This Tuesday (20), one day after the 40th celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, Nike plans an unusual tribute to the civil rights icon: a sneakers in a shade of teal inspired by the location of his murder.
The color of the sneaker — a special “Honor the King” edition of Nike’s popular LeBron XXIII basketball model — references the exterior of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where King was killed in 1968.
The murder represents a painful chapter in the history of the city, which has long been under the shadow of shame for its role in a national tragedy. In 1991, the motel reopened as the National Civil Rights Museum.
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LeBron James, the NBA star after whom the model is named, debuted the shoe in a game on January 2, when his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, faced the Memphis Grizzlies. The “Honor the King” is part of a series of releases designed to celebrate James’ 23 years in the league, according to Nike.
The decision to use the same aesthetic as the aquamarine signs and details of the Lorraine Motel in the sneaker’s color palette was quickly criticized after images of the product were published online. But, according to a company spokesperson, this was perhaps already expected.
“Design is something very subjective, and in some people it will generate identification, in others, perhaps less, and obviously it becomes a little more charged when there are bigger principles at play”, said John Jowers, vice president of communications at Nike, in an interview.
“I think the intention, though, was to really pay tribute to Dr. King and his life and his legacy.”
This isn’t the first time Nike has turned to black history as a source of inspiration. In 2020, the company created special game uniforms honoring Martin Luther King Jr. for the Atlanta Hawks, Jowers said.
And in 2018, Nike released an all-black edition of the Air Force One with the word “EQUALITY” printed on the heel for Black History Month. But none of these initiatives alluded to the tragic end of King’s life.
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“We believe our track record of support in this area speaks for itself,” Jowers said.
Some sneaker enthusiasts, like 32-year-old photographer Randy Singleton, called the design tasteless.
“Who is this sneaker for?” asked Singleton, who found out about the launch from a Sneaker News post on Instagram, in a telephone interview. “Of all the possible things to associate with Dr. King Jr., choosing the motel where his life was taken as inspiration for tennis is absurd.”
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According to Russell Wigginton, president of the National Civil Rights Museum, the museum learned about the tennis a few days ago, at the same time as the general public.
“It certainly doesn’t bother us that people recognize and value the work we do and what happened here,” Wigginton said Thursday. “But we didn’t participate in any aspect of this, the launch of the sneaker.”
Nike is a longtime donor to the museum, and according to Wigginton, NBA teams and players, including Magic Johnson and James himself, have supported its mission in the past.
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Martin Luther King III, King’s firstborn, preferred not to be interviewed for this report. And representatives for Bernice King, the civil rights leader’s youngest daughter and CEO of the King Center, said she was unavailable for interviews in the busy days leading up to the holiday honoring King.
Nike’s vibrantly colored tribute to King’s legacy comes a month after the Trump administration announced that the National Park Service would stop offering free admission on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, two holidays that celebrate black history.
For Wigginton, the launch of the sneaker comes at a decisive moment in the country’s trajectory.
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“We are living in a time when dimensions of civil and human rights are under threat, and we have been through this before, as a society,” he stated. “The Civil Rights Movement was how we got through that.
“One of the things Dr. King taught us,” he added, “is that you have to prepare for better days.”
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