Martin Luther King Jr.'s Sioux Falls visit remembered with statue

About 100 people braved ice and frigid temperatures Monday to commemorate a moment when Sioux Falls was touched by greatness.

The city unveiled a statue of civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. on the holiday named in his honor. The statue, done by local sculptor Porter Williams, was placed in Van Eps Park, not far from where King spoke on a visit to Sioux Falls almost 60 years ago.

King came to Sioux Falls as a guest of the Sioux Falls Knife & Fork Club on Jan. 12, 1961, and started his visit with a reception at First Baptist Church. He gave a speech that night at the Sheraton Cataract Hotel in which he predicted segregationists in the South would eventually be defeated.

“The habits, if not the hearts, of people are being changed by federal action and the impact of world opinion,” he said during the speech.

The Baptist minister from Atlanta was already a well-known civil rights leader who advocated non-violent protests when he arrived in Sioux Falls. He turned 32 just three days after visiting Sioux Falls.

His visit, said Laura Chandler, a professor of history and the director of the Center for Diversity & Community at the University of South Dakota, was part of a national tour. At the time, his approval rating was in the low 30s, with more than 50 percent of whites believing he was harming race relations. Even some blacks believed he was harming relations.

King sought to use non-violence to eradicate racism, militarism and poverty, Chandler said.

“He is one of the greatest Americans to ever live,” she said.

Williams, who grew up in Sioux Falls, said he didn’t walk in King’s footsteps as a young person, but as he grew older and wiser, he began to understand King’s significance.

“Martin Luther King was a great man, and we should be honored, especially with him being in Sioux Falls,” Williams said.

Mayor Paul TenHaken said he saw a miniature of the sculpture that Williams wanted to complete about a year ago. Williams told the mayor he wanted to make a bronzed, life-size version.

“I looked at it and said, ‘Let’s make it happen,’” TenHaken said.

The sculpture is modeled after a picture of King that appeared in the Jan. 12, 1961 Argus Leader. King was shaking the hand of the Rev. Ardie Hayes, the pastor of St. John’s Baptist Church, next to a plane at Joe Foss Field while a smiling Arthur Myklebust looked on. Myklebust was the secretary-treasurer of the Sioux Falls Knife & Fork Club.

On Monday, a woman who says she goes by the name Mrs. Dee, took the outstretched hand of the king statue, and with tears in her eyes, said, “Thank you for all you did for our people.”