“Stone of Hope” monument, a community project of Columbia Jaycees, was unveiled in Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in January 1996.
‘Stone of Hope’ in Columbia is at convergence of community life and history seeking to overcome the past
By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place
STONE OF HOPE, South Carolina — There are a myriad of activities going on today in Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Columbia, at the convergence of Five Points, where, also nearby, is the historic neighborhood of Lower Waverly.
All connections, public accommodations as it were, are interactive with being and a variety of doing. Valley Park, which was transformed from the past to the present with a vision to amalgamate the future, is now Martin Luther King Jr. Park. Building on a “Stone of Hope”
They say, “Renaming the park after Martin Luther King Jr. in the late 1980s was seen as a progressive and unifying event on behalf of the city, civic groups and local citizens.” While the nation dedicated the MLK Memorial on the National Mall in October 2011, the Stone of Hope monument was unveiled here in January 1996.
The Stone of Hope monument is what it is, rising 22 feet, with its base spreading across 6,000 square feet. The stone is spherical, sending out a beacon at night, covered with irregular-shaped ceramic tiles. Water, as in “let justice roll down like waters,” flows down the post that holds the stone. There is also a community center in the park.
There is also an inscription on the monument from Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech from 1964. He said, “History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued that self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solutions of the problems of the world.”
The “Chicken Man” has a prominent roost for his parked van, unloaded of avant-garde art displayed along a grassy embankment in the park. Customers browse until selecting a purchase. Paintings capture curiosity seekers who gawk their way through introduction of his art. After questions and answers, some novices eventually give in to inculcation. Others pause and then walk away.
Chicken Man art is synergistically related to the “funky chicken.” Rufus Thomas, undoubtedly, would have expressed an affinity with the esoteric creations of the beloved Chicken Man of South Carolina.
The Chicken Man says, “Be what you are. Don’t be what you ain’t. Because if you be what you ain’t
then you ain’t what you are.”
This part of the city maintains its history as much as it is obvious that the confluence of what took place in America also unabashedly took place here also. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park is the shortest walk to Five Points. Convergence here is as purposeful as is Five Points in Denver. Here, Five Points is the intersection of Harden Street, Devine Street and Santee Avenue. There, in Denver, Five Points harkens to the African American experience in that city, including jazz and Juneteenth.
Here, in the state capital, strategic planning is the apparatus that bring revelers here to be served and entertained in an open marketplace.
They say, “The Five Points Association, incorporated since 1983, is a non-profit organization whose principle task is ensuring that Five Points stays an integral and important part of the city of Columbia. Not only is the Five Points Association concerned with the aesthesis of Five Points, but also the merchants, the patrons and the residents.”
These merchants and civic-minded people are the reason behind events going on today and a repeat of various annual events like the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Harden Street is designated as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The marker has a portrait of Dr. King that “recognizes the achievements of a man who inspired the world to embrace equality and non-violence to which he dedicated his life.”
There are several events happening simultaneously, including the Annual Five Points Chili Cook-off and second day of the Annual Columbia Blues Festival. From these events, Ernest Lee, expert self-promoter as the Chicken Man, attracts customers to a panel truck unloaded of dozens of pieces of art, Chicken Man T-shirts and artsy knickknacks.
Restaurants and pubs in Five Points, no different than festive areas in most college towns across the nation, attract its share of students and fans of the Gamecocks. Just a few blocks’ walk is the University of South Carolina, where in a week the Gamecocks will play host to Southeast Conference foe Alabama, which will comes to town undefeated and ranked number one in the nation.
The Historic Columbia Foundation, true to its mission, has thoughtfully placed a landmark sign with photos and stories about Lower Waverly near the entrance to Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park and just across the way from the Stone of Hope monument. Lower Waverly, when there were few other places to live, is former primary community of African Americans in this city. Achievers, business owners and others who made this neighborhood flourish are remembered on an historical billboard.
They say, “Historic Columbia Foundation serves as a leader in the preservation of local history through its stewardship of historic properties, presentation of programs that educate the public on local history and advocates for the preservation of our built history and cultural landscapes.”
Prominent among cultural landscapes in this city is the Stone of Hope. Monuments or memorials to Dr. King are typically a marriage of words, his, and images, which could be a plethora of still photographs or images on captured on celluloid from start of the King-led Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama in 1955 to the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” sermon, his last, on April 3, 1968 in Mason Temple in Memphis.
“Stone of Hope” monument cultivates its name from Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech delivered on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital. In part, he said, “With this faith, we shall hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”
At the convergence of Five Points, remembering Lower Waverly, seeing funds being raised for charity through the annual chili cook-off and observing celebration of blues music at the annual festival are to be considered stone of hope come to fruition.
Civic-minded young people in Columbia, members in the Greater Columbia Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees), led the way in developing the Stone of Hope project, raising money primarily from businesses, students and individuals.
The Greater Columbia Jaycees, they say, “is the premier professional and service organization for building young adult leaders within the Midlands of Columbia, South Carolina since 1935. We focus on building leaders through community service.”
Nowadays, the Jaycees, a membership-based nonprofit organization, has 200,000 young people ages 18 to 40 in 5,000 communities and more than 100 countries around the world.
Ronald Reagan signed the bill making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday in 1983; it was first observed on January 20, 1986.
On this day that the nation observes the holiday with a day of community service and commemoration, Columbia, South Carolina has the “Dream Keeper Awards” E.W. Cromartie II, a former councilman, started the awards in 1990, recognizing “exemplary displays of committed service to the tenets of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Harvest Hope Food Pantry benefits from the annual “Honor the Dream Food Drive.”
Ernest Lee, self-promoter as the Chicken Man of South Carolina and creator of curious paintings, greets two University of South Carolina students.