WASHINGTON—It’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Washington, D.C. Six hundred people are gathering in the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church to attend a National Action Network rally.
The march planned earlier from McPherson Square was canceled because the weather is sunny, but chilling. It’s hard to tell if the relative silence in the streets is because of the weather, or if a sense of anticipation, even dread, is hanging in the air. This is not your typical Martin Luther King Day. Today is also Inauguration Day, the day a man who says God has given him to the American people is inaugurated as president for the second time.
Five or six white charter buses are idling in front of the church. During the first Trump administration, the extreme right often claimed that anti-fascist protesters were bussed in, and here they are: African American elders from California, youth artists from the District of Columbia, homeless advocates from New York City, and civil rights activists from the South.
It’s church, but people are all dressed in their own way. Some are wearing their Sunday’s best, while others are more utilitarian, with their sweat hoodies tucked under puffer jackets. Though it is dangerously cold and icy outside, the people inside the church bring their own warmth.
In line for the ladies’ bathroom, one attendee gives a pep talk to those waiting. “That word, resilience, we keep getting tested by it,” she says, inspecting each person in line with a disciplined smile. “The whole nation is looking to see what Black people will do. Keep a smile on your face when you see the media. We’re built for this. We’ll be okay. We know who’s still on the throne.”
Strength is needed. Today, on this Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, all those attending this rally will enter the church under a Biden administration and will exit under Trump’s rule.
The Metropolitan AME Church, the oldest continuously operating Black church in Washington, D.C., is stepping into its historical role as a center of spiritual and political leadership for the country yet again. The pews are full of people of all generations and all races, united in song as they consider the moment ahead of them.
It was here that Frederick Douglass, a regular at the church, gave his final speech calling on the United States to end racial injustice. These walls stood witness to the funerals of both Douglass and Civil Rights leader Rosa Parks. Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois spoke here. And in December of 2020, Proud Boys and other Trump supporters stole and burned a Black Lives Matter flag from here when faced with Biden’s win as the 46th president, the first stirrings of the coup that was later launched on January 6th, 2021.
But today, it is the launch site for a struggle to defend the civil rights legacies of Douglass, Parks, King, and so many others against Trump’s attacks.
Those present are committed to building a movement that is unified in action. National Action Network Vice Chair Jennifer Jones Austin appeals to King: “Our coming together today demonstrates unity – our shared commitment to ensure for ourselves a seat at the table and to not just sit at the table but to turn the table over if we must.”
Alphonso David follows after, emphasizing the connection between economic and racial justice in the U.S. “Dr. King understood that the fight for racial and economic justice are deeply interconnected and in fact inseparable.”
King grew his 1968 Poor People’s Campaign out of that understanding. Ultimately, that campaign threatened to turn the economic and political table over, winning power for poor people of all races to end poverty, end the Vietnam War, and end systemic racism. King was assassinated while planning the campaign, but the campaign continued then and now.
Called the real visionary
Looking back on previous fights for democracy, Rev. Marshall Hatch calls Frederick Douglass the “real visionary of America as we know it.” Hatch credits Douglass with saving Abraham Lincoln’s skin during the Civil War, counting the former’s efforts to convince Lincoln to save his own country by allowing 180,000 African-American troops to fight for their own freedom.
Douglass’s vision of a society that accepted all the world’s people prevails today in the form of acceptance of immigrants. On those grounds, Hatch says “Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, owes his citizenship to Frederick Douglass,” as well as Vivek Ramaswamy and Usha Vance. “It’s good to be woke!”
Finally, as the music and energy swell inside of the church, the Rev. Al Sharpton, leader of the National Action Network, takes the stage to tell “a tale of two cities in one district,” referring to the District of Columbia. As Elon Musk is delivering Nazi salutes at Trump’s inauguration just a mile away, Rev. Sharpton takes the audience through the history of the fight for democracy starting from 1619: “We were brought here as a result of the slave trade. Slave trade meant that there was an economic arrangement. They justified it by dehumanizing who they traded.”
Sharpton develops the historical connection between race and class through to the present day with Trump’s defense of the death penalty for the Central Park Five. In 1989, ten days after the five African American boys were rounded up, accused of rape, and forced by police to make false confessions, Trump took out a $209,000 full-page ad calling for the death penalty to be used on them.
Of course, they didn’t actually do it. The actual attacker confessed over a decade later such that the law was forced to exonerate the accused 13 years after the event. Korey Wise, one of the five exonerated, joyfully salutes the crowd from the front and center pew.
Continuing King’s commitment to the fight for economic justice, the first strike against Trump’s attacks will be a targeted boycott. Like the bus boycotts of the 1950s civil rights movement, this boycott aims at corporations that first abandoned people’s rights. For 90 days, the National Action Network will research corporations that revoked their diversity, equity, and inclusion measures and boycott two of the least profitable ones.
Sharpton draws the battle line in terms of David and Goliath: “There’s a giant that defies Martin Luther King… I come to Washington with my slingshot.” He closes his remarks by asking the audience to take a solemn oath, invoking the sacred ground on which we rally:
”I want everyone, if you’re resolved to just raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name (Al Sharpton), do solemnly commit, that I will stand up, and rise up, in the name of Dr. King, in the name of Frederick Douglass, in the name of Rosa Parks, that I will defend equality for all: diversity, equality, inclusion, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration rights.
“I commit, I take this oath, that I will not become, like those I’m fighting — I’m not violent, but I will peacefully stand, against those who want to bring us down. I commit this in the house of God, on this sacred ground, so help me God.”
As the crowd follows with hands raised, Sharpton breaks into a smile. “Congratulations!” he bellows as if this rally is a graduation ceremony into a new form of struggle.
Before the rally closes, Reverend William H. Lamar IV lays out a benediction rooted in history: “We are a sankofa people: we look back to go forward.”
He closes with a quote from Lucille Clifton, reminding the audience that it’s appropriate for “a Black woman to have the last word today”:
“won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
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