As a frigid wind blew and snow turned from flurries to a wintry bombardment Saturday, Missouri’s only statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood defiant in its longtime home in Fountain Park.
King’s statue had weathered a storm of its own on May 16, 2025.
When the historic tornado, which devastated the nearby Centennial Christian Church and wide swaths of North St. Louis, struck, the 11-foot statue erected in 1978 was blown off its pedestal and severely damaged.
Committeewoman Yolonda “Yogi” Yancie arrived at Fountain Park shortly after the tornado and learned that her friend, Patricia Penelton, had been killed while preparing meals for the homeless at Centennial.
While stunned by the wreckage in the park and news of her friend’s death, she stopped someone from taking one of King’s hands, which had been ripped off during the storm, and kept it until it could be reunited with the statue.
Local sculptor Bob Rocca used a crane to lift the statue onto a trailer and transport it to his shop two days after the storm, with the goal of restoring it to its original glory.
He has been working to restore the statue, and it returned to its home of almost 50 years a day before the commemoration service. Rocca improved the statue by applying a polyurethane coating to protect its bronze composition.
“It was all tore up,” Rocca told the Post-Dispatch.
The statue returned five months to the day after the tornado, said Jerome Carroll of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. and Centennial, which hosted the annual MLK commemoration in Fountain Park.
Carroll’s church and many buildings and homes surrounding Fountain Park remain damaged and empty.
“This is a vivid reminder of what tragedy looks like. But dignity lives in people, not buildings,” he said.
“We are here to re-dedicate (the statue of) a champion of justice.”
Mayor Cara Spencer read a city proclamation declaring Jan. 19 “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the city of St. Louis,” and saluted “the neighborhood residents who worked to make sure Dr. King was returned to where he is supposed to be.”
Acknowledging that the tornado recovery “has been too slow,” Spencer added that “I own this responsibility.”
“I see that there is far too much work left to do. In Dr. King’s words (in his letter written while in a Birmingham, Alabama, jail) “justice delayed is justice denied.”
She said years of redlining and disenfranchisement still haunt North St. Louis.
“The trust has been broken. I understand that. We are pushing on every front. I know it does not feel that way,” she said.
Keynote speaker Joseph Palm, former Department of Health and Human Services Region 7 director, said the storm “knocked down Dr. King,” but he knew “he would be back.”
Palm recognized the community effort that brought the King statue back to Fountain Park.
“Martin Luther King reminded us that we must stay together and we will rise together,” he said.
Palm said it is up to all people to address “a government that is failing us at all levels.”
“Dr King gave his life fighting [against] hopelessness and showing courage.”
Two youth speakers, Legacy Jackson, a Cardinal Ritter College Prep junior, and Lailah Price, a Whitfield School sixth-grader, promised the audience they and their generation would not forget King’s work and would continue his mission of community service and the pursuit of justice.
“As Dr. King said, ‘real change comes when ordinary people stand up.’ We will carry Dr. King’s work forward. His work is still in our hands,” said Jackson, founder of the Little Legacies Foundation.
Price said Dr. King “taught us that our voices matter.”
“He showed us that love, courage, and faith can be powerful tools. Helping is not something you just talk about; it’s something that you do.”
A moment of silence was held for Penelton and Rena Lyles, Larry Patrick, Deloris Holmes and Juan Baltazar, who were also killed during the tornado’s rampage.