.”
“By centering community voices throughout the design process, SPR seeks to co-create a garden that honors Seattle’s Black diaspora, celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s enduring legacy, and provides a dedicated space for reflection and remembrance of those lost too soon to gun violence,” Seattle Parks and Recreation said about the project as it kicked off earlier this summer.
The city is working in a partnership with Clean Greens Farm & Market, Solace, the Black Agriculture Leadership Council, and the NAACP to shape the project.
There is no construction budget yet in place as the planning begins. Parks has made $150,000 available for planning and concept design.
The project is starting with the installation of a Phase 1 Garden next to the park’s fountain. The city says the interim garden will serve “as a first step in reactivating the space, offering opportunities for community gathering, healing, and storytelling while building momentum for the full design.”
The project comes as efforts to memorialize the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 with a new art project in Cal Anderson Park have not moved forward. Seattle Parks removed the Black Lives Memorial Garden in late 2023 from Cal Anderson saying the community-run garden space had fallen into disuse and needed to make way for upgrades to the park’s “turf bowl” area.
In April, CHS reported the city was working on a contract with arts group Vivid Matters Collective to “conduct community engagement, and “work with community and artists to design an installation in Cal Anderson Park.” VMC also has shepherded the long-term responsibility of maintaining the Black Lives Matter mural created on E Pine by artists and activists in 2020 in the first days of the protests in Seattle.
The city says the “Memorial Garden Development at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park” project is moving toward a final design early next year.
“Future phases of the project will be contingent on additional funding. The project team is actively pursuing grants and fundraising opportunities,” the parks department says.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park is located at 2200 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. You can learn more about the project at seattle.gov.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support 👍
