John Wilson's bronze bust of Martin Luther King Jr. was unveiled in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol on January 16, 1986, by Coretta Scott King, the Kings' children, and Christine King Farris. Congress had authorized the memorial through House Concurrent Resolution 153 in 1982, and the Joint Committee on the Library used a National Endowment for the Arts panel process to choose the sculptor. Wilson received a $50,000 commission after finalists including Elizabeth Catlett and Zenos Frudakis made maquettes for review. The work is art-historically significant as the first bust of an African American placed in the U.S. Capitol, and as a prominent public commission by a major African American sculptor whose practice joined modern form, portraiture, and civic memory.
The unveiling permanently inserted King's image into the Capitol's symbolic program of national commemoration.
