Holiday marked with parades and services but tempered by anxieties over racial and social equality under Trump
Holiday marked with parades and services but tempered by anxieties over racial and social equality under Trump
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.
“If she cursed them out does that give them the right to shoot her?” he asked. “Now they’re talking about sending in the national guards, sending in more ICE agents. We are in a state that Dr King would have been fighting against this country going this far.”
Sharpton called for a broad sense of unity, saying that “if people are on our side, we can disagree without being disagreeable because we have folks that are adversarial to the interests of our community.
“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.
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.
