Across the U.S., Confederate monuments and statues of Christopher Columbus and Teddy Roosevelt have been passionately defended – and have come tumbling down over the past 10 years.

This sculpture is both abstract and carefully detailed – the buttons on his coat and her jewelry are clearly articulated in bronze.

Many of the critics complained that enormous floating arms of beloved civil rights leaders did a terrible disservice to the Kings.

One tweeter asked Thomas: “Why did you make it so complicated and confusing?”

Most memorials do their work with a few very familiar conventions – soldiers on horses, scantily clad buxom figures of liberty, and dignified men caught midstride, forever frozen in time.

“The Embrace” shattered those conventions – which partly explains the outrage.

In the past, the most respectful, most dignified way to represent a revered person was as fully dressed and standing tall.

“The Embrace” steps outside of memorial conventions, which is a particularly complicated thing to do when representing Black people and women.

Depicting Coretta Scott King without a whole body and without a face runs the risk of seeming to be part of a long practice of denying women the power and dignity of their male counterparts.

Most women found in public memorials are symbols of liberty, peace, justice – and at least partially naked.

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