With a day off of work, Ossie Williams traveled 20-plus hours from Texas to Washington, D.C. While thousands of Americans gathered at the Capital One Arena for the second inauguration of President Donald Trump Monday morning, Williams stood alone in front of the Stone of Hope at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
“I’m here visiting the MLK monument today because of the actual holiday…and to celebrate just his legacy and his life,” Williams said.
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For the third time in history, Inauguration Day fell on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, bringing thousands of people to the nation’s capital. But King’s memorial was nearly empty around 8:30 a.m., and Williams was one of just a few attendees. While she visited King’s memorial once before, this was her first opportunity to see it on his holiday, she said.
“I hope that people continue to honor his life and his legacy,” she said.
Shortly after Williams showed up, Brett Scott arrived from Virginia with his mother. He placed flowers in front of the memorial with a card that read, “Thank you for dedicating your life for the betterment of all people and discouraging the use of violence.”
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Scott said he visited the memorial “to go and cherish” the works of King, and that it felt “great” to be there.
Originally, the National Action Network (NAN), one of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations, planned to host a march at the memorial. It would kick off their MLK Day Rally, with demonstrators marching from the monument to the historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church for a sermon delivered by NAN Founder and President the Rev. Al Sharpton. Due to low temperatures, the march was canceled, but the rally continued, and with a full house attending.
The service took place around the same time Trump was sworn into office. He later delivered an inaugural address, where he announced he would sign an executive order to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government.
“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based,” Trump said.
Sharpton addressed Trump’s plans in his sermon, announcing an initiative to identify and boycott companies that eliminate DEI policies.
“Why do we have DEI? We have DEI because you denied us diversity, you denied us equity, you denied us inclusion,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton said DEI initiatives were a remedy to institutionalized racism in academic and business settings. “Now, if you want to put us back in the back of the bus, we gonna do the Dr. King-Rosa Parks on you. You must have forgotten who we are. We are the ones that you took everything from, and we are still here.”
In his speech, Trump also said, “Today is Martin Luther King Day. And his honor — this will be a great honor. But in his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true.”
During the NAN rally, Sharpton said, “Trump talking about he wants to build a society of color blind; Dr. King told us to be proud of who we are. Why do we have to be color blind? No. We can acknowledge each other’s color and treat each other equal.”

He later told reporters, “You can’t hope to keep the dream alive then say that you’re gonna end DEI by the end of the week. You can’t say you want to keep the dream alive then pardon people that violently tried to (attack) the Capitol…So he either needs to read Dr. King’s book before he talks about it or read some of his work.”
In addition to Sharpton’s sermon, the rally featured performances from the church’s choir and words from several prominent activists, including:
- Jennifer Jones Austin, board vice chair of NAN
- The Rev. Lawrence Aker, senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church
- The Rev. Cozette Thomas, executive minister of Metropolitan AME Church
- Ebonie Riley, senior vice president of NAN
- Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum
- Tara Murray, executive director of the National Urban League’s Washington Bureau
- The Rev. Marshall Hatch, chair of Chicago’s chapter of the NAN
When Jones Austin took the stage prior to Sharpton’s sermon, she said, “Nearly 57 years ago, on the eve of his assassination, Dr. King stood before a crowd of community members and faith leaders gathered at the Mason Temple in Memphis, like we’re gathered today, speaking about the enduring fight for economic justice for Black Americans and the hostility and violence they’d faced…Dr. King declared, ‘Well I don’t know what happens now, we’ve got some difficult days ahead.’
“On this King Day, this King Day in particular, we are again reminded that we’ve got some difficult days ahead. With Rev. Sharpton and NAN leading the way, not only are we still in the fight for civil and human rights and for economic justice and security, but now we are in the fight to hold on to the great strides that were made by Dr. King and his comrades. Difficult days ahead, and how we should up and respond will make all the difference in this moment and in the years to come.”
After the rally, several attendees hung around the church, taking photos and chatting with one another. Justin Blake, uncle of Jacob Blake – a Black man who was paralyzed in 2020 after a white police officer shot him seven times in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin – stood outside, waving the African American flag.
“We’re out here ‘cause Uncle Al (Sharpton) used to…come all over the country and support us and we came up here to support Rev. Al and to hear what’s the agenda for us,” Blake said. “We know what the orange face agenda is. What’s our agenda; what we gonna do? So we came here today, we heard it amongst thousands, and we got our march in order, now we’re gonna take it home and apply it.”
Blake said he traveled to the district from the Midwest with Leonard Peltier’s family. Peltier is an Indigenous activist who served around 50 years in prison after being convicted of the murder of two FBI agents in 1975; a crime for which he has maintained his innocence. On Monday, President Joe Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence, announcing in a press release it would allow Peltier, who is suffering from health issues, to spend his final days in home confinement.

Charlotte Loonsfoot, who is also Native American, said she can’t wait to welcome Peltier home. While she said attending the rally raised her spirits, she also expressed concerns about Inauguration Day. She worries about what Trump’s second term will mean for the future of her community, as she works to protect reservations from mining operations.
“I’m just worried about (how) he’s the only one who can remove us from our reservations and replace us other places,” she said. “And we’re fighting a huge mine up there right now in Michigan and Minnesota and I don’t know how his stance is on mining, but it’s gonna ruin Lake Superior, and so I’m (a) water protector and I’m up there and I’m gonna put up a good fight.”
Several residents of Washington, D.C., were also in attendance. Alexa Donaphin, who graduated from Howard University, a historically Black university in the District, said she attended the event because she felt “we have to do something” about the state of the new administration.
“We have to be in action,” she said. “I protested in 2017 when Donald Trump was elected and on that I came for the Women’s March. In fact, I marched in New York just this past Saturday (for the People’s March) and I’m down here today.”
She said she believes it is “very important” to take action, and “we can’t be complacent.”
“We can’t give up,” she said. “I grew up in the segregated South. I know what it’s like to drink out of a colored water fountain. And I fought my whole life, it seems like. And I’m still fighting with all this gray hair; still fighting after all these years. And I’m not giving up. And I’m not giving in because to give in is complacency. That’s not what Dr. King would want us to do. And so in honor of him today, I have to be here because I have to be in action. I have to do something that shows solidarity for people everywhere. Not just Black lives matter. All lives matter, human rights matter, women’s rights matter, trans rights, all rights matter. And we have to stand up against injustice. We have to stand up against oppression and oligarchy. And that’s what this is. It’s a huge setback for our nation to have a criminal at the helm and to have oligarchs like (Elon) Musk as walking the dog, and so I can’t be anywhere else today.”
She described the inauguration and MLK Day overlapping as “profound,” as it calls attention to the differing actions and beliefs of the administration and human rights activists, she said.
“I feel like I’m honoring Dr. King by being here and I feel that I’m doing what, had he been here, he would be pushing back, standing up and standing strong because when we do fight, we can win and justice is going to ultimately be served,” she said.
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