{"id":16006,"date":"2025-01-20T02:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T10:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16006"},"modified":"2025-01-20T02:10:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T10:10:52","slug":"the-search-for-lessons-in-trumps-return-on-martin-luther-king-day-the-new-york-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16006","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Search for Lessons in Trump\u2019s Return on Martin Luther King Day&#8221;, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/clyde-mcgrady\">Clyde McGrady<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/rick-rojas\">Rick Rojas<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clyde McGrady reported from Washington. Rick Rojas reported from Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jan. 20, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The dual celebrations of a second Trump inauguration and the civil rights leader\u2019s birth raise profound questions about Black leadership and progress toward the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/20\/multimedia\/20nat-mlkday-vthb\/20nat-mlkday-vthb-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">People walked by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington this week.Credit&#8230;Marko Djurica\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On Monday, America will observe both the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose vision of pluralism, democracy and racial justice made him the most revered civil rights leader of the last century, and the return to office of President-elect Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The convergence of Martin Luther King Day and Mr. Trump\u2019s inauguration will be celebrated by some; after all, Mr. Trump\u2019s stunning political comeback was boosted by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/06\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-2024-campaign-coalition.html\">remarkable gains with voters of color<\/a>. It will sit uneasily with others, who see Mr. Trump\u2019s movement \u2014&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/01\/us\/politics\/trump-immigration-rhetoric-history.html\">fueled by nativism<\/a>&nbsp;and a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/22\/us\/politics\/trump-speech-turning-point-arizona.html\">rejection of inclusion<\/a>&nbsp;as a societal aim \u2014 as a backlash to many of the precepts central to Dr. King\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But for many, the unusual coupling \u2014 only Bill Clinton\u2019s second inauguration on Jan. 20, 1997, coincided with the King holiday \u2014 may be a moment of reckoning for a country that has struggled since its inception between its ideals of equality and its divisions over race and ethnicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s almost a Godsend,\u201d said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, who will mark M.L.K. Day from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. King once preached. \u201cThere can be a juxtapositioning of vision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The convergence of celebrations comes at a crucial time for Black leadership and its historical alliance with the Democratic Party, which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/11\/06\/us\/elections\/trump-america-red-shift-victory.html\">Mr. Trump appears to be cleaving<\/a>. The country is more culturally and racially diverse than in Dr. King\u2019s day, and the marking of what would have been his 96th birthday (on Jan. 15) comes as Black voters are questioning what Black leadership should look like in the second part of the Trump era, amid the country\u2019s disenchantment with policies that are ostensibly meant to address racial disparities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Americans had an opportunity to elect a Black woman to the presidency for the first time. They pointedly chose not to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, Monday\u2019s dual observances will unfold in ordinary ways. Church services and service projects to mark M.L.K. Day are planned for around the country, as dignitaries and campaign donors prepare to pack the Capitol and the nearby Capital One Arena to watch a peaceful transfer of power in Washington that will stand in contrast to the violent turmoil of four years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even the intrusion of presidential politics is not new. Since the first M.L.K. Day was observed in 1986, the holiday, which is celebrated on the third Monday in January, has been used by partisans for their own ends. That year, President Ronald Reagan, who initially opposed the federal holiday, used the most famous line in Dr. King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech to make the case against affirmative action, a policy that Mr. Trump also rejects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe want a colorblind society,\u201d Mr. Reagan&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1986\/01\/19\/us\/reagan-quotes-king-speech-in-opposing-minority-quotas.html\">said<\/a>&nbsp;in a radio address, \u201ca society, that in the words of Dr. King, judges people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That appropriation and the sanding down of Dr. King\u2019s more jagged edges bothered Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights icon, who attributed his father\u2019s assassination to his embrace of \u201ca radical redistribution of wealth,\u201d not \u201criding in the front of a bus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sign up for the Race\/Related Newsletter Join a deep and provocative exploration of race, identity and society with New York Times journalists. Get it sent to your inbox.<br>\u201cDad has been used like a smorgasbord,\u201d he said in an interview, calling the Republican invocation of his father\u2019s dream of a society that judges its members solely by the content of their character an incomplete rendering of Dr. King\u2019s views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/17\/multimedia\/20nat-mlkday\/17trump-new-header05-bvqg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Preparations for inaugural ceremonies shifted inside the Capitol Rotunda on Friday.Credit\u2026Kenny Holston\/The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the argument captures the moment. While Mr. Trump had overwhelming support from white voters in 2024, he also increased his support among voters of color, particularly Latino men and to a lesser extent, Black men. Among both groups, a new brand of leadership is emerging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Representative Wesley Hunt, Republican of Texas, who is Black, recalled being required to watch Dr. King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe message of being judged, not by the color of your skin, but by the content of your character, that resonates very well with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a paradigm shift in the country,\u201d Mr. Hunt, 41, added. Providing economic opportunity and safer communities can solidify his party\u2019s gains, he said, but Republicans will have two short years to show they are serious, or risk letting voters of color slip through their fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decades ago, Mr. Trump called for the death penalty for five Black youths accused, wrongfully, of rape, and more recently, during his first term in the White House, he railed against four minority women serving in Congress, urging the legislators, all of them U.S. citizens, to \u201cgo back\u201d to their countries of origin. Such episodes have prompted accusations that the Mr. Trump is racist. Mr. Hunt was aware of the criticism, but he rejected the label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said that Mr. Trump has shown him personal kindness and that the president-elect embraces Dr. King\u2019s legacy. The congressman recounted a recent trip with the president-elect to Mar-a-Lago, where they sat on a plane together the whole way, watching James Brown videos and talking about Mr. Trump\u2019s friendship with Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf a guy is racist, does that happen?\u201d Mr. Hunt asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leah Wright Rigueur, author of \u201cThe Loneliness of the Black Republican,\u201d said Monday\u2019s M.L.K. Day is coming at a moment when \u201cthe Democratic coalition is at its weakest point since the early 1980s,\u201d precisely because Democrats failed to address the social ills that Dr. King warned about, especially economic inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the high-water mark of the coalition was Barack Obama\u2019s campaigns in 2008 and 2012, she said, once the Obama presidency ended, these voters were left asking, \u201cwhat has Obama done for me, materially in my day to day life?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of the blame for Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s loss, Ms. Wright Rigueur said, lay in the campaign\u2019s failure to explain why democracy is the best system of government for voters struggling nearly 250 years after the nation\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. King, she said, had a fundamental belief in the power of political institutions and their ability to uphold democracy. The failure in recent decades to include the marginalized and ostracized in the larger project of democracy undermines those vital institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAll these people on the ground already know Trump is a racist,\u201d said Ms. Wright Rigueur. \u201cThey know that he is bombastic and over the top, that he\u2019s anti-immigrant, but they\u2019re also like, \u2018Well, I\u2019m really angry about my position in life right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Trump has a knack for speaking to not only people\u2019s racial anxieties, she acknowledged, but also their frustrations and lack of economic mobility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jonathan Eig, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography \u201cKing: A Life,\u201d saw parallels between the civil rights leader\u2019s final days and the views of Mr. Trump\u2019s core voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere was a resistance to sharing power\u201d then, he said, \u201cand I think there was a backlash to the election of Barack Obama and a backlash to Black Lives Matter. We\u2019re seeing that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. King warned of it himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs Negroes move forward toward a fundamental alteration of their lives, some bitter white opposition is bound to grow, even within groups that were hospitable to earlier superficial amelioration,\u201d Dr. King wrote in 1967\u2019s \u201cChaos and Community: Where Do We Go from Here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the years since Mr. Trump left office in 2021, that backlash has only gained strength. The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions. Major companies have scuttled their diversity initiatives. Mr. Trump\u2019s incoming deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has told corporate leaders that he plans to \u201cgo to war against the diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I., culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Mr. Trump, this is nothing new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1989, on NBC, he said: \u201cI think sometimes a Black may think they don\u2019t have an advantage or this and that,\u201d but, he protested, \u201cI would love to be a well-educated Black, because I really believe they do have an actual advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More traditional Black leaders in the King mold are digging in for a fight. Dr. King\u2019s son, who now leads an initiative called \u201cRealize the Dream,\u201d said he has had conversations with other civil rights leaders about organizing divestment campaigns aimed at companies backtracking on their D.E.I. pledges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated, Dr. King delivered a sermon in Memphis that offered a blunt assessment of a broken and despairing world. \u201cThe nation is sick,\u201d he said. \u201cTrouble is in the land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As he prepared to take the pulpit at Ebenezer, Dr. Barber, a prominent activist who help revive the Poor People\u2019s Campaign that Dr. King started, said he had been studying that sermon. His task was to celebrate the endurance of Dr. King\u2019s message, but the sermon will also confront the incoming Trump administration. The temptation might be to ignore Mr. Trump\u2019s inaugural address and give into frustration, turning back from the fight for racial equality and economic fairness, Dr. Barber said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNothing would be more tragic,\u201d Dr. King said in 1968, and on Monday, Dr. Barber will say the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHistory has proven that extremism will only cause the people to rise,\u201d Dr. Barber said. \u201cIt will not cause the people to hide, to back up, to bow down. Injustice will always cause justice and those who believe in it to rise. It always has. It always will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Clyde McGrady reports on how race and identity is shaping American culture. He is based in Washington. More about Clyde McGrady<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rick Rojas is the Atlanta bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the South. More about Rick Rojas<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Clyde McGrady&nbsp;and&nbsp;Rick Rojas Clyde McGrady reported from Washington. Rick Rojas reported from Atlanta. Jan. 20, 2025 The dual celebrations of a second Trump inauguration and the civil rights leader\u2019s birth raise profound questions about Black leadership and progress toward the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s dream. On Monday, America will observe both the birth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16009,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16006\/revisions\/16009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}