BUFFALO, N.Y. — The eight-foot-tall bronze bust at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Buffalo has been a local controversy since it was unveiled in 1983, particularly, because many were under the impression that the eight-foot bronze statue was supposed to be an exact likeness of the park’s namesake, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Upon the reveal, however, many felt robbed.

“You could’ve heard people sigh of disappointment; ‘Oh, no. Oh, heck no.’ Talking among themselves, me saying the same thing, this is a disgrace,” said Samuel Herbert, chairman of Coalition to Save MLK Park. “We wanted a statue that looked just like Martin Luther King, and it wasn’t.”

What You Need To Know

  • The Coalition to Save MLK Park is renewing efforts to have an eight-foot-tall bronze sculpture removed, saying it does not bear resemblance to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

  • Longtime advocate Samuel A. Herbert created a petition in 2018 that received over 14,000 signatures for the bust's replacement, but he said his efforts were thwarted by the Buffalo Common Council

  • Herbert is renewing efforts by forming a committee to have the statue replaced

  • Despite multiple reports that the bust was never supposed to resemble King, Herbert insists the community was made to believe that it was

Herbert charged himself with the responsibility to make right what he believed was a wrong imposed upon the community. His first phase was the We The People Petition Campaign in 2018, which garnered over 14,000 signatures advocating for the bust’s removal, including one from then-Lieut. Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Herbert said his efforts were thwarted twice, first by the Buffalo Common Council because he didn’t have a formal committee, then by the COVID-19 pandemic. He now wants the community to know he is back on the path to bringing about change, and he needs the city’s help.

“I’m asking people to volunteer," he said. "Become a part of this committee so the next time we go before the Common Council, we will have our committee in place. We will have our legal representation, we will have our chairman, our president, vice president, and board members."

Herbert wants the bust’s replacement to be 16 feet tall, twice the height of the current sculpture, and to bear resemblance to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C. As for the current bust, Herbert would like to see it moved to near the Buffalo Museum of Science on the corner of Best Street.

Though many, including former Common Council member Clifford Bell, have attempted to clarify that the bust was meant to be a symbol of the Black man as opposed to a likeness of King, Herbert insists that was not what the community was promised when funds were being raised for the statue in 1983.

"At no time at that meeting at St. John Baptist Church did Dr. [Reverend Bennett] Smith or Clifford Bell say to us, ' we are raising money to build a statue that symbolizes a Black man," he said, "and from that point on, this has been sitting here; a total insult. It doesn't look like Dr. King. It's a shameful image. It's perpetuating a fraud."

As for why Herbert continues to advocate for the bust's replacement, he says it's because representation matters for the next generation. The fight is also a tribute to those who fought for the statue's removal but did not live to see the day it was replaced, as two elderly members of the committee's starting phase died of COVD-19. After decades of accepting the way things have been, Herbert said, the time is now for change.

“Excuses, in my opinion, are the tools of the incompetent building bridges to nowhere. Fourteen-thousand one-hundred and twelve individuals joined together and we built a bridge, and we’re going to cross it soon to see a new statue here in the City of Buffalo.”