Three Ministers Kneeling

This limestone sculpture by Raymond Kaskey depicts three figures emerging from a boulder which serves as a backdrop to the scene. The figures represent Birmingham’s minsters of the Civil RIghts Movement. It specifically illustrates the moment on April 7, 1963 (Palm Sunday) when three minsters, John Thomas Porter, Nelson H. Smith, and A. D. King, led a group of over 2,000 marchers protesting the jailing of Martin Luther King Jr, Ralph Abertnathy, and Fred Shuttlesworth. They were confrotned by Public Safety Commissioner Bull Conner and his police, and the three ministers immediately knelt to pray on the sidewalk.