The Egg

New Orleans' First Dr. King Memorial

Jan 30, 2024

In the New Orleans 11th ward, you find Central City, a neighborhood with origins that go back to the 1800s.

It began when two Tchoupitoulas Coast Plantations became Faubourg Livaudais and Faubourg Delassize.

Newly arrived immigrants settled this area, and soon it was a community of Irish, German, Italian, and Jewish immigrants. Then, in the wake of the Civil War, black and creole residents moved into the Central City mix.

By the 20th century, this was a bustling working class neighborhood. Dryades Street was the main drag with lots of stores and activity. Jim Crow laws were in full effect, so Central City was a key place in the lives of people of color in New Orleans. It was where you could go shopping in peace. It was where New Orlean’s first black hospital, library, and park were built. And, it was home for many churches, which at that time were integral in most people’s lives.

Central City has had a strong contingency of musicians over its many decades from pioneering jazz musicians to pioneering rappers. There is a long list of legendary New Orleans musicians and performers that have called Central City home. After World War 2, the music culture was nurtured further with the opening of the club component to the Dew Drop Inn. This club was where Rhythm & Blues and early Rock & Roll would incubate and visiting artist like Little Richard would polish their acts.

The neighborhood started to become a majority black one in the 1950s, as most of the white residents had moved out. With this transition, ending segregation and racial injustice was a unified dream in Central City.

In January 1957, a historic civil rights event occurred at the New Zion Baptist Church on LaSalle Street in Central City. Almost 100 Civil Rights leaders met to formally incorporate the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It was at this event that Martin Luther King Jr., coming off leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was elected their first president. The Montgomery Boycott had demonstrated the power of non-violent political action, and Dr. King became the latest spokesperson for it.

A few years later, in 1959, Oretha Castle Haley and a group of others would align with the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago, which had been dedicated to non-violence since 1942. In New Orleans they would protest the practice of white owned businesses on Dryades Street, who would not hire black folk, even though they were their primary customers. Castle would help organize protest, including the famous McCrory sit-in. They achieved success with their protest. Many years later, in 1989, an 11 block stretch of Dryades, from Calliope Street to Phillip Street, would be re-named Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.

By the 1970s, desegregation had opened up new options for black people and the community of Central City was not as vital as it used to be. The economic vitality of the neighborhood began to decline and Central City began to show its age. With this, crime began to rise and Central City was no longer the vibrant place it had been.

This was the Central City for which Frank Hayden was commissioned by the City of New Orleans in 1975 to create a public sculpture memorial to Dr. King. Hayden’s friend, John T. Scott was the one who recommended that they tap Hayden for this task. It would be New Orleans’ first monument to honor Dr. King.

The sculpture would be located at the intersection of Dryades and Melpomene. Both streets would be renamed, starting with Melpomene becoming Martin Luther King Boulevard in 1977.

Hayden had been getting church commissions since the 1950s, but this was his first public art commission outside of the Dr. King piece at Southern University in Baton Rouge. With it, he chose to take a similar abstract, poetic approach. It’s a circle in the round sculpture where this time, he uses the image of an egg.

The egg has been used as a symbol of new life and rebirth since ancient times. When describing it at the time, Hayden described it as a “symmetrical sphere, offering no beginning or end, just like the cycle of life, as MLK too believed.”

The work incorporates hands, a frequent Hayden motif. The hands are coming out of an egg shape. Hayden adds that the hand in it “symbolized reaching for brotherhood and reconciliation.” Times Picayune

Inside the egg shell, Hayden features graphically arranged words from famous Dr. King speeches. Hayden had been experimenting with words in sculpture since the 1950s. By the 1970s, Hayden got back into the challenge of this and would constantly be creating clever new ways to incorporate text.

The egg also has the feel of the fiberglass pieces that Hayden had been creating since the late 1960s.

For this commission, Hayden was finally presented with the opportunity to cast one of these shapes. It also provided Hayden the opportunity to reconnect with the Modern Art Foundry in Astoria, Queens, New York. It was now under the guidance of Bob Spring, successor to his father, John Spring, an art foundry worker, who, in 1932, started his own foundry.

Bob Spring and Hayden would become good friends in the coming years as the Modern Art Foundry helped him produce large scale cast sculptures. The Egg was the first of many collaborations to come.

The sculpture, entitled ‘Beloved Community’, creates “a representation and reminder of Martin Luther King Jr.’s drive to bring the people of America together and create a world of unity.”.

Its unveiling in the summer of 1976 was to mixed reactions. Perhaps too imaginative for some, Hayden had created art that embodied the spirit of Dr. King. He created public art that was contemporary and that could catch the attention of young and old. With it, you can see a continuation of the ideas he had explored a few years earlier with the Catholic Center at Southern University in Baton Rouge. Both working to bring a message of hope to the disenfranchised black youth.

At Xavier University of Louisiana Artist Village for restoration work

Over the years, the Egg has come to mean many things to people. Its design invites the viewer to see it in many ways. It has become a treasure to this community and is a destination stop for Martin Luther King Jr. day celebrations. In recent years, Central City has seen renewal and so has the Egg. The Oretha Castle Haley Merchants and Business Association helped to restore the Egg and its foundation.