In the final hours of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the federal holiday honoring the Civil Rights-era icon whose activism paved the way for the full civil rights of African Americans, the Trump White House issued a proclamation honoring Dr. King’s legacy and indelible contributions to the United States.
“Today, we honor the noble work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose commitment to justice paved the way to the full realization of the American promise,” read the proclamation signed by President Donald Trump and released by the White House Office of Communications on Monday night.
The presidential act came several hours after the NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization, rebuked Trump for initially failing to recognize the King federal holiday through a statement, proclamation, or participation in any activities commemorating the holiday.
“Donald Trump has zero interest in uniting this country or recognizing its history and diversity,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson.
The civil rights leader continued, “Instead, he wants to pit us against each other so that we don’t pay attention to the fact that his net worth has more than doubled while families lose their health care and access to essential services; that private corporations are raking in billions of dollars through ICE’s illegal operations; that tech giants are making trillions on AI while the working class loses their jobs; and that his administration is violating federal law by refusing to release the Epstein Files and to hold pedophiles accountable.”
In his proclamation, Trump acknowledged Dr. King as a pioneer of a movement that would “go on to triumphantly reaffirm our national conviction that every man, woman, and child is endowed by their Creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Recalling King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the president said King “stood on the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to unify millions of voices with his legendary articulation of an immortal truth: The measure of a person is found not in the color of their skin but in the content of their character.”
Trump’s proclamation does not acknowledge that King’s activism was to advance civil rights and voting rights for millions of Black Americans, who were oppressed and disenfranchised by racist Jim Crow laws in the South. In fact, it doesn’t explicitly mention African Americans or Black Americans at all.
Ironically, when Trump returned to the White House a year ago, he invoked Dr. King’s name in his inaugural address, vowing to “make his dream a reality.” However, since then, civil rights leaders and advocates point out that Trump’s administration has only undermined King’s dream of advancing racial and economic justice through its anti-diversity policies and reversals of civil rights enforcement.
Instead, the Trump administration has leaned in heavily into a politics of white grievances, such as promoting the idea that white men have become victims of discrimination as a result of programs and policies intended to close clear racial gaps between Black and white Americans, including wealth and health disparities.
Last week, Trump argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to white people being “very badly treated.”
“It accomplished some very wonderful things, but it also hurt a lot of people — people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job. So it was, it was a reverse discrimination,” Trump said.
Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called out President Trump for his remarks about the Civil Rights Act during a Monday sermon commemorating the King holiday.
“The recent claim by President Trump that the 1964 Civil Rights Act harmed white Americans is just wrong, and it’s dangerous,” King said at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father and grandfather served as pastors until their deaths.
“It rewrites history in a way that fuels fear and resentment. My father and so many leaders of the movement…did not risk their lives to divide this nation.”
She added, “The Civil Rights Act did not give Black people special treatment. It made discrimination illegal. The same discrimination you’re trying to turn around and use.”
