Skip to content

King never gave up his righteous fight, an example for all to follow

Trump’s nod to MLK Day was smothered in a speech of grievance

The true history of civil rights struggles is high on the GOP’s list of “divisive” concepts, Curtis writes. But the carvings on the side of the King memorial offer an important reminder for Inauguration Day and beyond.
The true history of civil rights struggles is high on the GOP’s list of “divisive” concepts, Curtis writes. But the carvings on the side of the King memorial offer an important reminder for Inauguration Day and beyond. (Tom Williams/Roll Call file photo)

On Jan. 20, 2025, when Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States, he was overshadowed by the memory of a man and a movement that shaped our country’s history and changed the world.

In Washington, D.C., there stands a granite statue of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose federal holiday this year, on the third Monday in January, coincided with Inauguration Day. It depicts an arms-crossed leader, resolute and determined, as though he realized the goal of equality and racial justice in America would require a never-ending fight.

Though the political world has moved on, as it tends to do with each incoming administration, former Vice President Kamala Harris has not forgotten King’s lessons. At last week’s National Action Network’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Legislative Breakfast, with members of the King family in attendance, she said: “Our definition of the win is the definition that takes us over a period of time, where part of how we measure the win is: Are we making progress? How we measure the win is based on the knowledge that it is an enduring fight and that we must be strong and that whatever the outcome of any particular moment, we can never be defeated.”

This confluence of presidential pomp and honoring a man who believed in the promise of a better America has happened twice before, with presidents who didn’t mind sharing the spotlight.

In his second inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1997, President Bill Clinton said: “Martin Luther King’s dream was the American Dream. His quest is our quest: the ceaseless striving to live out our true creed. Our history has been built on such dreams and labors. And by our dreams and labors we will redeem the promise of America in the 21st century.”

In 2013, during his second inaugural, President Barack Obama placed his hand on two Bibles, one used by Abraham Lincoln when he took the oath for his first term in 1861, the second used by King during his travels. Events the weekend before opened with a National Day of Service in King’s honor, replicated each year by citizens, including presidents.

In his address that day, Obama, whose presidency was made possible because of those on the front lines of civil rights battles, looked to King for a way forward: “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

I had wondered what words Trump would say, if he, too, would offer some thoughts on the symbolism of Inauguration Day and King’s holiday, together. It would have been a natural if the inauguration had remained in its traditional spot, since King spoke to hundreds of thousands on the mall in his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Well, maybe that would have been awkward, considering Trump’s boast that the crowds at his rally on Jan. 6, 2021, bested that day’s historic gathering.

And though he’s promising to pardon the perpetrators, might he want to bring dignity to the space defiled by his followers four short years ago, men and women who threatened lawmakers of both parties and injured law enforcement in an attempt to overturn an election?

After a campaign in which Trump and others in his party made Black and brown immigrants the villains in the story of American prosperity, the opposite of King’s American Dream, might he have offered King’s words to reach out to those citizens who did not vote for him?

Helpfully, carvings on the King memorial offer a handy crib sheet — something we all should be grateful for, since the true history of civil rights struggles is usually high on the list of “divisive” concepts that Moms for Liberty, Project 2025 and GOP rhetoric want to erase. After all, King said much more than the usual go-to about the content of one’s character, a quote Republicans have rendered irrelevant after some of the characters their party has elevated.

One quote at King’s monument would have been especially unifying: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

So, what did Trump say?

He name-checked King, all right, vowing: “We will strive together to make his dream a reality; we will make his dream come true.” But that noble nod was smothered in a speech of grievance, American “carnage” 2.0, that failed to reach out to all the citizens in the multiracial democracy civil rights leaders envisioned.

In his declaration that he will stop efforts to “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” Trump distorted the very moves King saw as necessary to level the playing field, while signaling their demise.

Thank goodness other quotes on the monument’s walls might comfort those who say they are walking away from political engagement for the next four years, hoping for the best, expecting the worst and choosing apathy: “Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.”

King was just a man, one who was hospitalized for depression, as reported in Jonathan Eig’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “King: A Life.” But he never gave up, despite drawing the ire of the likes of George Wallace and “Bull” Connor, who wielded power as the brutal, racist commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, Ala.

King once said of Wallace, “I am not sure that he believes all the poison that he preaches, but he is artful enough to convince others that he does,” something that could be said of too many leaders, from the top down.

Yet King believed, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Daughter Bernice King doesn’t mind that her father’s day also marks the beginning of an administration led by a man she has criticized. In an MSNBC interview, she said that “points us back to King. It says, ‘When we move forward, we’ve got to do it in the spirit of King.’”

Martin Luther King never said it would be easy.

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. She is host of the CQ Roll Call “Equal Time with Mary C. Curtis” podcast. Follow her on X @mcurtisnc3.

Recent Stories

Johnson: Budget blueprint not ready for prime time

Federal judge orders pause on USAID administrative leave

Trump gives DOGE new marching orders as Japan’s Ishiba tries a little flattery

Graham unveils budget blueprint ahead of markup next week

‘It’s a dumb time’ — Congressional Hits and Misses

US ordered not to release list of FBI agents tied to Jan. 6 cases