‘The struggle continues’: MLK Day celebrated amid tense political climate

Martin Luther King Jr Day was marked with parades and services across the US on Monday. But the celebration for the achievements of the slain 60s civil rights leader was tempered by contemporary anxieties over racial and social equality and Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

At a rally in Harlem, the Rev Al Sharpton referred to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother of three who was killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.

“We need to make a pledge on King Day that we gonna’ fight and make what should happen happen to preserve the dream of Dr King,” he added.

The Rev Al Sharpton speaks during commemoration of MLK Day at the National Action Network in New York City, on Monday. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters

Zohran Mamdani, the newly-installed New York City mayor, framed inequality as an economic issue at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual MLK Day celebration.

“While the city is wealthy beyond measure, it is also deeply unequal,” he said. “Some New Yorkers sleep in penthouses. Others sleep on the sidewalk below.”

“We cannot only speak of Dr King’s legacy as if it is a legacy of rights that can be given to people,” he said. “It must also be a legacy of rights that those people can exercise themselves.”

In Washington, hundreds of people marched along Martin Luther King Jr Avenue to honor the civil rights leader.

“We got to continue to do this because not just of Dr King, but of what he stood for,” said Sam Ford, a retired broadcaster and member of the Martin Luther King Jr Day Parade Committee. “The struggle continues.”

People listen to speakers at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, on Monday. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Parade participant Harold Hunter echoed that sentiment. “It’s not just a white thing or Black thing. This is a people thing,” he said.

Wisdom Cole, NAACP senior national director of advocacy, said elevated fears within racially diverse and immigrant communities meant that King Day observances were forced to take a more urgent tone. “We are faced with increased police and state violence inflicted by the government,” he said.

The Movement for Black Lives said it had planned events in Atlanta, Chicago, Oakland and other cities under the banner “Reclaim MLK Day of Action”.

“This year it is more important than ever to reclaim MLK’s radical legacy, letting his wisdom and fierce commitment to freedom move us into the action necessary to take care of one another, fight back, and free ourselves from this fascist regime,” Devonte Jackson, a national organizing director for the coalition, said in a statement.

The Dr Martin Luther King Jr Day Parade in Los Angeles. Photograph: Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

At the National Civil Rights museum in Memphis, Tennessee, located on the site of the former Lorraine Motel, where King was shot on 4 April 1968, was opened and offering free admission, an annual tradition.

“This milestone year is not only about looking back at what Dr King stood for, but also recognizing the people who continue to make his ideals real today,” museum president Russell Wigginton told the Associated Press.

But some typical MLK Day events were cancelled, including a dinner at Indiana University in Indianapolis. In a social media post, the schools’ Black Student Union said the event was officially cancelled because of “budget constraints”, but the group expressed concern that the cancellation was “connected to broader political pressures”.

Young men and women carry a banner in support of Martin Luther King Day in downtown St Petersburg, Florida. Photograph: Zoraida Diaz/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

A church in Westbrook, Maine, cancelled an MLK Day service due to “unforeseen circumstances”, according to the parish website. A member of the congregation’s “social justice and peace committee” told the local news site NewsCenterMaine.com that the service was cancelled because agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were in the area.

This year’s Dr King celebration comes exactly a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term.

Trump’s inauguration ushered in an administration opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, whether in government agencies, schools, universities or cultural institutions.

The justice department’s civil rights division, which under previous administration’s has been charged with rooting out discrimination against minority groups, has shifted focus.

In comments to the New York Times this month, Trump said civil rights protections and affirmative action programs had hurt white people. “White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university or a college,” he said.

Meanwhile, the administration has launched aggressive anti-immigration operations in several Democratic-led cities.

Pro-BLM and anti-ICE rhetoric written on the window of a car at an ICE protest and celebration of MLK day, in St Paul, Minnesota, on Monday. Photograph: Angelina Katsanis/AP

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, one of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalitions, told the Associated Press that the Trump administration’s priorities make clear it is actively trying to erase the movement for social justice.

Citing healthcare access, affordable housing, good paying jobs and union representation, Wiley said, “things Dr King made part of his clarion call for a beloved community are still at stake and is even more so because (the administration) has dismantled the very terms of government and the norms of our culture”.

Last month, the National Park Service said it will no longer offer free admission to parks on King Day and Juneteenth, but would instead offer free admission on Flag Day – 14 June. That day is also Trump’s birthday.

At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr King preached, there were calls on Monday to unite against injustice. Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat and Ebenezer’s senior pastor, said the administration is “trying to weaponize despair and convince us that we are at war with one another”.

Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) speaks at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday. Photograph: Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Warnock later posted online: “You cannot remember Dr King and dismember his legacy at the same time.” He called for a re-commitment to Dr King’s legacy: “In these dark and difficult days, Dr King’s memory continues to light a path for our nation toward an abiding peace and a just democracy”.