The 20-foot-tall, 40-foot-wide statue, titled The Embrace, is in the 1965 Freedom Plaza on Boston Common, site of a speech that King gave in that year to a crowd of tens of thousands, after leading a march from nearby Roxbury. King was an assistant minister at Roxbury's Twelfth Baptist Church for a time. It is the first monument in some time to appear on Boston Common, America's first public park.

The bronze monument shows a giant pair of hands, symbolizing the hug that the Kings shared after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The Kings met in the 1950s in Boston when he was studying at Boston University and she was studying at New England Conservatory of Music. They were married soon after and eventually had four children, two sons and two daughters.

In 1960, King accepted his father’s offer and became co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He served in that role until his death eight years later. One of the most well-known moments in his life was a speech that he gave in Washington, D.C. On August 28, 1963, he delivered, as part of the 250,000-people strong March on Washington, a famous speech that has come to be called the “I Have a Dream” speech.

New York's Hank Willis Thomas designed the monument. Accompanying the unveiling of the monument was the launch of a self-guided smartphone app, filled with stories and interviews about the civil rights movement.