Comment: The scene at the MLK Jr. memorial on inauguration day

Reflections on Martin Luther King Jr., Michelle Obama and Trump’s exhausting return.

By Robin Givhan / The Washington Post

The sidewalk leading to the memorial was slick with ice. The nearest parking lot was a long, frigid walk away. Security fencing formed a maze. And far-right Proud Boys roamed the streets of the nation’s capital in celebration of an election they viewed as a win for their cause.

And so it took some maneuvering and determination — both physical and mental — for visitors to reach the statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. with his arms folded in front of him and his gaze cast out over the frozen Tidal Basin.

But there stood Glenda McDonald, bundled up in her parka doing as she has done over the years, paying her respects to King on the holiday that celebrates the civil rights leader’s legacy. It was here, in 2022, that she’d decided to run for mayor of Highland Park, Mich. And she won that November’s election. This year, she returned to Washington and marched for peace — and justice and hope — and then stood in front of King’s monumental likeness and considered the tensions and aspirations that define his legacy in this new MAGA era when Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office for the second time.

“I’m going to continue to march,” McDonald said. “I get weary but we have to keep going.”

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For many Black women like McDonald, these past few years have demanded a great deal of them. They have been walking on the high road, the one that former first lady Michelle Obama mapped out, and sometimes, way up there on the edge of an abyss, it has been hard to breathe.

When Obama declined to attend Trump’s second inauguration, she didn’t explain herself. But no small number of women — Black women in particular — quickly voiced their support for her decision to let her husband represent the couple’s place in America’s democratic relay all alone. It was OK with them that she would not be participating in a tradition that had already been interrupted when the Trumps failed to appear at Biden’s swearing in.

In 2020, social media declared that Black women had saved democracy by coming out to vote for Biden and by rallying others to vote for him as well; and exit polls bore that out. They were out in their communities supporting Kamala Harris in this election, too, with a virtual fundraising drive that spawned myriad others that were also rooted in demographic identity. Fearful of another Trump administration, they were trying to save democracy once again. But enough is enough.

“Kudos to her,” McDonald said, about Obama’s absence.

“It’s time to stop going along to get along,” she said. “It hasn’t gotten us anywhere.”

It can be exhausting to honor tradition, refrain from pettiness and believe in the better angels of others. It takes a lot of energy to sit politely and then applaud someone who campaigned on upending much of what has always been true about this democracy, mused about retribution against his perceived enemies and regularly verbalized the worst assumptions, stereotypes and falsehoods about immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

In the last hours of his presidency, Joe Biden gave preemptive pardons to members of his family, to law enforcement officers who testified before the Jan. 6 Committee, to the members of that congressional committee, to retired Gen. Mark Milley and to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the country through the covid-19 pandemic. Much of Biden’s reasoning was rooted in simply sparing them the exhausting anxiety of living under the cloud of Trump’s threats to prosecute them. And while those pardoned maintained they’d done nothing that actually required such presidential mercy, they nonetheless were grateful for it.

“After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” Milley said in a statement.

That high road can be perilous.

Two miles away from the MLK memorial, inside the Capitol Rotunda, Trump took the presidential oath of office. He had promised to disenfranchise members of the LGBTQ+ community and rescind birthright citizenship. He raised his right hand and declared himself a protector of the U.S. Constitution. Then he talked about manifest destiny and shrugged off the sovereignty of Panama and mentioned his desire to plant the American flag on Mars.

Just as it was in 2017, Trump’s version of America remains a mess, a place teetering on the edge of catastrophe. But this time, he’s not only going to save America, he was going to do it for King.

“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,” Trump said. “We will make his dream come true.”

What does that mean? Did King want a color-blind society, one in which differing histories and experiences are muted or simply denied, or simply one in which one’s color doesn’t define one’s destiny? Trump is keen to do away with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In his speech, Trump declared there were two genders recognized in the United States, which is to say there’s no room for those who don’t fit neatly into the version of masculinity and femininity as defined by Trump: men with jutting jaws, women with Rapunzel locks.

“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 color-blind and merit-based,” he said. “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”

Trump was saying nothing that Velouse Daniel wanted to hear. “I’m not here to witness that,” she said. “It’s a battle of values and morals, and I think you choose which side … you want to be on. This is the side I choose to be on.”

Daniel was in town from Miami visiting a sorority sister and decided to bring her 10-year-old daughter to the MLK memorial to teach her about her history and that of this country. She made this stop before heading to the airport to return home.

Inscribed on the wall that surrounds the towering sculpture of King at his memorial is a quote from 1963: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Trump’s supporters came to the MLK memorial and stood in front of that quote. They took pictures. They stood before his likeness and mimicked his pose. They came because King painted a picture of a country that could be unified. His elegant prose made accomplishing that seem uncomplicated and effortless. Belinda Thomas, a farmer and a member of the city council of Newton, Ala., stood in front of King’s likeness and pointed out that she’s a Republican as well as a Black woman, which makes her a rare bird in Alabama.

“When I grow my collards, I don’t know who’s going to eat my food,” she said. “I do know it’s going to nourish.”

Farming is hard work. But some people have a harder row to hoe than others. And some of them are exhausted. They will continue to sow the fields. But for now, they need a break.

Follow Robin Givan on X @RobinGivhan.

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