The U.S. political climate spurs efforts to reclaim the MLK holiday

As communities across the country on Monday hosted parades, panels and service projects for the 40th federal observation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the political climate for some is more fraught with tensions than festive with reflection on the slain Black American civil rights icon's legacy.

In the year since Donald Trump's second inauguration fell on King Day, the Republican president has adopted a scorched earth stance against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and targeted mostly Black-led cities for federal law enforcement operations, among other policies that many King admirers have criticized.

One year ago, Trump's executive orders, “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” and “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” accelerated a rollback of civil rights and racial justice initiatives in federal agencies, corporations and universities. Last month, the National Park Service announced it will no longer offer free admission to parks on King Day and Juneteenth, but instead on Flag Day and Trump's birthday.

A.R. Bernard, founder, pastor and CEO of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, told an audience gathered at King's home church in Atlanta Sunday that the Trump administration is attempting to rewrite history.

“We are living in a moment where America is being tempted to forget the painful truth of its Black history. Slavery being renamed as labor, segregation reduced to a footnote, racial terror explained away as exaggeration,” Bernard said, speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. “This is irresponsible, historical revisionism.”

Urgent calls to unite against injustice were interspersed with energetic gospel at Ebenezer, where King preached. A sense that civil and human rights are at stake infused the comments by many speakers there Monday.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat and Ebenezer’s senior pastor, invoked a story about King fighting for the Voting Rights Act after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. He urged the crowd to keep pushing against Trump’s policies, sweeping immigration enforcement and what he described as attempts from the “Trump-Vance regime” to sow division.

“They are trying to weaponize despair and convince us that we are at war with one another,” Warnock said.

The fatal shooting this month of an unarmed Minneapolis woman in her car by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sent there to target the city's Somali immigrant population, as well as Trump recently decrying civil rights as discrimination against white people, have only intensified fears of a regression from the social progress King and many others advocated for.

Still, the concerns have not chilled many King holiday events planned this year. Some conservative admirers of King say the holiday should be a reminder of the civil rights icon's plea that all people be judged by their character and not their skin color. Some Black advocacy groups, however, are vowing a day of resistance and rallies nationwide.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Trump said he felt the Civil Rights Movement and the reforms it helped usher in were harmful to white people, who “were very badly treated.” Politicians and advocates say Trump's comments are what are harmful, because they dismiss the hard work of King and others that helped not just Black Americans but other groups, including women and the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think the Civil Rights Movement was one of the things that made our country so unique, that we haven’t always been perfect, but we’ve always strived to be this more perfect union, and that’s what I think the Civil Rights Movement represents,” Gov. Wes Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor and only the nation’s third elected Black governor, said this week in an interview with The Associated Press.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

In Washington Monday, hundreds of people marched along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, braving cold weather to honor the civil rights leader. The parade began decades ago as part of the effort to establish a national holiday in King’s honor.

Sam Ford, a retired broadcaster and member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade Committee, helped bring the parade back in 2012.

“We got to continue to do this because not just of Dr. King, but of what he stood for,” Ford said. “The struggle continues.”

Parade participant Harold Hunter echoed that sentiment.

“It’s not just a white thing or Black thing. This is a people thing,” he said.

The conservative Heritage Foundation think tank encouraged the holiday’s focus to stay solely on King himself. Brenda Hafera, a foundation research fellow, urged people to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta or reread his “I have a dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington nearly 63 years ago.

Using the holiday as a platform to rally and speak about “anti-racism” and “critical race theory” actually rejects King’s ambition for the country, Hafera argued.

“I think efforts should be conducted in the spirit of what Martin Luther King actually believed and what he preached. And his vision was a colorblind society, right,” Hafera said. “He says very famously in his speech, don’t judge by the color of your skin, but the content of your character.”