In 2013, the last time a presidential inauguration was held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Bernice King made sure her father was present.
When Barack Obama, entering his second term as president, raised his right hand and promised to “faithfully execute the office of president,” his left hand rested on a worn black leather Bible that King carried with him during his rise as a civil rights leader.
At the time, Bernice King called the moment “heartwarming.”
Credit: Mark Gail
Credit: Mark Gail
On Monday, for the third time since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a federal holiday, a presidential inauguration will also occur. Just three hours after the annual King Day service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
Bernice King will not send a Bible or anything else to represent her family this year. Instead, she has a message to Black Americans and others who have vowed to ignore the inauguration.
“We must pay attention to what President-Elect Trump speaks on that day,” said King, who is CEO of the King Center.
“We cannot develop a strategic, love-centered strategy for addressing language and legislation if we are not also strategic in our listening and leadership. This is not the time for ignorance. I’m encouraging people to amplify the teachings and work of my father and the movements. That’s what it means for me on that day.”
Credit: Daniel Varnado for the AJC
Credit: Daniel Varnado for the AJC
Although the Ebenezer ceremony usually runs through early afternoon, this year organizers have strategically slated it to run from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., so as not to conflict with Trump’s noon swearing-in.
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, a prominent civil rights leader and founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, said they are calling for “prophetic listening sessions” of Trump’s inauguration speech.
“We want people to get their Bibles and their Constitutions out, and actually listen to the speech, even if you didn’t vote for Trump,” said Barber, who will deliver the keynote at Monday’s Ebenezer service.
“We need to decipher that speech so we know where our battle lines are and what our struggles will be. We don’t need to turn away. Dr. King didn’t turn away from struggle. He turned toward it.”
Credit: Jose Luis Magana
Credit: Jose Luis Magana
On Jan. 15, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968, would have been 96.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been celebrated on the third Monday in January since its establishment in 1983, while Inauguration Day has been set as Jan. 20 since 1937.
In 1997, Bill Clinton was the first president to be inaugurated on King Day.
Barber, the president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the King-inspired Poor People’s Campaign, said the inauguration coinciding with the King holiday could be the perfect opportunity for America to do what King called, “collective action.”
“Nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now,” Barber said. “This King Day, we have to be clear that this is not a time for us to stand down. We have time to stand up. We cannot stand down in this moment. We cannot stop organizing in this moment. We cannot stop telling the truth in this moment. We cannot stop challenging a president.”
Trump’s inauguration comes after a bitter 2024 election that pitted him against Kamala Harris, who was vying to become the first woman elected president. The campaign was marred by ugly rhetoric as Trump — similarly to his “birther” conspiracy aimed at Obama — questioned whether Harris was Black.
According to AP VoteCast, 83% of Black voters, Harris’s biggest support group, supported her in the 2024 election. Black women supported her at a 92% clip.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
For many voters, the contrast between Trump and King — and how it is playing out on Jan. 20 — is stark.
Earlier this week, after complaints from Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered that all flags at the U.S. Capitol be raised to their full height on Inauguration Day pausing a 30-day flag-lowering order by President Joe Biden, following the death of Jimmy Carter, the Georgia-born former president who died Dec. 30.
After Trump was elected, Civil Rights leaders and pundits raised fears that a second Trump Administration would scale back civil rights and get rid of equity programs aimed at eliminating racial disparities that impact marginalized communities in business, education, health care and housing.
Trump has already promised to exact revenge on his political enemies, attacked DEI policies and proposed a mass deportation plan after repeatedly saying undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
“This is not our first lynching. When our ancestors saw a lynching, they cut the body down, prayed over the body, buried the body and got right back into the fight,” said the Rev. Gerald Durley. “Rather than sitting around saying what are they doing to us? This is a time for us to be stronger than ever.”
On several occasions, Trump has compared himself to King, and suggested that his Jan. 6, 2021, speech on the White House Ellipse drew the “same number of people,” as the 1963 March on Washington, where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
And before he distanced himself, Trump called North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Robinson eventually lost his race for governor after CNN reported that he once frequented a porn site, where he called himself a “Black Nazi.”
That is why Bernice King said she is glad the two events are converging, to contrast Trump’s record that “sanctions hatred and injustice” with the “unity, equality, and nonviolence” that her father embraced, she said.
“I’m glad it occurred on that day because it gives the United States of America and the world the contrasting pictures. And it’s not a day that he can be the star, which he loves to be. He has to contend with that legacy on that day, regardless of how he manages it and handles it.
“I hope those around him are advising him well to honor the day appropriately in his speech,” King said. “I don’t know about his actions.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Durley, who will be speaking Monday morning at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Ponce De Leon Ave., said the 2024 election and the inauguration should serve as a call to action.
“We have to go back and look at the two things that made us strong: sacrifice and risk,” said Durley, the pastor-emeritus of Providence Missionary Baptist Church of Atlanta.
“I’m going back to what we used to do, and that was depend on each other and using our gifts and talents. We believe in a faith in each other and a faith in God. And when we do that, we can withstand this next three or four years.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
As Trump and his supporters gather in Washington, the King Center, will host its annual commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church as it has done for the past 55 years. Bernice King will give the call to commemoration and Barber will deliver the keynote.
Martin Luther King III will be speaking in Memphis, Tenn., on Monday, while his wife Arndrea Waters King will lead a march in San Antonio, Texas.
“Today and every day, we encourage everyone to live according to my father’s principles of peace, justice, and equity by choosing community over chaos,” King III said. “His dream requires active participation from all of us, regardless of where we are as a nation and in our politics.”
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also Ebenezer’s pastor, plans to attend Trump’s inauguration. In a bit of counterprogramming, the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network are planning a rally and march in Washington at the historic Metropolitan AME Church.
“Why did this happen on the King holiday?” King said. “That wasn’t man; that was God’s doing and I think we have to tune in and ask, what does this mean?” King said.
Credit: Daniel Varnado
Credit: Daniel Varnado
After the ceremony, Bernice King will continue working on plans to mark her father’s 100th birthday in 2029. The 2029 King holiday will come five days before Trump is scheduled to leave office.
“When we celebrate my father’s 100th, if Trump makes all four years, his administration will still be in office,” King said. “That’s no coincidence. (The moment) is speaking to us.”
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