One day, Two Men and the Many Ways People Will Honor MLK as Trump is Sworn in

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post
The historic Dunbar High School Choir takes a group selfie at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on Wednesday.

Some will spend the day in silent reflection, meditating.

Others will pass the hours volunteering, feeding the hungry or cleaning up their small piece of the earth.

Houses of worship are planning to hold day-long prayer vigils.

In these quiet ways – and others – people across the Washington region will honor Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday while thousands of others converge on the nation’s capital to celebrate President-elect Trump being sworn in for a second term.

The confluence of these two holidays, Inauguration Day and MLK Day, struck a chord for many across the nation because of the sharp contrast between the two men at its center: a civil rights icon known for espousing ideals of multiculturalism and a firebrand president who used divisiveness for political gain.

As enthusiastic Trump supporters began to stream into the District this week to attend the swearing-in of the 47th president, many Washington area residents – the overwhelming majority of whom voted to elect Vice President Kamala Harris in November – were forced to reconcile how they might spend the day: in protest, reflection or avoidance.

“As a nation, we’ve all become desensitized to the hatefulness and insanity of this man,” said Joseph Izzo, 76, a Capitol Hill resident who planned to volunteer as a safety marshal at this weekend’s People’s March, a protest of Trump and GOP policy priorities, before spending Monday at a day-long meditation retreat.

The last time Trump was inaugurated, massive protests followed. The day after his inaugural parade, hundreds of thousands of women poured into D.C. for the first Women’s March, carrying signs, wearing pink knitted hats and expressing an overwhelming sense of rage and grief. The first Women’s March – an alliance of hundreds of marches nationwide widely considered the largest single-day protest in American history – gave rise to the “resistance” movement and mindset that marked the first Trump term. Thousands more protests followed, and D.C. streets became the front of the anti-Trump movement.

But this year, even those who oppose Trump and have been dismayed by his reelection said they are approaching Monday differently than they did in 2017.

“I am committed to nonviolence and peace, and have been thinking a lot about the values of people like Martin Luther King Jr., President Carter and Gandhi, how they all remained true to their north star, which is the belief in the goodness of people, regardless of the negative impact it had on them,” Izzo said. “Kindness is the best resistance, especially when faced with people whose only values are greed and power.”

Anxiety seemed to course through the region ahead of Monday’s festivities. Many individuals contacted by The Washington Post in recent days to discuss their holiday plans and views declined to speak publicly, citing concerns about potential backlash and fears over political violence. Others said they felt compelled to leave the region – and escape the chaos of the day.

Nancy Kilpatrick, 76, of Arlington, said she has no plans of “going anywhere near D.C.” on Monday; she called the collision of the days “a fickle finger of fate.” Instead, she’ll be cleaning up a little park near her home.

It’s her annual tradition. She picks up trash and then tacks one of her favorite King quotes next to the garbage bin: “If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. … Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post
Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, fill food bags at Food & Friends on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, which would have been King’s 96th birthday, Martin Luther King III – the eldest son of the slain civil rights leader and Coretta Scott King – snapped on a beige baseball cap and a red apron inside the industrial kitchen of D.C. nonprofit Food & Friends before joining a line of volunteers packing medically tailored grocery bags for people with cancer, HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses.

King and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, said they wanted to lead by example in their call for Americans to observe MLK Day as a national day of service and contribute to the family’s five-year goal of creating 100 million hours of service by what would have been King’s 100th birthday in 2029.

“What we see in times of terrible crisis is we see the best of humanity attempting to do what they can to make a difference,” King said in an interview with The Post this past week. “My father has a book, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” And we’ve all seen a lot of chaos over the last eight, 10 years. And the goal now for us is to focus on community and building community. A beloved community. To turn to each other and work with each other.”

Among stacks of canned sliced peaches and six-foot high piles of saltine crackers, the Kings helped fill out an assembly line of regular volunteers who staff round-the-clock shifts at Food & Friends. Some said they’ve been volunteering with the nonprofit for almost a decade. Never did they dream they would be loading up grocery bags with fresh fruits and vegetables alongside the King family, several said.

“I believe to be helped you have to have helped,” said Carolyn Dunlap, 66, a D.C. resident and retiree, who beamed at Arndrea Waters King from across the table as she piled golden delicious apples into plastic bags. “It’s what we all should be doing.”

The last time Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincided with a presidential inauguration was in 2013, after President Barack Obama’s reelection. At his swearing-in that day, Obama placed his hand on a well-worn Bible used by King as he traveled the nation fighting for freedom and equality. Obama stacked King’s Bible on top of the gilded burgundy velvet Bible used by President Abraham Lincoln, which Obama used at his first inauguration.

President Bill Clinton’s 1997 inauguration was the first time a president was sworn in on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The holiday was signed into law in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan.

The official commemorative Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Walk and Parade took place Saturday, the same day as the People’s March, which drew thousands to D.C. to affirm a commitment to civil rights, racial justice, gun violence prevention, expanded support and rights for immigrants, and reproductive health-care access, among the many issues organizers believe will be freshly under attack by the incoming GOP administration.

On Monday, smaller observances will dot the District and surrounding suburbs.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, head of the National Action Network, plans to lead a rally that starts at 11 a.m. at Metropolitan AME Church. The effort aims to demonstrate support for an economic boycott of companies that plan on eliminating their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, known as DEI.

“We are not rallying to protest an inauguration. We are rallying to affirm the dream of Dr. King on Dr. King’s federal holiday,” Sharpton said last week at the organization’s annual Martin Luther King breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in Northwest Washington. “This will be a march of affirmation. We respect the process even if we don’t like the results. But we are not going to let them kill the dream and bring us backwards.”

He and other racial justice advocates will call on consumers to demonstrate their support of companies that prioritize diversity and equity initiatives – and stand against those that do not by withholding their business, he said: “We will be letting corporations know there will be a cost of you crossing your consumers. And nobody in Washington can make us buy where we are not respected.”

Local gospel and jazz artist Robert E. Person will hold a King tribute concert at Blues Alley in Georgetown on Monday evening. The Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum is also hosting a King interactive art celebration. Several other groups, including an animal welfare organization, a homeless advocacy nonprofit and the National Park Service, have organized days of service and King commemorations to mark Monday’s holiday. Youth empowerment nonprofit Hour Generation will hold a paint party at the Peppermill Community Center in Maryland to inspire young people to reflect on the principles of “dream, character and justice.”

Arndrea Waters King said she often likens the act of giving back to the parable of the two wolves, in which a child wonders which wolf inside of him will emerge victorious – the one that is filled with anger and rage at the injustices done to him or the one that is peace-loving and righteous. The lesson of the story is the wolf that will win is the wolf that is fed.

“Justice-loving, peace-loving individuals are being called to do what is right now,” she said. “I think what we need to ask ourselves today is, ‘What are we for?’ Not just, ‘What are we against?’”