WASHINGTON (RNS) — As President-elect Donald Trump takes his oath of office for a second presidential term, the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, plans to gather people in another part of Washington, D.C., “taking our oath to keep Martin Luther King’s dream alive and intact.”
The confluence of the two federal holidays on Monday (Jan. 20) has sparked an odd — and sometimes opposing — mix of events over what is expected to be a busy three-day weekend in the nation’s capital and beyond it.
Sharpton announced on the website of his civil rights organization, which describes itself as working “within the spirit and tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” that he expected busloads of people to come to the District of Columbia Monday and to march to Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. The historically Black church’s sanctuary has been the site of funerals of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
“We’re going to rally, we’re going to march to uphold the rights and the legacy of fighting for those rights that Dr. King stood for on this federal holiday that we fought and marched and prayed to get,” Sharpton said in a video.
“We’ll be taking attendance on who’s afraid — of dream busters or who stands with the dreamer — on Martin Luther King federal holiday,” Sharpton said ahead of a planned rally.
On Wednesday — which happened to be Jan. 15, King’s actual birthday — Sharpton began spearheading a series of events set to culminate with the gathering at the AME church.
Promotional material for National Action Network’s MLK Day march on Jan. 20, 2025. (Graphic courtesy of NAN)
In Washington and other metropolitan areas, houses of worship planned prayer breakfasts, commemorative speeches and service projects to mark the King holiday. But some, including the Rev. Bernice A. King, CEO of the King Center in Atlanta and a daughter of the civil rights leader, also recognized the timing of the transition in U.S. presidential power.
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“As we prepare for a new presidential administration, or repeat, in some ways, this King holiday I am calling on all people of goodwill and conscience to do more than commemorate and celebrate King for a day,” she said. “I’m calling us to do more than quote King, which we love to do.”
Citing her father’s 1967 book “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” she urged greater dedication to nonviolence and cooperation.
“I’m calling on people to align with a new coalition of conscience that clings to the nonviolent teachings of my father,” she said, “and devote themselves to work consistently in a collaborative, coordinated and concerted fashion to create the beloved community and change this old world of chaos into a glorious new world.”
One of the King Center’s events will be the annual worship service at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King once was co-pastor and where the Rev. William J. Barber II is set to be the keynote speaker.
The Rev. William J. Barber II speaks during Yale Divinity School’s first Public Theology and Public Policy Conference, April 7, 2024. (Courtesy photo)
In a December interview with RNS, Barber said his homily, which is referred to as a national sermon, will touch on a moment in 2 Kings, a book of the Bible.
“When the four lepers found themselves in a time of oppression and destruction in the Old Testament, they asked this question: ‘Will we just sit here and die?'” he said. “And they decide ‘no,’ and with their leprosy-hurt bodies, they make their way toward the enemy. God uses them, in that moment of nonviolent marching, to change the nation and change the country.”
After the service, which is set to conclude before the inauguration, Barber said he plans to huddle with fellow ministers and others for “deep, prophetic listening — like God said to Ezekiel: Lay down and listen for a few days.”
“On Inauguration Day, you’re no longer listening to a candidate. You’re listening to a president,” he said. “You’re listening to see: Is that president going to be a president for all people, or are they still going to operate in their isolated partisanship?”
He added: “Their inaugural speech is about them laying out their vision. Is it going to be a nightmare, or a dream?”
Some churches traditionally mark King Day at worship services on the Sunday before the Monday holiday, but a pre-inauguration event has prompted at least one congregation to not gather in its sanctuary.
First Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington is three blocks from Capital One Arena, where Trump is expected to speak at a Make America Great Again Victory Rally on Sunday.
The Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss emailed her congregation to say church leaders decided not to meet in their building on Sunday because “we do know that security will be tight, raising issues of accessibility and safety.” Instead, she told RNS that the predominantly white congregation “seeking to live into our antiracism calling” will worship with nearby Peoples Congregational UCC, a historically Black congregation.
“I do not recall an instance in which we opted not to meet in person for reasons other than snow/COVID,” Hendler-Voss, who has served the congregation since 2020, told RNS in an email.
Another church, several blocks farther away from the Trump rally site, has no plans to change its worship patterns but instead intends to offer hospitality to all those coming to Washington: Trump’s supporters arriving for Inauguration Day, as well as people on Saturday attending the People’s March — rebranded from the “Women’s March” of earlier occasions — protesting expected policies of the incoming administration.
“We will be offering access to bathrooms, phone charging, water, etc. to help ensure that participants have a place to rest and refresh as they make their way through the day,” the Rev. Sarah Johnson, senior pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, said via email. “It’s important to us to be a place of radical hospitality for all, and we look forward to welcoming people with warmth and care.”
Barber is also slated to be a part of a separate service Monday evening in Memphis, Tennessee, billed as a “prophetic response to America’s defining moment.”
Other participants include the Rev. Karen Georgia A. Thompson, president of the United Church of Christ; the Rev. Terri Hord Owens, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); the Rev. Sofía Betancourt, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association; the Rev. Moya Harris, an itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Yvette Flunder, senior pastor of the City of Refuge UCC in Oakland, California; and activist Shane Claiborne.
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